The hunt is well and truly on.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Kindt
Art: Stephen Segovia, Ryan Lee
Colors: Ulisses Arreola
Letters: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
At the mercy of Sandria Darque! As Master Darque fights to return to the land of the living, his former disciple – the deadly assassin Roku – will build an army to put him down for good. But not even the Shadow Seven – the underworld’s deadliest cabal of murderers and mercenaries – will be enough to assure victory. To truly defeat an undead lord of death and resurrection, she’ll need the complete and unquestioning allegiance of Ninjak…who isn’t interested. But when Darque’s long-missing sister Sandria returns with a gambit that could reveal his greatest weakness, an unholy alliance of light and darkness will be forged that could upset the balance of good and evil once and for all time?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Seven Blades arc got underway in a really solid way the last time around as we had Roku bringing together the group that she needs to pull off the mission that she’s taking on. While Colin was minimal overall in the last installment until they got to him at the end to make clear that they need him for it, the bulk of it was a fun “villains assemble” piece that paints Roku is being pretty much capable of anything. I kind of expect that with the world that Ninjak runs in because they’ve baked it into the property since early on, even if it does kind of diminish an interesting character in a way. With this issue, Roku’s a little more backseat as the focus is on Colin and the bigger play being made here in a rather creative way.
Having everyone going after Colin is no surprise since he’s going to react poorly to the idea in general as he’s more about taking them down, but after some really well choreographed pages of fighting with him against the rest, Roku makes him an offer he can’t refuse to join up, at least for now, with her redemption being a willing thing after all is said and done. It’s comical to see this group working together and Colin’s coming across as being in a surreal world because of it but it’s been well established that he’ll do most anything to try and get Roku back to Angelina. And there’s also that subtext that because he really was trained like the rest that he needs to follow this through to see if there is a bigger plan that was put into motion that he’s involved in but not truly aware of.
Having noted before that Ninjak is the only ongoing series I’m reading from Valiant, I’m very out of the loop. So when it’s revealed that the mission they’re being brought into is being run by Sandria, sister to Master Darque, and that her centuries old plan is for them to kill him, well, it’s a bit above my level in a sense. But Kindt presents it in an accessible way for a “new” reader like me and has me wanting to see more. Sandria’s putting Colin through the test to give him the magic he needs in his sword to kill her brother and it’s really neat with the witches tapestry and the history of it all. But what’s neat, even if it feels like padding, is that we get Ryan Lee stepping in to illustrate Colin’s overall history in order to determine if he’s pure enough to handle the magic. It’s done as a series of four-panel comics in notebook form that’s such a difference (obviously) from the rest of the book that it elevates Segovia’s already strong visual design when we see Colin realize it. It’s an intriguing sequence and a great way to catch up on the basics in comical form without the actual script and dialogue being comical.
In Summary:
Ninjak’s doing some interesting work here even if I’m not fully on board with it just yet. I liked the setup in the previous issue while also being frustrated with it and I like what we get here with its own frustrations, mostly just in how fast a lot of this is moving and the lack of real weight given to aspects of it. I’m definitely intrigued by Sandria and what she represents but not enough to try and figure out the rest of the sprawling Valiant universe to figure it out. The storyline is definitely coming together well and I like the potential of it all with the mission that’s now revealed and Colin’s place in it, which has two potential positives at the end of it for him to hope for with both Roku and Darque.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: February 8th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99