Fu Jitsu takes readers to a personalized destination
Creative Staff:
Story: Jai Nitz
Art: Wesley St. Claire
Letterer: Ryane Hill
What They Say:
Fu Jitsu is the world’s smartest boy, and has been for the last hundred years. Wait, what? Fu is an un-aging genius, and has had adventures around the globe and around the galaxy. From Einstein and the Wright brothers, to Gandhi and Johnny Unitas, Fu has met everyone in history while protecting Earth from Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man, and his dangerous magi-science.
Fu exiles himself to Antarctica to try to forget the painful break up with his ex-girlfriend, Rachel. Meanwhile, Wadlow returns from the far-flung future and sends James Dean, his ultimate assassin, to kill Fu at the South Pole. And you thought your teenage years were tough?
From Jai Nitz, the award-winning writer of El Diablo, Suicide Squad Most Wanted and Dream Thief, comes this action-packed new series with art from Teen Titans Annual artist Wes St. Claire!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
When reading Fu Jitsu, I had to consider the publisher’s description before to understand the set-up. Fu is a cool-headed kid who seems to have a history that he has tried to escape and a future he tries to prepare for. The history and the future are only hinted at in the first issue of this fun comic. Fu is like a prodigy, completely confident in his abilities which seem rooted in martial arts and eastern transcendental meditation. Not much else is explained, and this opens the story for a much broader reading than had this been a typical origin story.
This comic has a strong postmodern structure. Characters and references matter more than the narrative, but Jai Nitz makes it work well, establishing a world that a variety of readers will be able to engage. References to historical figures like James Dean and John F. Kennedy add meaning to the characters and story while not stopping the flow. The writer won over this reviewer by having Fu chow down on a Double Whataburger while trying to regain his strength. Not everyone has eaten at that fast food establishment, but as someone who has happily taken in more than the recommended intake of trans fat from their stacked sandwiches, it builds Fu’s personality in a way that makes the character a somewhat flawed, and hungry, person. It makes the character realistic in personality even though he seems to be unaffected by age and superpowered beyond the 1970s’ prototypical martial artist Fu is based on.
Wesley St. Claire’s cover drew me to this title. It had the vibe of the surreal covers of the pre-code era when artists had the ability to draw on dream imagery to situate the hero, and often heroine, in jeopardy, to illustrate the usually mundane threat of the baddies. Of course, Greg Smallwood’s alternate cover riffs on the Whataburger theme, and as that was my monthly cheat meal when I regularly worked out, I respond positively to Fu lifting weights while sipping on some sugary goodness.
Artwork ebbs and flows between a modern realism and a cartoony emotional simplified character. Light and shading tends to be the primary visual shorthand used to demonstrate character personas for the side characters. And shifts in the color palate not only create the tone of scenes, they also shift between the perceptions of characters. Overall, the juxtapositions between frames create a flow of perception that carries the reader through the story as it moves between characters and ideas.
These references make the comic fun. It offers readers a personalized story that resonates on whatever history, entertainment, science, or allusions the reader responds to. After thinking it over, I could have had a very different reading experience had other aspects resonated with me. While this approach might not work for everyone, it makes this series a must buy for me, and it creates opportunities for readers with vastly different backgrounds to be drawn to the approach.
In Summary:
The open concept makes the book much harder to review because it plays on familiar tropes, yet it never attempts to fit into a cliched story. At every turn, a traditional story element gets overturned by an allusion to something from culture that will resonate with different readers. As such, the parts that resonate will be personalized in a manner that works for an individual but may be missed by other readers. This makes the issue fresh, and for some readers, it will be a nuanced experience that draws from their own lived experiences while creating a fantastic, superhero story.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: AfterShock
Release Date: September 27th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
