Review: Sword Master #2

STORY

Sword Master is the second book in a wave of Marvel manga I’ve reviewed. This time our hero, as explained by the Last Issue blurb, is Lin Lie, a young man whose father disappeared while on an archeological dig, shortly after sending Lin an ancient sword. This issue continues the origin story of the Sword Master, which is all apparently in the past going by the back up story in the book which is presumably occurring weeks or months later than the events in this comic.

Now the thing that occurs to me right off the bat with this origin is that, unlike many of Marvel’s new or reformatted characters of the last few years, is that Lin isn’t immediately a super awesome wunderkind. He’s not instantly, boringly powerful and perfect right out of the gate and frankly thats a nice call back to classic Marvel as well as being a staple of most manga. So many of the current crop of Marvel characters being pushed by the company, regardless of the sales of these books, are annoyigly awesome in the way that can make Superman difficult to enjoy at times. If you’re character is too perfect it becomes hard to either identify with them or feel like they are in any sort of danger. Thankfully that is not the case here. This book has some real stakes as Lin awakens the power of the Sword Master he has no real understanding of it or of how it works. He spends the entire issue just struggling to survive.

This is a thread picked up by Greg Pak, who writes the back up story, who wisely shows that even though the Sword Master has some wins under his belt by this time he still has a great deal to learn. The back up is a nice continuation of the evolution of the character even as we get to know him better in the main story. Though it is odd to be reading about someone’s past and future adventures in the same book.

This comic moves at a pretty good pace, this one is mostly action but still moves the overall story forward in terms of plot and character arc as well as the introduction of new characters and plot elements. Lin actually comes across much better character wise in the main story than in the backup. I rather like how he is shown to be resourceful and intelligent but in the backup he is a bit more of the standard for new Marvel characters as he is brash, bratty and overconfident. Thankfully at least Pak is showing that Lin is not a great as he thinks he is.

ART

Gunji’s art is quite good, very energetic stuff. This issue really shows off his flair for action scenes and it seems like he is having a great time drawing this issue. There is an unfortunate overuse of motion blur on the art which ruins one of the things I love best about manga, the gorgeous line art to express speed and power. The color is also rather bland and muted for me in the main story. The palette is rather dull and uninspiring. Its just above being middy which is a real shame because I line art. While the majority of said line art, page layout and flow is very good there are a couple of minor sections where the story telling falters a bit with some some art that could have been made a bit clearer or more concise.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A pretty good story so far and worth checking out but the colors of the book are my biggest gripe. Its all a bit faded to my eye which is in danger of blending. 3 out of 5!

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

SWORD MASTER #2
Writer:Â Shuizhu
Art:Â Gunji
Adaptation: Greg Pak