REVIEW: Tekken: Blood Feud #1

The main story of Tekken: Blood Feud # 1 is the coming together of the various Tekken fighters and the search for Jin Kazama. Kazuya has sent Anna to find his son Jin by going after Ling Xiaoyu and her bodyguard, Panda. Paul and many other popular Tekken fighters make appearances along the way. Jin is eventually found and he asks his group to go after a special artifact, as it could be dangerous in the hands of Heihachi, who has recently taken over the Mishima Zaibatsu conglomerate. The issue ends in an exciting manner directly leading into the second issue.

The plot is thin and we don’t really get solid reasons why the fighters are working together. Each new character seems to just show up and show up at the right place at the right time (think Worf in the Next Gen movies). The story does do a good job of building twoÂ major groups to oppose each other, Kazuya’s and Jin’s, with Heihachi’s story not yet fully revealed. A small word bubble describing a character’s traits appears whenever a new fighter is introduced. Two opening pages are also devoted to catching up new readers (“the story so far”) and character profiles are used to describe these characters to unfamiliar readers. This is a nice touch. With the backstory and character information out-of-the-way in the first few pages, Cavan places the reader right into the action. Despite this, I found myself wanting to know about them in a more organic fashion through storytelling. The book has a lot of fighting action as you would expect from a comic based on a fighting video game.

Andie Tong’s art is very impressive. It is dynamic, detailed and well framed. The characters are drawn to be very expressive and they match the design of the game characters closely. Andie was a good choice for this book. The painted cover with the Mishima family battling each other is awesome, despite being done in a different style than the internal art in the issue. The color and composition really make the cover pop.

I give this issue 3.5 out of 5 stars. The art is great and fans of Tekken will find enjoyment from the issue. It also felt like a throwback to the Malibu Street Fighter comics of the 90s. However, as a casual Tekken fan, I found the issue and overall story above average. While some may like the fast pace, I would have liked more time devoted to building up the characters and for their encounters to have been setup in a more organic fashion.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Written by Cavan Scott
Art by Andie Tong
Published by Titan Comics