Ninjak 2-4

International financier Colin King hasn’t just come to Tokyo to take the Rippongi club scene by storm. As the covert MI-6 operative codenamed Ninjak, he’s also tracking down the men who trained him to be a lethal weapon…the very same men whose movements have now aligned with the latest terror plot by the cybernetic crime cartel called WEBNET! But how do you detect killers who specialize in the undetectable? And how does he know that the SHADOW SEVEN haven’t caught up with him first? It’s all-out ninja-versus-ninja warfare as the deadliest men and women of five continents converge on the Tokyo underworld for a blood-spattered blowout!

Writer:
Matt Kindt
Artists:
Clay Mann
Butch Guice
Publisher:
Valiant Entertainment

I said in my review of #1 that Ninjak wasn't really my cup of tea, but that I admired what the creators of the comic were doing. Reading three issues back to back didn't do much to change my mind on that, yet there were enough small little creative flourishes that kept me interested to see where the comic was headed.

Like the first issue, the plot was focused mostly around our hero (who seems to have an odd code of not killing people, despite being a Ninja) working his way into the inner circle of an arms dealer called Kannon and and trying to take over the company from the inside. The back up stories focus on origin stories of Ninjak and Kannon, which were far more enjoyable to me, basing themselves in the hazy worlds of espionage.

Those backup stories in particular were great, pulpy fun with an entirely different art style and a far more grounded approach. If the main story of Ninjak is a action film that crosses the excess of Fast and the Furious with kung-fu and everything is so cartoony you can't care about a bit of it, the backups show us nuanced people affected by their actions and who are haunted by them. With artwork that is muted and conveys a tone of sombre reflection and low key moments, I'm very interested to see how they join the two periods together.

I'll single out #4 for some special action because it takes place in between seconds of the end of #3 and #4, as we learn some of the backstory of Roku who is, according to Valiant's advertising, 'the breakout star of the year'*. Cribbing from the ideas expressed in the second stories, it's a slightly bloated and convoluted story that takes what could have been smart subtext and makes them the text instead.

Whilst Roku herself is clearly a complex character, her backstory (which gives her convenient plot amnesia in return for superpowers) does nothing to add to her and that's even when we know nothing about her already! Sorry, I'm trying my best, but I just don't think the main comic is for me. I would happily read a comic that was composed of the backup issues and stories that span out of that. But unless Ninjak really does something spectacular soon, I'll only be tuning in for those backups.

*All of the advertising for this series is pretty misleading – the blurb I grabbed to preface this issue makes no sense to me and I've read the entire series so far!

Cover image courtesy of Valiant Entertainment.

Ninjak is available from Valiant Entertainment.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.