Advance Review Of Storm Shadow #1

Review by Chris B. chrisb@215ink.com

A man, a ninja, caught between the forces of good and evil and born out of a quest for vengeance. With that need sated, Storm Shadow would become not quite good, but no longer purely evil. With recent events with old friend Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow decided to take some time away from the GI Joes to help the Red Ninjas rebuild themselves. But, on his own, he can,t seem to escape the constant war between COBRA and the Joes.

Storm Shadow finds himself faced with faux ninjas led by a woman named Margarita who holds a girl named Tiff hostage. She demands he comes with them to tell them about something called morning light. Of course, he refuses and the faux ninjas do their thing. Poorly. Storm Shadow's superior skill easily overtakes them all before the Chicago PD arrives.

The next day, the people who hired Margarita and IRIZ, the agency she works for, discuss their failure and utter defeat of Storm Shadow and the obtainment of Morning Light. Meanwhile, Margarita is filled in at her remote location with Tiff about what little they were able to determine about Shadow's identity, based on selected information erased from the PD files by a hacker.

Meanwhile, Shadow uses said hacker to try and gain some information on his attackers, or find the people who have it. As Tiff and Margarita are brought to the mysterious client who orchestrated the whole thing, Shadow beats and cunningly persuades the info out of associated thugs, destined to bring them all together in an explosive way.

Larry Hama, the man who created Storm Shadow, returns to the character to write this book for Devil's Due. However, for a #1 issue there's not much of a beginning to this story. Perhaps regular readers of GI Joe will be able to pick this up and know what's going on, but new readers interested in picking this up will be hopelessly lost. The only thing for them is a brief synopsis of Storm Shadow's bio before the story begins. There are no explanations to how we got where we are in the story, although the premise for the story is explained as the issue moves along. We also get no explanation of who Tiff is, despite knowing she somehow ties into the main plot. Those flaws aside, we do get a pretty good action story that plays up the espionage and martial artist skill Storm Shadow is known for. Some witty dialogue didn't hurt either.

Mark Robinson's artwork manages to emulate the same style used in the other Joe books, helped along by Renato Faccini's colors which add the darker "animated" feel to the pictures. Some of the action scenes, however, failed to convey just what was going on. The rapidness and fluidity of the moves, though implied, fail to come through effectively and look, for the most part, clumsy and clunky.

Despite being a #1 issue, the series is not new reader friendly; at least not at first. If it becomes so along the way, then all the better. But, as it stands, this book is designed specifically for established GI Joe fans. It has some good dialogue and the story really uses the character's strengths to the fullest. The artwork, while signature to the GI Joe series, comes off weakly in some places, particularly heavy action segments. Overall, the character is given its just due and the story reeks of espionage, making it fairly enjoyable. GI Joe fans may like it, and old-school fans from the Marvel days may be pleased to once again pick up another book by the man who made his mark on the series.

For more information visit www.devilsdue.net

3 out of 5 Inks
  

05.29.07