Flash Back Fridays: SAMURAI HEAVEN & EARTH #1 v.2

            I am going to try this as a way to make sure there is content on the Blog when the days between Ssalefish Comics is few and far between.  So I usher in Flash Back Fridays.  I figure to mine some gems from my old Blog that had to go dark.  So some my seem familiar.  Enjoy!

            SAMURAI HEAVEN & EARTH #1 v.2 is just as good as the starting tale. I worry a bit that new readers might feel a smidge lost as they enter this story. It does set the framework of what happened, but a title like this demands one find those back issues or buy the Trade Paperback that has been released. This is one of those tales that just has so much to offer. It is a feast for the eyes and has a tale of romance and action that rivals any TV Show on air today.

            I happened upon this comicbook by accident. The beauty of that original cover's art caught my eye, but the writer drew me in. Ron Marz is currently making Witchblade and many Top Cow titles be more than just sexily drawn women and violence.  He is really doing some of his best work there and it began here. The sentimental romantic that I am fell in love with the story. A Samurai on a quest to find the woman he loves, no matter the dangers or miles he must face. Just because I mentioned romance, do not balk. Upon returning to find his master’s house conquered and his love captured, Shiro systematically slew every soldier in the compound, alone. From there he traveled following a slave trader to whom the now dead enemy had sold Lady Yoshiko. Shiro ends up in Europe and crosses swords with the famed Musketeers. It is from there that the story continues.
            It just so happens that it is the slave trader that Shiro has tracked down. There is just the matter of the hulking bodyguard standing in the way. Action and romance is here as we are at least given more of both Shiro and Lady Yoshiko. I admit that this is a bit harder to feel the same chemistry of the first volume, but like a TV Show second season, one must make allowances that they are entering a part two of an ongoing tale. Still, this book is better than most the stuff filling the store shelves.

            I just wish to be able to follow the adventure of this Samurai as he fulfills his vow that nothing in heaven or on earth will come between him and his love. That is just a great concept that we seem to lack in the current society today.  But, alas, Marz is so busy at Top Cow I fear it might be a long time coming for volume three.  Both volumes are in Trade currently.

BDS