To the death with Dr. Silk!

Far in the future, it’s a race against the clock as two longtime allies – Ninjak and the Eternal Warrior – reteam to prevent Dr. Silk from conquering the secrets of life, death, and everything that lies in-between! But will their united might be enough to stop the lethal combination of Silk’s technical prowess and criminal psychopathy? Meanwhile, in the present, the Deadside cancer consuming Colin King presents more visions of the dark future yet to come… Will his battle across two timelines soon come full circle?

Do you ever read a comic and think and then realize that said comic did absolutely everything right, yet there was something missing? Some spark that wasn’t quite bright enough, or a character that didn’t jive with how you’ve seen them presented elsewhere?

I’ve been harder on Ninjak as a series than anything else Valiant have published over the past year and a half, because when done well it has this … this gumption about it that is tough to explain, but the closest I can come to without being too melodramatic is that there’s a certain magic to most Ninjak issues that propels it to the top of my pull list. When that magic isn’t there, however, it’s very noticeable, and Ninjak #21 – for me at least – is missing that something.

Quite what it is, I can’t quite put my finger on, because there’s nothing this issue does inherently wrong – the writing and artwork are solid – it just doesn’t do enough to make it stand out from the crowd, and for a Valiant comic that’s a shame*. Now before you think  I have nothing nice to say about the issue, there were some thoroughly enjoyable character moments (almost all featuring Ninjak) sprinkled throughout the issue, along with some very well done fight scenes early in the book.

Like I said this was never a bad issue, it just wasn’t as great as I hoped.

*You may have noticed my biggest problem with this comic is that it was merely good and not great. I’m aware that I’m judging the series by a higher standard, but when a publisher puts out as many consistently brilliant comics as this company does, then my expectations are going to be much higher than they are for any other company.

Story: Matt Kindt Art: Khari Evans, Andres Guinaldo and Eric Nguyen
Story:  7.8 Art: 7.75 Overall: 8 Recommendation: Read

Valiant provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review.