Katana #1 Review

I am going to be honest here; I know pretty much nothing about this character. I understand that she will be in the JLA book coming out, and I thought she looked pretty badass so I decided to pick up this #1 issue of her new series. I was not too sure whether I would purchase any more issues past this one, but now after reading it, I know I am definitely in for at least one more.

One thing that hit me while reading this issue was how much history this woman has. I have not heard of her before as I mentioned, so was kind of expecting a weak back story, but ended up being very pleasantly surprised. She has a background which would liken her to a Japanese Punisher kind of character. If you guys read this blog regularly then you know that this already is right up my street.
What this book does with the backstory is very clever. It gives us bits and pieces and leaves out the rest. It is designed to make you want to pick up more issues to find out more, and for me it has pulled off very successfully.

It is not just the backstory that impressed me in this issue, but also the way it set everything up. I do not know how often some of the characters featured in this particular issue will feature in the future, but their appearances in this book sat with me well. I really hope we will be seeing more of her landlord type character, as well the girl Shun; who has old Japanese legends drawn all over her body. I have a feeling we will definitely be seeing more of the latter.

The overall bad guy in this issue, Coil, seems pretty interesting too. He has a sword that is just crazy as it acts like a snake for some reason. It wraps itself round his opponents and squeezes and cuts them. I don't think I have seen anything like it previously in comic books. This issue has teased what group Coil is part of, but I am sure we will be learning more about that in future issues. You see what it is doing here now? Giving us a bit and making us want to come back for more.

Overall, I really enjoyed this issue, a lot more than I thought I was going to. I originally bought this issue believing that it would be my only one of this series; oh how wrong I was. I hope the next issue does a good a job at answering some questions about certain characters for us, while also throwing new questions at us about them and the future. This could turn out to be a very interesting title. I do not think that it will ever become essential reading, but I think if you want to read a decent story with a very intriguing character, then you should check in right here.

Rating: 7.3 / 10