Silent Dragon

What happens when you mix in Andy Diggle (of The Losers Fame) with Leinil Francis Yu, the Japanese Yakuza, samurai, political backstabbing, broken alliances, all set in the backdrop of Japan in 2063? Simple answer is a little book from Wildstorm’s excellent Signature banner, Silent Dragon.

I’ll start off this review by saying that I’m a MASSIVE Yu fan. I remember when he first burst onto the comic book scene years ago and was drawing Wolverine at the time. He was hailed the next Whilice Portacio (they’re both from the Philippines). At the time he still really hadn’t reached his pinacle in my humble opinion. He lacked a little bit of clarity in his lines and his style had not been completely defined as far as I was concerned. It was a little messy for my liking. Over the years however he has most definitely evolved into one of the top artists working in the industry at what he does. So what exactly is it that he does so well? He creates plausible worlds. The attention to detail in his artwork is second only to Whilice Portacio. His designs are some of the most original and meticlous that I have ever seen. What’s really impressive however is the fact that the man is able to carry that level of imagination onto each and every one of his projects (all of which generally have nothing to do with the other, at least from a visual perspective).

This is Yu’s second attempt at a creator owned series from Wildstorm. Neither have really been knock out success stories, otherwise they would have continued the series past the initial mini. The Wildstorm Signature series has one champion at the moment (Ex Machina), which is a shame as I would have loved to continue to see the stories that could compliment this story. It’s also a crying shame, because rather than Yu pouring out his heart into these designs he’s back working for the man at Marvel to churn out Hulk vs Wolverine crossover rubbish (it might not actually be rubbish as I’ve not read it to be honest, however for me it’s a waste of some awesome talent).

So now that I’ve talked up the artwork enough, what do I think about the story? It should come as no real surprise that I’ve got a thing for Japanese culture, and it’s very apparent that Andy Diggle has got the same affection. Diggle has created a world that is a fusion of the best parts of ancient Japan and modern Japan. Samurai are massive robots instead of foot soldiers, temples that sit atop sky scrappers and the list goes. The story follows Renjiro, who is the cheif advisor to Japan’s greatest Yakuza warlord. Unfortunately for Renjiro, he’s fallen for the boss’s wife and the feelings are more than mutual. So much so that Lady Takara decides she can’t take it any longer and plots the assassination of her husband, Hideaki. The problem of course is that Hideaki finds out about his assasination attempt and accuses Renjiro of this act, for which he excepts his advisor to do the honourable thing and kill himself. You’d think that the story could end here, however the military (whom have taken over the government) have other plans for Renjiro and the plot begins with them bringing him back from the dead. The story spirals into a battle for the future of Japan as the government and the Yakuza are about to clash for ultimate power, with Renjiro stuck squarely in the middle of all of this. My only real gripe is the exceptionally annoying character whom he’s introduced as Renjiro’s sidekick Suki. Easily one of the most annoying characters in recent years. I found her to be extremely one dimensional.

As always I’m not going to ruin the ending, but needless to say it’s got a great chilling ending (otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning it right now); the great thing about it all is that I didn’t see it creeping up on me, because right until the end of the story I wasn’t sure where Diggle was actually going with this story. Silent Dragon is a great piece of fiction, however make no mistake the real star of this show is the artwork and the character designs. They’re more imaginative than 98% of graphic novels out there and is worth the price of admission on it’s own to be honest. Anything by Yu is golden as far as I’m concerned.