UDON Entertainment/Capcom 2019
Written by Ken Siu-Chong
Illustrated by Joe Vriens
Coloured by Josh Perez
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
After his encounter with the demonic Darkstalkers, Akuma chose to remain in the hellish Makai dimension to take his training to terrifying new levels. Alone in a demonic landscape, Akuma battles unearthly creatures, giant monstrosities, and an undead ghost from his past!
Can I just say that I am a huge fan of the Street Fighter franchise as it's being done here at UDON. I know this is a video game, hell I saw it in the Arcade in the 80's and in the bowling alley if I'm not mistaken however, what Ken does with the writing here is so incredibly fantastic to me. He manages to give these characters depth and layers like we would see in anyone we meet. Aside from that we still get a damn good, solid story and the action and fighting that are requisite with this type of book. Everything is here that needs to be here and then some.
This issue was absolutely stunning to me. The story & plot development alongside the character development that we see as they can be one single entity or more as they need to be. The depth of the characterisation here is mindbogglingly good. So when you add in the pacing this story takes on a whole new trajectory. There is not one thing here that is not essential to the story, not entertaining in some way and it is completely revealing and almost stripping Akuma to his basics before building him back up again. This took me by surprise, blew me away and needs to be considered for those Ringo Awards with that writer, best issue, artist, cover artist, letterer you name it!
I hope with all sincerity that those of you reading this will pick this up, make sure your shop orders if they don't have it. This single issue makes me want more. I wanna see what's next with Akuma and after the way this issue ends yeah that's gonna need to happen. As a reviewer I read a ton of books a week and I average about 25 reviews and for me to this excited, enthusiastic and overall just plain blown away should be enough to tell you how good this is. The way characterisation is something we get once in a blue moon as the depths that Ken takes it and how articulately he manages to show us through Akuma's own narration and dialogue leaves a changed man.
So while I am gushing about the writing here we need to talk about how strong the interior artwork here is. From the opening with Lilith and the Lady Morrigan and her servants we see how strong, clean and crisp the linework is. The varying weights that we see which bring out this attention to detail is marvellous and can be either humorous or incredibly frightening. The way we see action sequences and how they show movement as well how we see depth perception through the use of foregrounds and backgrounds is stupendous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show us a masterful eye for storytelling. I can't believe I am about to say this but the lack of backgrounds is fine with me because of the movement, and how the creatures fill the panels. The colour work is serendipitous to the linework. I mean to see all these colours, their hues and tones within them being utilised and how they all manage to create this shading and shadows makes me want to weep with joy.
The opening makes you want to see more, the meat of the story captives, mesmerises and thrills you while the ending leaves anticipating what is next. And what's next is exactly what I want to see. Sigh UDON has a great way of releasing their books to keep us hungry, on our toes and eager to snatch up the next one. So for those of you who aren't reading this or think it's cheesy or the kind of book you wouldn't think to get, it's time to branch out, change your mind and this up. Start buying one book a week from a company like this and see what happens when you experience this level and quality of storytelling.