Swords of Sorrow continues with Masquerade and Kato fighting..THE BLACK BEAUTY?

Swords of Sorrow: Masquerade & Kato

Written by: G. Willow Wilson and Erica Schultz
Art by: Noah Salonga
Cover by: Billy Tan
Colored by: Dinei Ribiero
Lettered by: Erica Schultz

Published by: Dynamite
Cover Price: $3.99

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

A few weeks ago, I was saying that in order to get more real diversity in comics, you need to have much more diversity among creators. Swords of Sorrow has been a great crossover so far, and I think it’s damn cool that all the books have been written by women. And it’s been a murderer’s row of creators! Gail Simone, Mairghread Scott, Nancy A. Collins, and now G. Willow Wilson. They may not all be household names, but all are terrific comic writers.  If you don't know their work you are missing out on some terrific comics. Especially Collins and Wilson, who are doing Vampirella and Ms Marvel, two of my favorite comics.

In this issue, Masquerade fights and then later teams up with the Green Hornet’s partner Kato. One of The Prince’s generals (Purgatori) has taken control over the Black Beauty, and the two heroes have to work together to keep the car from causing some serious damage. I think years of comic reading has made me real jaded. It was hard for me to take seriously the threat of one out-of-control car. Even two street level heroes should have no problems stopping a car, so I never felt the stakes were all that high in this comic.

I also thought that the issue could have done a better job explaining who the characters are a little better. Kato did get a quick two page spread, but it didn’t tell the reader much. It made it a little odd when Masquerade said “You only pretend to be a criminal.” I know Green Hornet and Kato (the original) well enough to get what Masquerade was talking about, but too much of this issue just presumes the reader has enough background about both women to just jump right in. Masquerade (who is probably the more obscure of the two characters) didn’t even get that much. Just a quick throwaway line about being stuck in Pandora’s Box for 70 years.  I have read comics for 25 years and have no clue who this character is. 

The more I think about it, the real problem at the heart of this book is that a one-shot just wasn’t enough to tell this story. It made everything feel a little rushed and incomplete. This probably didn’t need a full mini-series, but it could have been two issues. I think Convergence showed the value of having two issues to tell a story as opposed to a one-shot.  This would have given a lot more time to get to know the characters, and lay out the real threat Purgatori represented to them. 

I hate to sound like I was real down on this comic. On a whole, I really enjoyed it. This was a real fun comic, and I definitely hope to see more of this team throughout Swords of Sorrows. They just seemed like a real good fit, but they definitely could have had a little more time to explore what made them tick. But, G. Willow Wilson writes my favorite comic (Ms. Marvel), and A-Force (which she co-wrote) was one of my favorite Secret Wars tie-ins. Plus, I have absolutely loved Swords of Sorrows so far. There is nothing particularly bad about this comic, I just found it didn’t quite reach my admittingly lofty expectations.

Noah Salonga’s art on this book was solid, with the two page spread explaining Kato being a real stand out. I’ve said this before, but I’ve never seen a Dynamite comic where the art was anything less than brilliant. I give them a lot of credit for that, because I definitely can’t say that is true of any of the “bigger” comic companies. It’s clear that Dynamite works hard to put out top tier comics, even on what could have been looked at as a throwaway one-shot.

I definitely had my issues with this comic, but it still was very entertaining. If you’re following Swords of Sorrow, you should probably pick it up, but keep your expectations at a reasonable level. If you aren’t picking up Swords of Sorrows, you are missing my favorite event of the summer!