6/6/13 Katana #1-2 Review

To begin with I was SUPER excited to hear Katana had gotten her own series. I knew her back story was a classic and it honestly deserved a closer look it today's new 52. The premise alone is really cool, martial arts and revenge, how can you go wrong?! I guessed it was going to be another really popular series AND a super cool read!

(Great background Spoiler Here) http://www.comicvine.com/katana/4005-9547/

So I just finished reading numbers 1 and 2, sadly I am not blown away. The writing was good but maybe I am disappointed because it wasn't what I was expecting. Ann Nocenti is a talented writer but it was sort of hard to decipher the captions used in the series, which does distract from the story. The more time you spend going "wait wha?" the less time you spend enjoying the story.

On a lighter note, the art was pretty cool. Where it wasn't the common new 52 art style that we are all use to seeing, the more I read the more I started to like it. It was very sketchy and had a lot of Asian influence which DUH worked with the story! However my professors always taught me, 'If the best part of a story is the art then....well enough said.'. I would like to continue with this series because I am a huge Katana fan. Also this is just the beginning so the potential is still there.

@toastme69: The writing was good

No, it wasnt and believe me issues 3-4 just get worse.

@arnoldoaad: please elaborate, what bothered you about it?

@toastme69: Being Fair, issue 1 wasnt that bad

but starting issue 2 it starts to slowly fall apart and it gets worse and worse and worse.

let touch on the positive side first.

Nocenti has a lot of ideas on this book, A LOT, and most of them are fun and interesting.

the problem is that they are badly executed for the most part and on other cases they just get no attention at all.

for example the tattoated woman, is this woman with a lot of tattoos on herself and katana sees them and gets some prediction or something

That is interesting and good, I want to know more about this, except we dont, when she appears again we spend a huge chunk like 3-4 pages but we learn nothing of her as a character or her history, it is repetitive and pointless.

then is the voice of Katana as a character, on JLA she is portray as this master assassin who can rival Deathstroke, and in her book she gets her ass handled to her, again and again, the only issue in which she kinda looked badass was in the first one.Finally the pacing
.I just cant remember a book with worse pacing than this and is 100% Nocenti's fault because i have seen the same crap on Catwoman

For example on issue 3 there is this scene in which Katana is going undercover to investigate the dagger clan, she remarks on how important it is for her to remain invisible in plain sight and the scene actually plays pretty good UNTIL THE END

in the end she grabs something big and heavy( I think it was a bowling ball because i think this was in a bowling alley) and she throws it at the FACE of the guy who she was tailing

END OF THE SCENE, then we move to a different place and a different time

IGN gave this issue a 2 out 10 called it painful, CBR gave it 2 out 5 stars

and sadly the art keeps on getting more sloppy as we move on too

Sorry my response has taken sooooo long. I got super busy.

ANYWHO, I do believe my earlier review was maybe a little too... "nice" for lack of a better word. Since my last response I got to read more or Katana and I think IGN calling it painful is completely accurate. I guess I gave the first two issues a soft review because of just how much I loved Katana's character. I wanted her New 52 issues to be just as good as say the Detective Comics or Suicide Squad. Also heard Animal Man and Earth 2 was good but now I am getting side tracked.

In the end I am super disappointed in the direction the Katana series has gone. Your right about the art work too, I gave it an honest try. I tried really hard to like it but it is just not doing it for me. At least it isn't as bad as the graphic novel Higher Earth v1 that I took the risk of reading. I smacked myself in the forehead with it!