New Mangaverse: The Rings of Fate #1 (of 5)

Writer: C.B. Cebulski
Penciler: Tommy Ohtsuka
Colors: Guru EFX
Letters: Randy Gentile


Things are looking grim for the heroes of Marvel’s Mangaverse. A horde of mysterious ninjas are tracking them down and killing them one by one. Thanks to some help from the Black Cat, Spiderman and Mary Jane (decked out in Spidergirl gear) manage to escape an assault by the deadly ninjas. The Black Cat leads them to Stark Island where they find that someone is setting up a resistance.

I’ll be honest, I was never really down with the original Marvel Mangaverse comics. While I enjoyed Ben Dunn’s art on the series I just didn’t get into what I perceived as a poor imitation of real manga. American “manga” simply doesn’t appeal to me.

With that in mind I am almost completely lost reading this New Mangaverse book (oh, look, another “New” Marvel comic!) I haven’t read much of the Mangaverse stuff beyond the original series and obviously a whole lot has happened since then. I mean, I read enough comics to know how to fill in the blanks when I don’t know the back-story, but it still felt like I was dropped in the middle of nowhere without a map to guide me. Coupled with my lack of interest in the Mangaverse I ended up being pretty bored by the book.

That’s not to say it’s a bad book. It’s just not my cup of tea. Fans of the original Mangaverse will surely enjoy this book, which seems pretty important in regards to that world. And Tommy Ohtsuka’s artwork is really impressive.
 

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.

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