Review: Blood Red Dragon #2

The best thing about having a network of reviewers workingfor the site is that occasionally a book will not catch the eye ofeveryone. That was the case of Blood Red Dragon;thankfully it did catch the interest of Connor as he reviewed the first issue.This piqued my interest in the series and soon enough I was tracking down thefirst two issues to give it a read.

It’s not often that a book with so many creative super starswork together, which is probably why this book is so fascinating. Stan Lee’sinvolvement is enough to get anyone’s attention, but then add Todd Mcfarlane andit’s even more curious. The third element comes to us from Japan from theinternational music sensation Yoshiki, who just did a song for the Golden Globeawards this month. Yoshiki is also the star of the comic which blends the worldof American and Japanese comics with music. If you read the site you’ll knowthat I’m always very interested in comics that deal with music.

This second issue opens with Yoshiki having just beenteleported to a hotel swimming pool under attack by the Oblivion. They’re a groupof baddies from another dimension that are trying to destroy the earth, buttheir reasons remain unknown to us for now. Yoshiki finds himself thrown intobattle having just barely awoken the power of the Dragon. He moves on instinctto defeat the small group of Oblivion warriors until only one remains. He takesthe final soldier and flies off into the sky. There the two go back and forthabout Oblivion’s plans until the Dragon takes full control of Yoshiki’s bodyand delivers his own threat to the soldier. This is all interrupted by a “small”hunting party of Oblivion’s best warriors that have come with a big surprise forYoshiki.

The story and concept are solid and really work well together. The dialog is also pretty good with some room for improvement, but the narration is overkill at times. I get that there is a lotof ground work to lay down for the concept, but a lot of it is covered inconversation. Yet writer Jon Goff floods each page with narrative captions. Thecaptions themselves aren’t bad, but there is just too much going on, on thepage making it difficult to take in the art. If the narrative was toned down Ithink this would have been a pretty damn good comic, but with it the way it is,it’s just good.

The art is fairly decent considering it had a main artistand then an art team to mimic his style for the rest of the book. It has a tonof Japanese art reference and the Oblivion creatures seemed TMNT inspired at times. Still the art works for the story and it’sdecently good, I just wish that it could have done more to drive the story sothat the captions weren’t so dominating.

I’m not going to lie and say that this was the best book Iever read, but it was very entertaining. It’s an interesting experiment in theworld of comics and I’m curious to see how it turns out. The cover price is abit pricey, but when you look at the amount of A-List talent associated withthe book it’s not too much of a surprise. If you missed this book you should still be able topick it up at a local comic shop since it wasn’t available from Imagedigitally. If you’re curious or a fan of Manga then check it out.

Score – 3/5

Writer: Jon Goff

Artist: Carlo Soriano and Crimelab Syndicate

Created by: Stan Lee and Yoshiki

Publisher: Image Comics

Price: $3.99