What do you think?
Rate this book
Fight for Tomorrow
Collecting the miniseries by Brian Wood (DMZ) and artist Denys Cowan telling tale of a young Buddhist monk turned kung fu street brawler. Kidnapped as a boy, Cedric Zhang - raised to fight in competitions - formed a bond with Christy, a young nurse. When she disappears with no explanation, Cedric immerses himself in the violent NYC underworld in an effort to locate her, finding himself back in the s horrible world he spent his life trying to escape.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2008
2 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Brian Wood
1,174 books961 followersBrian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 29, 2018
Snugly nestled in between Channel Zero and DMZ, Brian Wood wrote a Kung-Fu inspired story entitled: Fight For Tomorrow. Featuring more roundhouse kicks than your loco dojo, enough betrayal and the vengeance it entails to last a lifetime, and more side scrolling action than Double Dragon (with a highly similar cover), Brian's Wood's 2002 offering would definitely make David Carradine proud.
That is is he wasn't dead already.
With more than enough string to auto-asphyxiate yourself, oodles of threads bind themselves into a complex rope of narrative. What starts as a single twine quickly grows in tortuous cable that entwines love, betrayal, vengeance, and innumerable martial-arts tropes of all sorts. Ka-Pow!
Initially on a road of mystery as much as betrayal, the protagonist swiftly finds himself drawn into a swirling maelstrom of Fight Club, child-trafficking, and good ol' gangsterism. He'll need to depend on his newly found allies to bring down the evil kingpin as much as to save his damsel in distress.
Perhaps if Cedric had fought a little harder the comic might have lasted fewer episodes. Perhaps if David Carradine had fought harder he might still be alive. For me? Well I'll just settle for fighting for today.
One Run Run Shaw approved thumb up.
That is is he wasn't dead already.
With more than enough string to auto-asphyxiate yourself, oodles of threads bind themselves into a complex rope of narrative. What starts as a single twine quickly grows in tortuous cable that entwines love, betrayal, vengeance, and innumerable martial-arts tropes of all sorts. Ka-Pow!
Initially on a road of mystery as much as betrayal, the protagonist swiftly finds himself drawn into a swirling maelstrom of Fight Club, child-trafficking, and good ol' gangsterism. He'll need to depend on his newly found allies to bring down the evil kingpin as much as to save his damsel in distress.
Perhaps if Cedric had fought a little harder the comic might have lasted fewer episodes. Perhaps if David Carradine had fought harder he might still be alive. For me? Well I'll just settle for fighting for today.
One Run Run Shaw approved thumb up.
Read
February 26, 2013I've admired a lot of Brian Wood's work, especially his sense of urban existence. There is, at the same time, a romantic thread through it that can be cloying, a celebration of gritty life that can only really have been conceived of in retrospect, after the cities have been cleaned up, after Taxi Driver and Serpico and so many models for the kind of city Wood excels in portraying are, in fact, the distant past.
In any case, up until the end of Fight for Tomorrow, I found this to be an enjoyable, violent, and enjoyably violent portrayal of semi-organized street fighting, and how violence once introduced as a means to an end ends up seeping into everything around it. The art, by Kent Williams, is strong, figurative yet with a graffiti sensibility, true to the subject milieu. I found myself pausing during the many fights, which take place as a series of still images, like slides ripped randomly from a Muybridge sequence, to map the event through in my head.
Anyhow, Fight for Tomorrow tells the story of a young fighter trying to sort out what came of his girlfriend, with whom he had been exploited since childhood.
* Yeah, spoiler ahead. *
While I appreciate the surprise at the end, that his ex left him for his own good, I don't get why she couldn't have just told him to begin with. The entire book ends up being a very complicated way for her to tell him something she could have quite easily before any of this got underway. I think, generally speaking, a good mystery requires someone to piece something together, not simply to find a single fact.
In any case, up until the end of Fight for Tomorrow, I found this to be an enjoyable, violent, and enjoyably violent portrayal of semi-organized street fighting, and how violence once introduced as a means to an end ends up seeping into everything around it. The art, by Kent Williams, is strong, figurative yet with a graffiti sensibility, true to the subject milieu. I found myself pausing during the many fights, which take place as a series of still images, like slides ripped randomly from a Muybridge sequence, to map the event through in my head.
Anyhow, Fight for Tomorrow tells the story of a young fighter trying to sort out what came of his girlfriend, with whom he had been exploited since childhood.
* Yeah, spoiler ahead. *
While I appreciate the surprise at the end, that his ex left him for his own good, I don't get why she couldn't have just told him to begin with. The entire book ends up being a very complicated way for her to tell him something she could have quite easily before any of this got underway. I think, generally speaking, a good mystery requires someone to piece something together, not simply to find a single fact.
September 14, 2025
A okay story but some really cool martial arts moments, brutal and gritty fighting, and some really fun moments. Overall not a bad early 2000's vertigo style story.
July 7, 2008
Cedric's an always-bandaged, usually bleeding fighter pining for Christy, with whom he shares a ton of history. Over the course of these six issues, we learn how Ced became a fighter (it isn't pretty), his past with Christy (also not pretty), and where the supply of young fighters in Chinatown comes from (guess if it's pretty).
This story was first published back in 2002, and just got collected in 2008, probably because Brian Wood's been doing great work in other books like Local, DMZ, and Northlanders. This book isn't quite as stunning as those books. (DC made a similar publishing move when they put out Brian K. Vaughan's Batman: False Faces.) Like always, Wood excels at creating a small, lifelike setting: here it's New York's Chinatown's small Asian restaurants, fight clubs, and Buddhist temples. The fight clubs aren't nearly as liberating as those in Fight Club--they're more like slavery. It feels like a bit of a "pet issue" (especially when way more kids are forced into child armies than child fighting rings), but Wood handles it well.
Denys Cowan's art has the requisite grit that makes Wood's writing sing, but it gets a bit too confusing at times. Ced doesn't have too many distinguishing features so it's hard to figure out who he is.
This story was first published back in 2002, and just got collected in 2008, probably because Brian Wood's been doing great work in other books like Local, DMZ, and Northlanders. This book isn't quite as stunning as those books. (DC made a similar publishing move when they put out Brian K. Vaughan's Batman: False Faces.) Like always, Wood excels at creating a small, lifelike setting: here it's New York's Chinatown's small Asian restaurants, fight clubs, and Buddhist temples. The fight clubs aren't nearly as liberating as those in Fight Club--they're more like slavery. It feels like a bit of a "pet issue" (especially when way more kids are forced into child armies than child fighting rings), but Wood handles it well.
Denys Cowan's art has the requisite grit that makes Wood's writing sing, but it gets a bit too confusing at times. Ced doesn't have too many distinguishing features so it's hard to figure out who he is.
January 17, 2020
Kinda boring at first, gets more exsiteing and then it finishes with a BANG! I wouldent reread this, but I would re-look at all the pictures cause they are all so stunning! So good art style, decent storyline.
February 27, 2024
Not a single creative line in the entire story.
January 1, 2017
Horrific and interesting without being exploitative, a good line to straddle for a story about fighting rings and kids being trapped in a life where they're forced to fork over their autonomy to some gross adults.
There are not enough comics under my belt where color and lack-of-dialogue tell the reader so much about characters, setting, story and all that good stuff. I could sing praises about this for that reason alone. Well done on writing about PTSD and assorted issues too, imo.
There are not enough comics under my belt where color and lack-of-dialogue tell the reader so much about characters, setting, story and all that good stuff. I could sing praises about this for that reason alone. Well done on writing about PTSD and assorted issues too, imo.
August 6, 2008
A man, kidnapped as a boy and made to fight other children for sport, escapes with his girlfriend and tries to start anew. Then his girlfriend disappears. His quest to find her and to overcome the shadow of his past makes for a good story. The characterization is a bit simplistic at times but Fight For Tomorrow is interesting and passionately told. I wasn’t wild about the art but it doesn’t distract from the story.
February 23, 2010
A pretty by-the-numbers story of martial arts and revenge, with some interesting investigations into the trauma caused by child slavery. Ultimately I'm not sure the story was worth it (and it only took me a half hour to read the entire 6-issue series), but Brian Wood's writing and mastery of the comic form is undeniably compelling, even with the most uninspired plots.
July 9, 2021
I picked it up because I enjoy reading Brian Woods' works. I'm not sure it was something I would've enjoyed in general but I gave it a shot. It was ok and I don't regret reading it but it's not a reread either. I wasn't one of the Karate Kid kids or Rocky fans. I'm barely an Immortal Fist kinda gal.
April 27, 2011
I am right between 3 and 4 stars for this one. Parts of it were too dismal for me but the author addresses the issue directly on one of three very strong pages/sections. There is an intriguing ending as well.
February 5, 2015
Read DMZ in its entirety and loved every second of it. Found this on sale for $3 and thought I was getting a steal. Ended up forcing myself through it out of a sense of obligation. As a fan of comics, Brian Wood, and Kung fu, came away incredibly disappointed.
May 27, 2010
comics,crime,drama
June 10, 2010
The covers, however, were really nice to look at.
August 16, 2010
The art was nice. The story was a bit melodramatic and ended rather abruptly (and maybe even unlikely), though I guess that's common to the genre (?).
January 9, 2012
Nope, definitely not for me.
March 21, 2012
Okay, this is the first Brian Wood graphic novel I didn't like.
September 6, 2012
Relatively mindless, but good action book ... could be made into a b-grade movie super easy.
December 8, 2012
OK read, but nothing too special here. Art was nice, spontaneous.
January 16, 2013
via NYPL - usually like Brian Wood's stuff, but this was a cliche-ridden kung-fu flick with nothing special going for it.
June 23, 2013
Inconsistent art, muddy coloring & formulaic story. Wanted this to be better.
November 12, 2014
I thought it was good. Brian Wood has always been if-y for me in the past, but, I'm beginning to like him better.
October 3, 2016
Surprisingly lame.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews