The Four Constables, Book 4

The Four Constables/Four Warriors #4

by Tony Wong (Director), Andy Seto, Wen Rui-An

As Emotionless, leader of the four Constables, is held captive by Master Yuan-Shan Lan, Iron Hands and Cold Blooded investigate signs that the head of the Xi family, who holds the powerful Delirium Dagger, has become insane.

Genres: Manga

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Yuk...

Tony Wong Yuk-Long (Wong Jan-Lung), is a Hong Kong based Manhua artist, publisher and actor who wrote and created Little Rascals (later re-titled Oriental Heroes) and Weapons of the Gods. He also wrote adaptations of Louis Cha's (a.k.a. Jin Yong) Wuxia novels such as The Return of the Condor Heroes (retitled as Legendary Couples), Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, and Ode to Gallantry. For his contribution and influencing a generation of artists in the local industry, he is regarded as the "Godfather of Hong Kong comics" or "Hong Kong's King of Comics".
He provided the art for Batman: Hong Kong, which was written by Doug Moench. He has also acted in some films occasionally, including making a cameo appearance in Dragon Tiger Gate (a film adaptation of Oriental Heroes).

Reviews

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Epic Kung-Fu Whodunit continues:

Emotionless and Iron Hands head to the palace of Prince Ximen where Life-Snatcher is being held prisoner. There they are beset by most of the surviving 13 masks: Prince Ximen, Ghost Gate Master & Returning Spirit Sword and Bronze Mask (Emotionless' love, Yan).

Meanwhile Sima breaks free of his magic cell and along with Blood Phoenix and Earth Walker leads an attack on the weakened Master Zhuge, guarded only by a recovering Cold Blood. Which of course has been their plan all along to make Zhuge vulnerable so they can defeat him.

The Wiley Zhuge turns the tables however - Cold Blood was never injured, just faking and has actually joined forces with rival, North City's Baiyu Zhou to help defend the Sifu.

Nothing is resolved at the end of this one - we end mid fight so you will need to have volume 5 on hand!

I have to say that this is easily the weakest of the volumes to date. Compared to the first 3 books, this one feels incredibly rushed and not up to standard. Firstly there are quite a few mistakes in the dialogue that any good editor should have picked up - incorrect tenses, letters missed off the ends of words etc. Then there's the change in art style - Majority is still really good though perhaps lacks some of the precision and beautiful detailed facial expressions of earlier in the series - however there are some chibi comedy bits with Life Snatcher that feel really out of place like maybe there's another artist involved. And lastly there's the very linear, simple plot of this particular volume. This one took me half as long to read as the previous instalments - there aren't many flashbacks, explanations, back stories or plain jumping about. There is some - as characters appear and then its explained how they managed to get there in the nick of time having been fighting someone else when we last saw them... However gone is the really complex series plot and intricate detail of both heroes and villains. In a word this one feels very rushed.

Saying that I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I love this world and the characters and the generally stunning artwork. I just didn't think this one was quite as strong as earlier in the series.