Samurai: Heaven And Earth

Samurai: Heaven and Earth #1

by Ron Marz, Luke Ross, Jason Keith (Artist)

How far will a man travel for love? What battles will he fight? Will he cross heaven and earth to be by the side of the woman he loves?

Beginning in feudal Japan of 1704, Samurai: Heaven & Earth follows Shiro, a lone samurai warrior sworn to be reunited with the love of his life who has been spirited away by his enemies. His pursuit of Yoshiko will carry him farther than he could have imagined — from his native Japan to the sprawling empire of China, across Europe, and finally to Paris itself. There, in the fabled halls of King Louis XIV's Versailles, he must cross blades with the greatest swordsmen ever known if he is to reclaim his love.

Ron Marz and artist Luke Ross, fresh off their triumphant finale on Green Lantern, have turned their skills to a historical epic in the tradition of Lone Wolf and Cub and Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers. Joined by Eisner-nominated colorist Jason Keith, they have produced a lushly illustrated tale of devotion and high adventure.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Romance, Bande Dessinée, Adventure, Japan, Historical Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2006

About the author

Marz is well known for his work on Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, as well as the Marvel vs DC crossover and Batman/Aliens. He also worked on the CrossGen Comics series Scion, Mystic, Sojourn, and The Path. At Dark Horse Comics he created Samurai: Heaven and Earth and various Star Wars comics. He has also done work for Devil’s Due Publishing’s Aftermath line, namely Blade of Kumori. In 1995, he had a brief run on XO-Manowar, for Valiant Comics.

Marz’s more recent works includes a number of Top Cow books including Witchblade and a Cyberforce relaunch. For DC Comics, he has written Ion, a 12 part comic book miniseries that followed the Kyle Rayner character after the One Year Later event, and Tales of the Sinistro Corps Presents: Parallax and Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents: Ion, two one-shot tie-ins to the Green Lantern crossover, The Sinestro Corps War.

His current creator owned projects include “Dragon Prince” (Top Cow) and “Samurai : Heaven and Earth” (Dark Horse).

Photo by Luigi Novi.

Reviews

[Mirnes Alispahić · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the comic books I could easily see as a TV series. Wonder why no one snatched it yet? Let's hope it will come to that. Marz loves swashbuckling adventures, that's obvious. In a way, this comes as a love letter to samurai movies and The Three Musketeers and all of its movie adaptations (especially Richard Lester's movies). Story follows samurai named Shiro, who after the demise of his daimyo and kidnapping of his love, travels across the globe following the Arab slave merchant from China to France and Versailles of king Louis XIV where he becomes a part of conspiracy in order to gain help to find his love.
Great script by Marz and splendid art by Luke Ross. I only wish it lasted longer as this way the story is cut way too short. This has much more potential than five issues (ten if we count volume two). Looking forward to reading second volume which concludes the story.

[Marquise · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a swashbuckler this was. It has action non-stop even from before Shiro has to abandon Japan to search for kidnapped Yoshiko and arrives in France after a long detour to the slave markets in China and North Africa. There, he's arrested by three musketeers that looked suspiciously like Dumas' Athos, Portos and Aramis (and later there's a fourth that looks D'Artagnan-like) although their names are never mentioned and they are a bit younger than they'd be timeline-wise if it really were them, so I think it's mostly a homage of sorts to Dumas. He also meets Spanish ambassador Ratera, who'll be responsible for all that comes afterwards.

This is very obviously meant to be a mix of a romance with action comics, so the emphasis on historicity is rather lacking. For a quick and entertaining read, it's adequate and does achieve its purpose, so I'd not advise to expect much depth and substance from such a story. It's meant to amuse only, and at times it was very funny and made me laugh, but at other times it made me shake my head at the coincidences and deus ex machina-style of interventions.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice adventure story. The art is above average and the story line is different and well done. Very recommended

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is well done and the story kept my interest. I'm in for the second book.

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a bit difficult to believe that the main character is able to learn a new language so quickly. I'll just count that as a superpower. The story has some funny moments with musketeers that sound like Dumas' characters, but aren't named. The focus is on the main character's willingness to forgoe tradition, travel around the globe, sell his services as a swordsman and kill for his solitary goal to be reunited with the woman he loves. His mission takes him from a war-torn Japan, to the powdered wigs of France and beyond.

The generals Tokudaiji and Hsiao have been fighting for decades. This time Hsiao has the advantage of numbers and Tokudaiji's fortress falls on the next attack and is burned to the ground. Asukai Shiro is a samurai in Tokudaiji's service and is the only survivor of the assault. The love of his life, Yoshiko, was kidnapped by Hsiao and added to his harem. Shiro sets out to rescue here even though this goes against the samurai code.

Shiro bypasses Hsiao's security and confronts him. While killing the guards and Hsiao himself he finds that Yoshiko was sold to an Arab slave trader. He follows the slave trader to Paris where Shiro gets into swordfight with three musketeers, loses and gets sent to the Bastille. He soon gets freed by a Spanish ambassador who bribes the guards and hires Shiro as a bodyguard. The latter has an ulterior motive which is revealed when he asks Shiro to kill the king in exchange for his being released from his oath.

Meanwhile Yoshiko is chosen by Louis XIV as a courtesan. Shiro arrives at the king's bedchamber and finds her there. They try to escape, but he is stopped by a battle with the musketeers and a duel with the Spanish ambassador. Yoshito ends up captured by the ambassador with Shiro defeated and passed out from injuries. The musketeers, understanding the circumstances, cover for Shiro as he escapes in search of Yoshiko and the spaniard.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta é a história de um samurai, Shiro, que move céus e terras para reencontrar a sua amada Yoshiko. A história em quadrinhos é escrita por Ron Marz, responsável por publicações como Lanterna Verde e Witchblade e desenhada pelo brasileiro Luke Ross, em talvez o seu melhor trabalho até aqui. No Brasil, este quadrinho foi publicado em duas partes pela Devir Editora em 2007 e 2010. O destaque destes dois encadernados que aqui faço uma resenha abarcando ambos, vai certamente para a arte de Luke Ross. O roteiro e o argumento da história não enchem tanto os olhos e a mente como o trabalho de composição artística do brasileiro. Não é só a arte de Luke Ross em seus traços extremamente realistas que nos fazem admirar, mas também as técnicas de narrativa inovadoras e a composição de cenários e figurinos. Se esta HQ fosse um filme, certamente ganharia o Oscar nestes dois quesitos. Uma coisa, entretanto, difere nos dois encadernados. O primeiro tem as cores de Sam Keith, que são mais caprichadas do que as cores do segundo, dividida entre dois outros coloristas menos conhecidos. De todas as formas se você é um daqueles que compra seu quadrinho pela arte, este é "o" quadrinho. Mas se você adquire pelo roteiro, bem... já sabe.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Samurai travels all the way from Asia to Paris to find the love of his life, who as been kidnapped and sold into slavery, a romantic story, as a Samurai search for his love, unfortunately by the end of this volume, the Samurai still as not found his love. Excellent story line, an adventure story, very enjoyable, a book mainly for the boys, you like the sword fighting era of the mid ages, based on the graphics in the novel, I think the series is based around the Three Musketeers era. I have not read Volume 2 but it is on my wish list. Don’t know anybody in the school who as read volume 2, but many students thinks Volume 1 is brilliant. Also if you like this book, then also look at ‘Samurai Blood’, this is also said to be a good book.

[A.C.E. Bauer]

Meh. I might forgive the mish-mash of timelines (the Musketeers were 100 years earlier), or the pitting a samurai against the Musketeers, or the (cringe) western ethos in eastern garb, the repeated improbabilities (exactly how does the Samurai get his battle armor in Europe when all he carried were his swords?). But all of them? What annoyed me the most was the over-the-top sexism. This is a 13-year-old boy's wish-fulfillment fantasy--a particularly immature boy--where all women are up for grabs, literally, and the only virtuous one is too beautiful to even utter words for a large portion of the story.

[Courtney Wendleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The artwork is amazing for a comic book. I think some of the close ups lost the distinct characteristics sometimes, but nothing too bad. I didn't like the loophole where the main character could pick up any language he came across.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

A standard men's adventure but to make it look cool they made the main character a samurai. He's more of a cowboy than anything. Really annoyed with how Lady Yoshiko is toted around like a statue for most of the comic and doesn't do anything at all.

[Al Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic twist on the swashbuckler genre with a Samuari meeting up with the Musketeers in Louis the 14th’s Paris. Art is fantastic, slow initial start but you need to get established, the story really takes off once the Samuari arrives in Paris

[Lightwhisper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei do desenho e da história, desejando que o seu protagonista chegue depressa à sua amada e tenha o seu final feliz.. mas não acaba aqui...

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a while this had my enthusiastic 5 star rating because of the intensity of the story and the top-notch artwork, but all things considered ended with 2. I was drawn to read this by the premise:a samurai trots the globe and confronts the best swordsmen from around the world, which technically did take place, but... Ok, chronologically, the story started out like gangbusters (trying to avoid spoilers) with the siege and defense of the samurai castle. The dedication of the samurai, vowing to fight to the death I found believable and aptly conveyed. The pace was frantic, I was thrown into the compound without knowing the participants, but so swept away by the action at hand it wasn't until late in the book I realized I didn't know the protagonist other than he had fallen in love with Lady Yoshiko at first sight--apparently for her beauty--and certain pledges are made by Asuki Shiro reminding one of Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans. I followed his quest until it took him in a huge jump to France. There I largely continued to read to finish the thing. The artwork never waned but the story jumped track about a third of the way through. I would have liked to see more developement in Shiro. There was no resolution with the slaver. Perhaps some of these issues will be addressed in vol 2.

[Alger]

This comic is amazing in the breadth of its scope and the intensity of the individual quest we fall the main character on. Set in in the first years of the 18th century it ranges from the domain of Kaga in Tokugawa Japan to the streets of Qing China, to the crystal palace of Louis XIV. It is a well plotted story that also is action fantasy of Chinese armies invading Japan, and who would win in a fight between one Japanese sword saint of Musashi Miyamoto's caliber and the Four Musketeers . . .
This graphic novel is fun, quick, and beautifully drawn.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic Plot: Shiro pursues his love from Japan to Paris to rescue her.

The art here is high quality- absolutely stunning. The story had warmth and humor. It was action-packed and definitely evoked a feeling of the Three Musketeers. Lots of fun overall.

[Gina Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://ginasblogging.blogspot.com/200...

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read - with highly detailed artwork. The story is written too much like a movie script, but overall, pretty engaging.

[Son · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bercerita tentang petualangan ronin menyelamatkan pujaan hati. Komik yg keren dari cerita maupun grafis

[Spyros Katiforikós · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zvlastny crossover z casov samurajov a musketierov. Dej az prirychly.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

timelines are totally off