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Pearl Volume 3
A brand-new chapter in the romantic odyssey of the tattoo artist and Yakuza assassin, Pearl!
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning writer Brian Michael Bendis (Superman) and his Jessica Jones co-creator Michael Gaydos, it's the continuation of a masterful saga involving art, crime, loyalty, and passion.
After finding out the truth about her parents in previous volumes, the real question is: WHO IS THE GHOST DRAGON OF SAN FRANCISCO?
Fully painted by award-winning graphic novelist Michael Gaydos, Pearl is a unique experience about an artist discovering all the secrets of the modern yakuza world she was thrust into by no fault of her own.
Collects Pearl series III issues #1–#6.
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning writer Brian Michael Bendis (Superman) and his Jessica Jones co-creator Michael Gaydos, it's the continuation of a masterful saga involving art, crime, loyalty, and passion.
After finding out the truth about her parents in previous volumes, the real question is: WHO IS THE GHOST DRAGON OF SAN FRANCISCO?
Fully painted by award-winning graphic novelist Michael Gaydos, Pearl is a unique experience about an artist discovering all the secrets of the modern yakuza world she was thrust into by no fault of her own.
Collects Pearl series III issues #1–#6.
176 pages, Paperback
Published March 23, 2023
About the author
Brian Michael Bendis
4,425 books2,632 followersA comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.
Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.
Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.
Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.
Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.
Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.
He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.
Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.
Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.
Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.
Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.
Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.
He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 13, 2023
It took a while, but here we finally have the third story arc aaaaand... it feels a lot like volume 2's story arc. One of this series' problems for me is that I never feel like Pearl has a lot of agency. She is now a crime boss, but is that actually what she wants to be..? I don't get the feeling she enjoys the power very much, and she obviously doesn't enjoy the inter-family crime wars. So.. why is she doing this?
Bendis creates a fake reason for her to do crimes, when at the start of the volume Pearl and her hipster doofus boyfriend try 'normal life' in Japan. So they take shitty jobs, and then it becomes apparent 'this life is not for them', because it turns out that shitty jobs are shitty.
So back to crime it is! And if that sounds half-hearted, it certainly is! There's another half-hearted suggestion she's doing this because her mum was a crime boss, but again, not very convincing.
Another of this series' problems is the tone. Whenever Pearl gets in a fight, she's basically a superhero-level martial artist. We get long fight sequences that offer no thrills, because Pearl has the thickest plot armour this side of DC and Marvel.
It kind of feels like Bendis has run out of real ideas for the series, although he says at the end of volume 2 that he is brimming with Pearl-y story ideas.
The beautiful art is still art that is beautiful.
(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with a review copy through Edelweiss)
Bendis creates a fake reason for her to do crimes, when at the start of the volume Pearl and her hipster doofus boyfriend try 'normal life' in Japan. So they take shitty jobs, and then it becomes apparent 'this life is not for them', because it turns out that shitty jobs are shitty.
So back to crime it is! And if that sounds half-hearted, it certainly is! There's another half-hearted suggestion she's doing this because her mum was a crime boss, but again, not very convincing.
Another of this series' problems is the tone. Whenever Pearl gets in a fight, she's basically a superhero-level martial artist. We get long fight sequences that offer no thrills, because Pearl has the thickest plot armour this side of DC and Marvel.
It kind of feels like Bendis has run out of real ideas for the series, although he says at the end of volume 2 that he is brimming with Pearl-y story ideas.
The beautiful art is still art that is beautiful.
(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with a review copy through Edelweiss)
June 21, 2025
Pearl, Volume 3 wraps up the series in a way that is, above all, beautiful, stimulating, and wonderfully entertaining. Bendis and Gaydos deliver exactly what the back cover promises: a "tattoo artist yakuza assassin romantic odyssey." And it is that. It’s stylish, emotionally resonant, and gorgeously rendered.
What puzzles me, though, is the claim—frequently made in the promotion of the series—that this is somehow "anti-cliché." Having just rewatched Black Rain and Rising Sun, I can fully appreciate how far we've come from the all-knowing, patronizing American hero archetype. But in Pearl, the familiar tropes of yakuza fiction are still very much intact: the tattoos, the hyper-violence, the misogyny, the romanticized (and obsolete) code of honor.
Don’t get me wrong—none of this is necessarily a problem. The mythos of the yakuza is what draws readers in, and Pearl taps into that desire with flair. But I still don’t quite see how this treatment sets itself apart. It doesn’t deconstruct the genre or reframe its core elements in a meaningful way. If anything, it embraces the aesthetic and emotional beats that have made yakuza stories so enduring.
Perhaps the "anti-cliché" angle lies in Pearl herself—a female lead who straddles agency, artistry, and trauma with nuance. That might be the most original aspect of the book. But as a whole, this is less a subversion than a beautifully polished homage. And that’s perfectly fine.
What puzzles me, though, is the claim—frequently made in the promotion of the series—that this is somehow "anti-cliché." Having just rewatched Black Rain and Rising Sun, I can fully appreciate how far we've come from the all-knowing, patronizing American hero archetype. But in Pearl, the familiar tropes of yakuza fiction are still very much intact: the tattoos, the hyper-violence, the misogyny, the romanticized (and obsolete) code of honor.
Don’t get me wrong—none of this is necessarily a problem. The mythos of the yakuza is what draws readers in, and Pearl taps into that desire with flair. But I still don’t quite see how this treatment sets itself apart. It doesn’t deconstruct the genre or reframe its core elements in a meaningful way. If anything, it embraces the aesthetic and emotional beats that have made yakuza stories so enduring.
Perhaps the "anti-cliché" angle lies in Pearl herself—a female lead who straddles agency, artistry, and trauma with nuance. That might be the most original aspect of the book. But as a whole, this is less a subversion than a beautifully polished homage. And that’s perfectly fine.
November 15, 2023
STILL NOT SURE
Incredible art throughout but there's something about the story that just doesn't mesh together well and at times left me feeling like I'd missed something, causing me to need to backtrack. That being said some of the conversations do flow well and are entertaining. I do have a tendency to read multiple books at once so maybe i'd have engaged with it better if i'd read it all in a week rather than over the course of a month.
Incredible art throughout but there's something about the story that just doesn't mesh together well and at times left me feeling like I'd missed something, causing me to need to backtrack. That being said some of the conversations do flow well and are entertaining. I do have a tendency to read multiple books at once so maybe i'd have engaged with it better if i'd read it all in a week rather than over the course of a month.
June 2, 2024
I liked this both more and less. The art continues to get better - beautiful and informative. Terrific emotion (helped by the cool tattoo effect). The story got a bit draggy when Pearl seemed to be sort of drifting into power - but then took some leaps when she bad-assed it. Probably done with it (not a big fan of organized crime-ness) but I do love Bendis' writing and it is fun to look at. We'll see.
July 31, 2026
Michael Gaydos. Michael! Gaydos! His work in this book and in this series is so phenomenal. He uses different styles and has such creative layouts. This is a book that could have been silent and been enjoyable. But, if we did that, we'd miss the snarky dialogue from Bendis and the sad tale of Japanese gangster/family drama tale that is Pearl. I really liked this book but I do think the book was paced strangely at times. Overall, simply beautiful and a story that is almost there as well.
March 22, 2023
This is fine. The storytelling can be obtuse at times and sometimes Gaydos makes some odd coloring choices with some of the monochrome pages. This volume seemed to meander without having a strong story to keep this thing going. It certainly doesn't feel done at this point though.
July 2, 2025
I'm not enamored by mob and gang stories typically but this one worked for me. The story line is simple enough. what helped draw me into this story was the fantastic art as well as the sort of supernatural tattoos.
February 26, 2024
Lacked the propulsive energy of the first 2 volumes.
August 18, 2025
Damn, this story is really cooking now and I hope we get more
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews