I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The Path Traveler Vol.1 a while back. Ron Marz turned a culture that is practically alien to me into something fascinating and dramatic, and I discovered that Bart Sears was turning in the best work of his career. This issue is an accessible one, but it doesn't capture the same strength, and it's due in large part to the artwork. There's a far more convention tone to this comic art, and it robs the book of some of its unique nature.
As Obo-San prepares an army to oppose the mad emperor's plans for the world, the apparently insane ruler enjoys an evening of kabuki entertainment, a play he specifically commissioned in order to spread the proper message among his people about the growing rebellion. The performance is interrupted by the arrival of the seductive Yukio, but the welcome she receives is not at all what she expected. Meanwhile, the warlord Ryuichi, still loyal to the emperor, continues to amass an army with no equal, preparing for a battle to quash the rebellion and to wrest control of the Weapon of Heaven from Obo-San's hands.
I was surprised to discover that Tom Mandrake provided the inks on Ron Wagner's pencils for this issue. I've never seen Mandrake ink anything but his own pencils, and I'm surprised to find that his influence is a subtle one, though appropriate dark and gritty. Still, overall, the work is rather conventional in tone, not nearly as exotic, dark and cinematic as what was to be found earlier in the series. To be honest, I haven't seen regular penciller Matthew Smith's work on the book since he took over from Sears, so I don't know that those visual strengths were already lost to this book or not.
Marz uses the play-within-a-play technique here, and it makes for a thoroughly accessible script. The emperor's commissioned kabuki tells the reader everything s/he needs to know about this story. It's a bit difficult to distinguish some of the players apart, though. One really gets a sense of the menace and power that the emperor represents, and I remain interested in Ryuichi's conflict between his sense of duty to the empire and his uneasiness with his master's state of mind and body.
What strikes me about this issue as well is that it seems as though the story hasn't advanced all that much in a year and a half. Obo-San still has the weapon, and the emperor is still mad with power. Clearly, Marz has a slow build on the go, and though he's introduced a number of new characters, the core conflict hasn't really changed or moved forward. Mind you, one gets the sense at the end of this issue a climactic turning point is fast approaching. I hope that's the case.
