A young boy dreams of competing in a magical martial arts tournament. But when the next tourney rolls around, his partner suddenly drops out - until a mysterious stranger appears in town who wants to compete too but needs a partner. Who is this person and do they have what it takes to win the tournament?
Skybound/Image are reissuing this French martial arts comic with Lastman, Book 1 collecting the first couple volumes. Despite some elements not working for me because they’re either underwritten or cliched, I really like martial arts comics (hence the Goku avatar) and Lastman is pretty damn good once it gets into the tournament stages.
The worldbuilding is lacking. We’re in a fantasy world reminiscent of Renaissance-era Europe with kings and queens etc. except quite a bit of the society revolves around martial arts for some reason. And also Last Airbender-style element magic exists, but so do motorcycles and cigarettes, and Richard Aldana is clearly from a contemporary era, so is he a time-traveller, or is this some weird alternate universe…? Maybe all that stuff is explored later in the series, and it’s not like it impinges on the main story, but it still felt a little contrived.
The fights themselves though are really interesting, featuring a cast of colourful characters, and it’s fun to learn about the characters’ abilities, as well as the tourney’s rules, through the fights. There are some entertaining twists, as in one fight Adrian gets taken out so Richard has to defeat two opponents, and later on vice versa.
That said, some of the fight resolutions are a bit silly/too easy (Adrian v Elorna, Alyssa v Aldana), and the overall story is predictable in how well Richard and Adrian do, as well as the Han/Leia thing Richard and Marianne have going on. I wasn’t that taken with the go-nowhere subplot of Mr Jansen being in love with Marianne, and Lord Cudna is one-dimensionally evil for seemingly no reason other than to give the story a big bad.
Bastien Vives’ art is very fluid which works well for the fast-paced action, and the body language has real power behind it. I also liked the menacing design of the defending champion, Cristo Canyon, who reminded me slightly of Vega from Street Fighter 2.
It’s not without its faults but the writing, art and story isn’t bad and I enjoyed it fairly well - if you like martial arts comics, Lastman is a pretty decent take on the genre.
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