Ninja Vs. Ninja (Filmark?, 1987)
A look at the wonderful world of IFD Films

[Note: Due to issues beyond our control, UR was unable to obtain the Korean death metal CD mentioned in the original "The Autumn of Asians" article. To make matters worse, technical issues kept this article from being posted before Autumn ended (December 21st). As a result of that, I figured that I'd make my debut on the site by fulfilling the promise for bad movies and Godfrey Ho. And since I'm running low on time, I figured I'd pay tribute to the man known for editing different movies together to make a new movie by stitching together some stuff I've previously written on the subject! Get ready for a bumpy ride, as we look at the final entry in the 2006 Autumn Winter of Asians...]

In the 1980′s, Sho Kosugi’s ninja movies (REVENGE OF THE NINJA, etc.) were extremely popular with American audiences, and imitations soon followed. Noting the newfound popularity of “ninja movies,” a film company in Hong Kong called IFD Films and Arts Limited hit upon a brilliantly sneaky idea; Instead of simply translating martial arts movies into English for Western markets as they had done in the past, they’d take footage from unfinished or otherwise “unreleasable” Asian movies, edit in some footage of white people in ninja costumes (under the idea that Americans would be more likely to see movies with stars who weren’t “foreign-looking”), and then use creative editing and redubbing the entire movie to make a single, semicoherent storyline.

This practice let IFD churn out a massive number of new “ninja” movies quickly and fairly inexpensively, allowing them to make a killing in the American home video market (along the home video market in several other countries). IFD paid close attention to what titles sold well and then gave other movies similar titles. For example, if a movie with the word “Thunderbolt” in the title sold well, they’d pump out more movies with the word “Thunderbolt” in the title.

They were also smart enough to use a “name” actor that audiences would be would be familiar with for their first batch ninja movies: Richard Harrison, an American actor known for his work in Italian spaghetti westerns, spy movies, and peplums (“gladiator” movies). One story has it that they hired Harrison to do a single movie and then chopped up his footage so that it could be spliced into multiple movies! No matter what the case was, Harrison stopped working with IFD and they sought out other actors to fill his place (often from local modeling agencies).

Another popular practice at IFD was to redo the film credits so that IFD employees were given credit for creating, directing, etc. (A practice similar to what American companies did while importing Japanese monster movies in the 1950′s and early 1960′s). Said employees almost always had “Western” pseudonyms, with the most famous one being that of the director “Godfrey Ho” (Real name: Ho Chi-Keung). Although he supposedly only directed the ninjas scenes and supervised the dubbing, Mr. Ho was credited with directing the entire movie. The story goes that since people started to catch on to the idea that “Godfrey Ho” meant that they were about to rent a “cut and paste” movie, IFD changed his pseudonym repeatedly.

Even after he left the company, their continued use of the “cut and paste” forumla and director psuedonyms have led many a person to conclude that Godfrey Ho has directed more movies than he really has. As a result, “Godfrey Ho” has become synonymous with any Asian movie where footage of caucasians gets spliced in (especially ninja movies.) and it’s still not known how many movies he actually “directed”.

Despite the fact that many martial arts movie fans hate these movies for not being “real” martial arts movies, many love them for the sheer entertainment value they provide. Although the movies themselves were nowhere near what most people would consider “good”, they are constantly hilarious and rarely boring (although they occasionally had some disturbing scenes). For example, their ninja movies often featured ninjas wearing multicolored costumes and headbands with the word “Ninja” written on them. Said ninjas often had supernatural powers that would give the ninja antics discribed at Real Ultimate Power a run for their money.

Just as funny where the scenes that attempted to show the “ninjas” communicating with characters from the Asian movie footage, in which it was obvious that the characters weren’t in the same room, let alone the same movie. Some IFD movies tried to get around this by having the characters ineract through telephone conversations (sometimes using a Garfield telephone). As you can guess, that didn’t really help much in the realism deparment. However, it does help a great deal in the “unintentionally hilarious” department.

One such movie is NINJA CHAMPION (1985 or 1986, it’s hard to say due to the conflicting information on this movie online). Sadly, this is one of those IFD movies with a disturbing scene in it. In fact, NINJA CHAMPION starts with a gang of criminals with painted faces (think Kabuki mixed with KISS) attacking a couple in the forest. After beating up the male, they grab the bikini-clad female, punch her in the stomach, and rape her. This is followed by the woman being treated (operated on?) in a hospital, demanding that she not have any anesthetics since she “deserves the pain”! Not exactly what I was hoping for from a ninja movie.

At some point in the future, we find that the couple has split up-the man (George) got married to another woman and the woman (Rose) has become a diamond smuggler who’s trackling down and killing her attackers on the side (one of them she kills using poisoned nipples). I should note that you don’t learn the characters’ names until much later in the movie. Later, it’s revealed that it’s been three months since the incident. That’s right folks, George dumped his girlfriend and got married in under three months.

Anyway, Interpol gets involved because of their interest in stoppping the smuggling (and in order to justify the ninja footage), with footage from the two movies being edited and dubbed to make it look like two characters are talking on the phone. Speaking of phones, when (stock footage of) Richard Harrison makes a cameo appearance, he’s shown using a novelty Garfield phone! So while the good Interpol agent/ninja goes after the evil ninjas behind the diamond smuggling ring, George tries to get back with Rose (As you can imagine, she’s less than thrilled to see him again) and Rose tries to kill off the rest of the rapists. But when Rose seems to die and George sets out to avenge her death, he notices a woman that seems to be Rose. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will tell you that it involves some insane plot twists and a gun-toting retard. Seriously.

The “source movie” has some decent fights, including a bizarre sequence in which George displays supernatural powers in order to fight off some bad guys. I’m guessing that he got those after being attacked at the beginning of the movie. Either that, or Rose has an even better reason to hate him.

Judging from some of the signs at an airport sequence and a brief cameo by Bruceploitation legend Dragon Lee, I’m guessing that the “source movie’ was made in Korea. Although the propaganda van in the parade scene makes me wonder if the “source movie” is North Korean in origin. The ninja footage has some pretty interesting fight sequences as well, such as an evil ninja who likes using a giant ring as a weapon (which was apparently recycled in the movie NINJA CONNECTION). If you can find NINJA CHAMPION and like bad movies, it’s well worth a look. Just be prepared for the beginning…

But just as IFD piggybacked on the success of Sho Kosugi movies, others noticed the popularity of IFD’s ninja movies and copied them! One of these movies is a little gem from 1987 called NINJA VS. NINJA, and it plays out almost exactly like a typical IFD “cut and paste” ninja movie (only without the headbands):

Non-Asian ninjas being the source of the problems seen in the footage taken from another movie? Check!

Goofy “special” ninja techniques? Check (The multiple arm trick and dividing scene are must sees)!

Hilariously bad dubbing? Check!

Music lifted from American sources? Check!

A ninja shows someone a picture of a character from the other movie that’s clearly a movie still? Check!

Characters from different sets of footage “interacting”? Check!

However, there are some differences that set this apart from a typical IFD movie. The credits don’t bother to “Westernize” most of the cast’s names, the ninja suits seem to be a size too big, and the ninja scenes lack the “polish” that ones shot by IFD have (And considering how many reviewers look down on the quality of IFD’s stuff, that’s an accomplishment). For example, cuts between different sets of footage in this movie are more abrupt than in a typical IFD ninja movie.

While IFD movies at least tried to establish why characters from different sets of footage would meet, NINJA VS. NINJA often opts to sudden cut to a shot of another character, perhaps under the impression that the audience will come up with an explanation. I didn’t see any indication of what film company originally made this, but I did find a website that claims Filmark, a company known for “cut and paste” movies like ROBO VAMPIRE and whose founder had done work with IFD president Joseph Lai in the past, was behind it.

The movie used to make the bulk of NINJA VS. NINJA is an odd crime drama that’d be extremely entertaining even without the added ninja scenes! It involves a cop (made into a CIA agent in NVN’s dub) who’s out to avenge the death of his wife (and injury of his son) caused by by a bomb set up by two criminals: one who uses his mastery of the iron skin technique(!) to kill people without fear of being injured by knives or guns and the other who is a pervert that was driven insane by the death of his cross-eyed girlfriend. No, really. There are some pretty interesting, non humorous scenes and fighting in this movie as well.

According to this website, these scenes are from a 1981 movie called BOMB SHELL. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, there’s also a scene featuring the worst disguises ever put on film (including a guy wearing swim goggles and plastic vampire fangs). However I forget if it this was in the original movie or if it was a newly shot scene.

Tai Seng Entertainment’s release is a cropped, full frame VHS transfer with faded colors and some tape glitches. Oddly enough, this (to my knowledge) is actually a licensed release from Ocean Shores (their watermark shows up twice during the movie). Back in the 1980′s, someone at Ocean Shores (and sadly, several other Asian companies) decided that it’d be a good idea to make full frame, VHS masters and junk the original films for easier storage! The DVD itself is bare bones, having 8 chapter stops, a semi-animated menu, and some previews. But trust me, the sheer entertianment value of NINJA VS. NINJA makes up for it.

Since Tai Seng released NINJA VS. NINJA onto VHS and DVD years ago, so I can imagine that you can find it cheap on Amazon or Ebay. Or you could do what I did and pick up Tai Seng’s “Ninja Six” set, a collection of titles they had previously released repackaged into a single box. It contains NINJA HUNTER, NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP, NINJA IN THE USA, NINJA VS. BRUCE LEE (starring Bruce Le), NINJA VS. NINJA, and NINJA VS. SHAOLIN GUARDS. I got mine for about $16.00. However, you’ll want to buy some empty amaray cases when you get this, since Tai Seng decided to package them by having the DVDs stacked on a hub with foam at the bottom! I should also note that with the exception of NINJA VS. NINJA, none of these are IFD-style ninja movies.

Alternately, you could try renting it through your local library’s rental system (Seriously, I got a lot of library references while looking up information for this title online). Reviews and screenshots for NINJA VS. NINJA and some of the other titles in the Ninja Six collection can be found here. However, the reviews there contain some minor spoilers.

However, the good times couldn’t last forever and the ninja craze eventually died down. Some have even claimed that IFD killed off the ninja craze via flooding the market with “low quality” ninja movies. No matter how the ninja craze ended, IFD survived that setback by appling the “cut and paste” formula of mixing Asian movie footage with footage of white (and occasionally black) people to genres like superheroes, kickboxing, war, horror, and crime thrillers. They also do straightforward (but still unintentionally hilarious) translations of various Asian live-action movies (mostly martial arts movies) and animation. As for Godfrey Ho, he did some (from what I hear) decent movies that didn’t use any footage from other movies and now (at least, according to Wikipedia) teaches at the Hong Kong Film Academy.

Although they were widely available on VHS in the 1980′s, it’s hard to find licensed DVDs of IFD movies in America nowadays. As far as I know, Digiview and DG Distributors are the only American companies who license movies from IFD. Digiview tends to handle fake anime and dubbed “normal” martial arts movies, while DG Distributors did two dubbed martial arts movies and a “cut and paste” kickboxing movie.

However, many unlicensed DVDs of IFD movies are floating around out there; so let the buyer beware. But there is a ray of hope, seeing as how several “cut and paste” ninja movies are on the Turner Classic Movie channel’s film database, where people can vote for movies that they’d like to see on DVD.

Since these movies can be hard to find (and since technical issues kept me from getting any screenshots), here are some links to various IFD movie trailers that I found online:

IFD’s Official Website (Has many trailers, but be warned that not all of them are “safe for work”)

THE ULTIMATE NINJA
NINJA DRAGON
THE NINJA SQUAD
ZODIAC AMERICA: THE SUPER MASTER (aka ZOMBIE VS. NINJA)
NINJA TERMINATOR
ZODIAC AMERICA 2: EVIL
DESTROYER

No opening salvo here, folks.  This is a wade through the bog of Solson Publications, the comics company that brought the world Reagan’s Raiders, The Amazing Wahzoo, Daffy Qaddafi, a hundred ninja comics and Rich Buckler Jr.  Was it the worst comics company in history, as some people claim?  It’s hard to say, but Solson was as bad as its reputation suggests.  Not everyone is going to take a chance on a title like Samurai Santa, and for good reason.  Solson was already filling the demand for Japanese swordsmen around this time with titles like The Bushido Blade of Zatoichi Walrus, Codename: Ninja, Ninjutsu: Art of the Ninja and Samurai the 13th.  Considering Solson’s exploitative nature, Samurai Santa fit like a glove.

Oh, the proper title of this comic suggests an ongoing series of Christmas specials like Samurai Santa.  Not long after, both ninjas and black-and-white comics stopped being trendy – due at least in part to the glut of horrible black-and-white comics about ninjas.  Solson stalwarts Gary Brodsky and Rich Buckler have since moved on to other pursuits like How to Pick Up Girls and surrealist erotic art.  It’s a great legacy, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Samurai Santa begins by introducing your artists for the comic, Don Secrease and…Jim Lee.  Yes, WildC.ATs creator and Wildstorm’s public face Jim Lee.  Samurai Santa is his first published work.  Let’s find out a little more about Secrease and Lee, shall we?

Americomics, Vista Graphics and Solson?  Hot damn!  What a talent!  Secrease is a journeyman who may or may not have survived the black-and-white comics boom.  He does most of Samurai Santa‘s art.

According to Wikipedia, Jim Lee only inked the cover to Samurai Santa.  Even if Jim Lee did ink more than the cover, Lee didn’t actually draw the comic.  For this he gets a shared art credit.  That he doesn’t show his face here might be his best career move ever.

“Solson Christmas Special Featuring Samurai Santa #1 is published annually by Solson Publications, Inc.”  Is that a threat?

It’s Christmas season at Kruger’s.  A Mr. Endicott is being threatened to find a replacement Santa by a Mr. Osborn after the previous Santa comes in drunk to work.  No one else wants to play the role (a black character giving the excuse that “the kids don’t dig a black Santa”) until one of the wage slaves suggests “that new guy running the Jap robot counter”, Sam, as a possible stooge.  Enter our title character wearing a kimono.  As he is Japanese, he of course knows how to operate a Transformers action figure, which two kids then fight over.  Boy, the writing’s subtle.  Sam takes the job while talking in aphorisms.

Barely four pages in, I know the writing’s horrible.  The concept of a samurai working at a department store is bad enough, but Philip Clarke Jr. can’t even go four pages without piling on clichés.  It only gets worse from there, as Samurai Santa listens to spoiled children and their requests for toys.  Mr. Osborn is “impressed” with Endicott for finding Kruger’s first “Mongolian Santa Claus,” leaving the nebbishy underling sweating as he frequently does.

Is there an actual character in this comic book underneath all these archetypes?  Racism, generic “Christmas has been commercialized” sentiment and pop culture references!  Neato!  Never mind how Sam seems to have been hired without having to go through a background check!  Logic gets in the way of the story!

There’s an evil Santa Claus, too!  He tells some kids that their parents don’t love them enough to buy them new things like bicycles and footballs.  They then cry as Santa breaks their hearts.  Yojimbo has nothing on Samurai Santa!

Samurai Santa walks back to his apartment as two thugs try to mug a lady of no fixed age or character description.  Samurai Santa breaks out the weapons as the customary fight scene begins.

A black man with dreadlocks?  Platitudes?  Bad shading?  This comic has everything!

Not surprisingly, Samurai Santa becomes a hero, receiving a standing ovation from on-lookers and convincing Osborn to rethink his firing of Sam.  The greedy Osborn smells a marketing gimmick, of course, so subtle is the characterization in Samurai Santa.  Meanwhile, Endicott is faced with Sam’s resignation (cue Endicott sweating), which Endicott talks him out of.  Evil Santa Claus continues on his commercialization-and-despondency spree as more kids are told that their parents don’t love them.  Boy, I wonder if Evil Santa Claus is actually Mr. Osborn?

Several days later, Sam is conflicted with the true meaning of Christmas.  Osborn comes in and tells Endicott and Sam that sales are brisk and a toy giveaway to the underprivileged is underway.  This convinces Sam to continue being Santa.  As Sam goes home he meets a bum on the street and, in a rare display of good storytelling and art for Samurai Santa, gives of all but his kimono and pants for him.  It’s the one thing in Samurai Santa that’s actually touching.

Jonah Kruger flies to his New York store from Los Angeles to begin the next day’s festivities.  Turns out that Kruger’s just as commercially-minded as Osborn as the toy giveaway consists of unsalable crap.  Sam turns the tables on capitalism as he replaces the unsalable crap with copies of The Religious Soul.  The incensed Osborn exits stage left suddenly, for no…oh, to hell with it.  I hate spoilers.  Turns out that Mister Osborn is Evil Santa Claus.

It’s not Santa Claus, it’s…uh, Xanta Klaus?!  Wait, it’s a middle-aged man in a suit.  My mistake.

Seemingly unfazed by the fact that the manager of a department store in one of America’s major metropolitan areas just tried to kill an employee with a crossbow, Kruger tells Sam to give out the bargain-bin fare as promised.  Sam does not, as he chastises everyone (aside from himself, of course – he is a samurai) for helping to pervert the true meaning of Christmas.  As he leaves the store, Kruger tries to look for the samurai.  The footprints stop and a picture of the New York skyline is seen.

Boy, wasn’t that fun?  It ended in such an upbeat and non-didactic manner, too!  Samurai Santa taught me the true meaning of Christmas!

Somehow, I blame John Belushi for this comic.

Since this is Solson, there are no ads save for the usual Solson fare.  Solson put out a lot of fare.

Ooh, neat, a “subtle” Superman swipe.  And Ronald Reagan.  Hey, there’s some guy in the middle!

Ads for Solson product include Reagan’s Raiders #3, Amazing Wahzoo #2, Solson’s Call For Talent (that picture of Gary Brodsky’s face around his legions of comics sure did get used a lot) and Escape to the Stars.  I have no idea what Escape to the Stars is aside from there being a talking bear and Randomly Capitalized Concepts, but it’s by far the most professional comic in Solson’s repertoire (and only because it wasn’t originally created for Solson).  As for Codename: Ninja, it looks appropriately sleazy.  Interest is perked by the appearance of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but drops back down when the TMNT book turns out to be an “Authorized Martial Arts Training Manual” (it still managed to last six issues).  Ads also appear for “ninja secrets revealed” comic Ninjutsu: Art of the Ninja, random superhero comic Animism and “comic book trade secrets revealed” comic How to Publish Comics.  Why a man who sold piranha through the mail should have the moral authority to tell people how sleazy the comic book business is remains a mystery to almost everyone except Brodsky.

Finally, this curio appears on the back cover:

(Billing Not Contractual)

I grew out of the “overreact to every mildly strange thing I see” writing phase some time ago (some people never do), but this makes no sense.  Literally the only link Google provides for the film – or at least the notion of same – is at Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge.  Did this film ever get made?  Somehow, I doubt the creators of Codename: Ninja ever got Last Hour of Honor off the ground.  Maybe they did considering the home video glut of the 1980s (Trans World Entertainment would have made this film in a heartbeat), but what a shitty ad for a possibly non-existent film.  Rich Buckler is a weird man.

Solson has continued to exist in some form since the 1980s.  Has the company progressed beyond this level of quality?  What do you think?

It Came From The Comic Mill: Shuriken #6 (Victory Productions, April 1987)
The road to American manga started with this series, and aren’t you glad?

WOW!  AN UPDATE?  TO UR?  WHAT SORT OF BEFOULMENT IS THIS?  Seriously, though, I’ve been neglecting my duties as Reichsmaster of sweetposer.tk for far too long.  Lately, I’ve been looking at my referral logs and, when people don’t care for girlfeet or gay porn (and, by God, that’s what most fans of UR seem to want), they want to know about – strangely – comics of the 1980s and early 1990s.  Today, I begin to fulfill a promise I made to the readers of UR and talk about these comics.

Hell, I’ve got to do something to make people believe I didn’t lose interest in UR two years ago.  Inertia moves faster than this site.

The 1980s were interesting for the nascent and still relatively novel interest in Japanese manga.  This was in the days before companies like ADV, Tokyopop, Viz and Antarctic Press overflowed the market with any title they could nail down and dub.  Not that I hate manga, granted – the odd horror title and Hyper Police make for good reading, but the kids are supposed to be more into Shonen Jump’s One Shaman Dragon King Piece Ball NFL on NBC or whatever the perceived big trend is at the moment.  In the 1980s and 1990s, choices for manga were relatively limited – Akira, Golgo 13, Robotech, Barefoot Gen and whatever had made it into the American public’s consciousness at the time.  One has to remember that independent comics companies of the 1980s were more into funny animal comics, Cerebus the Aardvark, ripoffs of Cerebus the Aardvark, British imports, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ripoffs of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ninjas, poorly-done superhero comics and poorly-done superhero comics with ninjas in them.  Oh, and Tales From the Beanworld.  People were generally trying to cash in on whatever money was supposed to be in the comics explosion at the time.

For some reason, people also liked Dreadstar.  It was a strange time.

As for American manga – for you pedants, American comics done in the Japanese style, just so we’re clear on this – it’s still as much of a crapshoot as it was when I wrote about the topic in 1999.  (Note: I am not linking to the article.  No one needs to read about how much I hated Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check when I was 18.  Surprisingly, I namechecked Hyper Police in that article seven years before I read the damn thing.)  There’s Gold Digger and its thirty-seven variants, Ninja High School and whatever one-shots and series Marvel, DC and American-based manga presses put out, but American manga has always seemed like a niche market with a growth level not commensurate to the popularity of Japanese manga or even Korean manhwa.

In the mid-1980′s, one man tried to buck this prevailing trend.  That man was Reggie Byers, formerly of the American Robotech:Macross series, and Shuriken is his legacy.

Frankly, it’s not much of a legacy.  I’ve owned three Shuriken/The Blade of Shuriken comics for more than a decade.  In 1999, I thought Shuriken was awful, deriding Byers for being a born-again Christian and abandoning his manga style.  Seven years later, I can accept Byers’ lifestyle choice and current style, and seven years’ worth of maturity and broader understanding of the world of manga should have changed my feelings about Shuriken.

It doesn’t.  The comic’s still awful.  Time has not been kind to Shuriken.

The editorial for the April 1987 issue of Shuriken starts with an introduction to Byers’ Victory Productions (“printed at Solson Printing,” it says here), which put out Shuriken.  The comic at the time was being segmented for two psychographics.  The Blade of Shuriken, an Eternity Comics title, was for the shonen, or action-oriented crowd.  This Shuriken was for the shojo, or character-driven crowd.  Essentially, there was a comic for “boys” and a comic for “girls,” although there isn’t much difference between the two comics at all.  Around this time, Byers also handed over control of Shuriken to an associate, although Byers still drew, wrote and lettered this issue.  Andrew Murphy is credited as “guest inker” here.

Right away, lead character Kyoko Shidara is seen at a carnival, using her ninja skills to win a milk bottle game.  I call shenanigans.

Kyoko and friend Joan Harlowe celebrate their victory by comparing kewpie dolls.  Right away, Byers uses the time spent creating his comic to do something common to comics creators of the 1980s.

So, where’s the Usagi Yojimbo doll?

Yeah, that’s right.  Remember, this is the 1980s.  Everyone in self-publishing idolized Cerebus the Aardvark.  It was a tradition.  The off-model kewpie doll is compared to a Usagi Yojimbo doll as Byers draws every character slightly off and with ugly-looking facial outlines.

Reggie Byers does a self-insertion next and draws himself into the comic.  Sure, the character’s only named “Reggie” and does nothing except duck a throwing star, but it’s still a self-insertion.  One of the interesting things about Reggie Byers is that, like Gold Digger creator/franchiser Fred Perry, he is black.  A black man drawing manga (hell, being in the comics industry in general) isn’t a common thing, but it doesn’t change my impression of Shuriken.  It took me years to figure out that there are black characters in Shuriken since almost every ancillary character looks the same.  Byers takes the time to do some shading on “Reggie’s” sweater and foreshadow ninja action, though.  Strange priorities, Byers.

The comic goes back to Pittsburgh police officer Doug Jordan, Marlowe and Shidara talking about camouflage.  Apparently Shidara has dyed her hair blond.  Marlowe lets slip that Shidara has “enemies”, arousing Jordan’s suspicions.  This leads to some mutual ass-covering and Shidara’s internal monologue about quitting the corrupt security firm she works for.  I was actually paying more attention to the band T-shirts, hidden reference to another Victory Productions title (I’m not spoiling the “surprise” for you people – oh, what the hell, it’s Shrike) and a “HIMOM!” hidden in a blade of grass.  Glad to see Byers isn’t easily bored.

The action kicks off in earnest as Weird Al Yankovic in an Anthrax shirt beans a random punk with a ball.  Ah, but the punk is not “random” at all!  As the punk grimaces at Weird Al (oh, sorry, “Neil”) Shidara hears a scream.  Cue fight scene.

“YOU ARE THE KILLER!” “YES, AND YOU ARE THE NEXT ONE I SHALL KILL”

This is why I can’t take Shuriken seriously.  A punk character in Stinko Man 20X6 pose and Bigg Nife proving his worthiness as “the great organization’s biggest and best assassin” by killing an random bystander who beaned him with a baseball?  Makes sense.  This leads to Shuriken punching out Max (“created by Gary Williams!” as if anyone really knows or cares who he is – I know, it’s self-publishing, but still).  The punch seems to propel Max past three onlookers as the fight scene proper begins.  Remember, this is the character-driven Shuriken.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOON THE PITTSBURGH POLICE DEPARTMENT I SHALL PUNISH YOU!

Yeah, character-driven.  I know.  The fight scene is a bit protracted, of course – CHARACTER-DRIVEN Max throws some CHARACTER-DRIVEN throwing stars at Shuriken, leading to Shuriken and Max throwing CHARACTER-DRIVEN weapons at each other and Shuriken ending the short and uneventful fight with a CHARACTER-DRIVEN kick to Max’s sternum.  Out come the CHARACTER-DRIVEN police to arrest Max and Shidara.  SHOJO MANGA!

The onlookers defend Shidara.  A sexist cop is put in his place.  Marlowe fears for Shidara while Jordan gets angry at Shidara for fighting the punk.  Jordan is put in his place.  A poorly-done epilogue appears where Shuriken asks for, and receives, a resignation from her corrupt security firm.  So ends another cross-hatched, adequately-realized chapter in the life of Shuriken.  You can smell the “Shuriken might be assassinated by her former employer” angle from space.

I guess Shuriken isn’t as bad as I thought it was back when I first bought these comics.  The artwork isn’t that good, and there’s way too much reliance on standard “action lines” and clichés like the angry punk, ninjas throwing around weaponry right in front of people (without masks, yet), and the standard dialogue that seems to come from a Godfrey Ho film.  Removing the manga-style trappings and better-than-average attention to small details, Shuriken is a standard American ninja comic.  It’s still better than Ninja High School, mind.

Up next is Andrew Murphy’s backup feature, “Firebringer.”  Even though Murphy’s artwork is much better than Byers’, the comic seems like the sort of standard “man on Earth is actually son of God” stuff that one would have seen in Cerebus the Aardvark‘s back pages in the early 1980s.  Apparently Victor’s mother is the Goddess Koltos, stuff about the Panthearchy, God King, that sort of thing.  It’s pretentious and derivative, but what wasn’t in the 1980s.

Finally, we come to some ads for Syn’ik and Shrike, plus some Shuriken pinups.  They’re so thrilling I could fart.

Could Shuriken see print in the world of today?  Probably not.  Nothing against Byers or his love of self-publishing, but the world of American manga has advanced far too much artistically for this to make much of a dent in the world of modern-day, aren’t-gradients-cool comics.  The world of comics has deteriorated far too much for self-publishing to be as commercially viable anymore.  Shuriken is a product of its time – one of the first, not-entirely-successful salvos in trying to establish a manga community in North America.  I’ll like Reggie Byers for at least trying – and even pioneering – a proper manga comic, but Shuriken will never be more than a relic of a bygone era.  Maybe that’s just as well.  At least Reggie Byers never did The Bushido Blade of Zatoichi Walrus, so he at least has that going for him.