Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 26: Struggle in the Dark

by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima, Alex Brown, et al.

Dark Horse Comics is proud to present one of the authentic landmarks in graphic fiction, Lone Wolf and Cub, to be published in its entirety for the first time. Lone Wolf and Cub is an epic samurai adventure of staggering proportions -- a 17th century story of a disgraced Shogun's executioner wandering the country as an assassin.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156971598X
• ISBN13: 9781569715987
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.2"
• Age Range: 16 years and up

Customer Reviews

The end of the road for the poisoner, Abe-No-Kaii

It has been fairly clear that before Ogami Itto and Retsudo Yagyu can pick up their swords and finish their duel to the death that the question and person of Abe-No-Kaii has to be removed from the equation. The master poisoner's luck finally runs out in "Struggle in the Dark," Volume 28 in the epic Lone Wolf & Cub saga from Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. Of course, before the final stroke of Ogami Itto's blade there will be a final series of twists and turns: (128) "Tales of the Grass: Nindo Ukon" offers the fourth story in the last pair of volumes telling of one of the Yagyu grass seeing the sign of the wolf fire and heeding the call to come to Edo. Unlike the characters of the previous tales, Nindo Ukon has some other business to take care of first before he heeds his master's call. (129) "Struggle in the Dark" resumes the conflict of wills between the master poisoner Abe-No-Kaii and his captive guest, Retsudo Yagyu. By now we know that the grass have started to arrive in Edo and Retsudo uses them to great advantage to force the deadly little game between him and Kaii into its final stage. Throughout these books Koike and Kojima have done their best to replicate the customs and beliefs of this period, and in this story something we learned long ago becomes Retsudo's trump card. In a scene with great meaning for what is to come in this volume, the head of the depleted Yagyu clan offers Kaii some strange advice. (130) "Song of the Spirit" finally returns us to Ogami Itto, who leaves Daigoro to watch over the two swords standing in the ground and boldly enters Edo to ask a favor of Taruya Toemon, the Machi-Doshiyori who runs the city's greatest festival. Lone Wolf wants permission to use the festival to enter the great castle of Edo. But why?(131) "Great Reversals" finds Ogami Itto walking the floors of Edo castle in search of Retsudo Yaygu while Kaii tries to face death on his own terms and proves himself to be the great coward we have always known him to be. (132) "Scarlet Summer, Silver Fall" tells the tale of how Abe-No-Kaii met his fate having been ordered by the Shogun to commit seppuku. This is the right to kill oneself with honor to atone for failure, a right allowed only to the samurai class. Kaii is not really a samurai, but he is expected to act like one. But the poisoner has some surprises left. Thus ends the largest sub-plot in this manga epic. Now the only impediment remaining to the final act of the death struggle between Ogami Itto and Retsudo Yagyu are the Yagyu grass. I start Volume 27 tonight knowing that the publication of the 28th and final volume in the Lone Wolf & Cub saga has been delayed (a month so far); and I thought I had lucked into perfect timing on when to begin the epic by reading one story a night before bed. Oh, well: Time flows. Seasons turn. But the wheel of Karma cannot be broken."

Building up to the climactic duel

The long awaited duel with Ogami Itto will have to wait as the imprisoned Retsudo has to first deal with the master poisoner Abe. Retsudo with the aid of his ninja infiltrators, cunningly traps Abe in a strategem that results in the master poisoner being ordered to commit seppuku (ritual belly cutting) by the enraged Shogun. Meanwhile, Ogami Itto, goes to find Retsudo by simply walking into Edo Castle in the midst of a festival, depending on his bearing and charisma instead of his sword. The best of the tales is probably the sad end of Abe Tanoshi. The master poisoner disgraces his own seppuku ceremony by his refusal to accept his fate until Ogami Itto intervenes. At the end of his life, Abe finally learns a little of what it means to be bushi. Great stuff - Powerful storytelling and stark visuals with few restraints, but you would expect no less of the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

Excellent

The epic series is drawing to an end, but it seems it's going to be good to the last drop. Daigoro doesn't figure much in Vol 26, but the continuation of the story is still deft and engaging. Those vehemently opposed to the evil scheming ways of poisoner Kaii will welcome this volume and its especially excrutiating, gory details surrounding his slow, torturous demise. And the message at the end of course, is yet another eye-opening lesson of the cycle of life.