Secret Reverse (2022)
Secret Reverse (2022) is a Marvel comic book that performs a thought experiment of trying to blend both an eastern and western style of comic books together. It is written and the art is by Yu-Gi-Oh! creator Kazuki Takahashi, and any fan of the original manga series can almost instantly tell. This story gives us a look into what if the wackiness and super fun style of story that Yu-Gi-Oh! tells very often is told with two of Marvel's headliner heroes, Spider-Man and Iron Man.
Because of this shift in style the story looks and reads like a manga would with more full page splashes and much more dramatic styles of drawing characters. Takahashi mentions in one of the letters printed in the back that he treated this as a fan comic, or as fan fiction if you will. This becomes very clear once the story's villain is revealed as it looks like a literal villain from one of the later volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh! lifted off the pages and slapped into a Marvel book, and I welcomed this. Of course he is going to put his own style on this project and I loved every page of it, to the point where when the story ended I wanted more. As a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series (up until 5D’s where I kind of fell off the anime afterwards), I loved that Takahashi tried to mirror the vibe of Yu-Gi-Oh! and it’s storytelling mechanics into a marvel book, it was a very welcome attempt. A very minor complaint that I have is that Marvel did not fully commit to the style and allow this story to be read as a manga, as in from right to left of the page. This complaint however does not deter from the enjoyment of the story.
I would recommend this story to manga fans that are interested in a marvel story or marvel fans interested in a manga story. The new characters again felt like characters lifted from Yu-Gi-Oh! and the Marvel heroes featured were well written while they were on panel, the standout star of this story being the way that Takahashi writes Spider-Man and to the point where this interpretation has been better than some other examples found from Marvel in-house writers.
Sadly, with Takahashi’s passing earlier this year we will probably never see anymore stories of this nature but the wild 107 page ride that this story takes you on is worth a spin at least once for both manga and Marvel fans alike. Overall, this was a fun quick read that saw two of my favorite characters in a different art style and story telling method than I am used to seeing them in. This was an experiment that Marvel has tried several times in the past to varying levels of success and I must say that this is one of the best examples of two forms of comics intermingling in an almost perfect fashion. This is a welcome addition to my collection, and would be the same to anybody else's collection all the same. As always if you have any questions or just want to talk about this story, please feel free to leave a comment here or let me know on Twitter.
Overall rating: 8.5/10
Because of this shift in style the story looks and reads like a manga would with more full page splashes and much more dramatic styles of drawing characters. Takahashi mentions in one of the letters printed in the back that he treated this as a fan comic, or as fan fiction if you will. This becomes very clear once the story's villain is revealed as it looks like a literal villain from one of the later volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh! lifted off the pages and slapped into a Marvel book, and I welcomed this. Of course he is going to put his own style on this project and I loved every page of it, to the point where when the story ended I wanted more. As a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series (up until 5D’s where I kind of fell off the anime afterwards), I loved that Takahashi tried to mirror the vibe of Yu-Gi-Oh! and it’s storytelling mechanics into a marvel book, it was a very welcome attempt. A very minor complaint that I have is that Marvel did not fully commit to the style and allow this story to be read as a manga, as in from right to left of the page. This complaint however does not deter from the enjoyment of the story.
I would recommend this story to manga fans that are interested in a marvel story or marvel fans interested in a manga story. The new characters again felt like characters lifted from Yu-Gi-Oh! and the Marvel heroes featured were well written while they were on panel, the standout star of this story being the way that Takahashi writes Spider-Man and to the point where this interpretation has been better than some other examples found from Marvel in-house writers.
Sadly, with Takahashi’s passing earlier this year we will probably never see anymore stories of this nature but the wild 107 page ride that this story takes you on is worth a spin at least once for both manga and Marvel fans alike. Overall, this was a fun quick read that saw two of my favorite characters in a different art style and story telling method than I am used to seeing them in. This was an experiment that Marvel has tried several times in the past to varying levels of success and I must say that this is one of the best examples of two forms of comics intermingling in an almost perfect fashion. This is a welcome addition to my collection, and would be the same to anybody else's collection all the same. As always if you have any questions or just want to talk about this story, please feel free to leave a comment here or let me know on Twitter.
Overall rating: 8.5/10
Comments
Post a Comment