Customer Reviews

Way Of The Rat Volume 3: Haunted Zhumar (Way of the Rat)

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Oh, the poor city of Zhumar. Long hailed (or maybe muttered about) as an unassailable mountain stronghold and the furthest outpost of the Shinacean Empire, Zhumar has of late fallen on hard times. The Great Bhuto Khan and his barbarian hordes had recently laid siege to it, and then hungry, big honking dragons have been set loose in it. Zhumar's graceful Princess Zheng Mai became a casualty, having been sucked into the Hell of Hungry Dragons. The inhabitants of Zhumar are frightened and fed up and now believe that Zhumar is cursed, and they're hightailing it out in one long leaving line. This is the pathetic sight which greets Zhumar's newly appointed, just arrived minister. As a proper welcome, he doesn't think much of it.

That the city has endured is thanks in part to the semi-heroic efforts of the hero Boon Sai Hong, a.k.a. the Jade Rat. It's a testament to how low grade heroes are in Zhumar when one considers that Boon Sai Hong is actually a common thief. Boon has inherited (read: straight out stole) two mystical artifacts of incalculable power: the Ring of Staffs, which grants its bearer uncanny mastery over all staffed weapons, and the Book of the Hell of the Hungry Dragons, a scroll which flings opens the gateway to a hell populated by baleful (and hungry) dragons. Walls of Zhumar (Way of the Rat, Book 1), collecting issues #1-6, chronicles how Boon turned away Bhuto Khan's invasion. WAY OF THE RAT Vol. 2: THE DRAGON'S WAKE, collecting #7-12, tells of Boon helping to solve the dilemma of dragons rampaging around in Zhumar. We'll try to ignore the fact that Boon isn't entirely blameless in these somewhat cataclysmic proceedings. As mentioned, low grade quality of Zhumar's heroes, etc...

One protagonist who actually radiates a nobility of purpose about her is the Silken Ghost. An early mystery circulated about the Silken Ghost, concerning her true identity. Was her true identity that of the brave Princess Zheng Mai or that of the scholar's daughter Tei Su? To SPOILER it now - and stop reading this paragraph already, if you care all that much not to find out who the Silken Ghost truly is, and, okay, this should now be long enough of a buffer sentence - the Silken Ghost turns out to be the scholar's daughter Tei Su. She is instrumental in this coming up story arc, narrated in WAY OF THE RAT Vol. 3: HAUNTED ZHUMAR.

This TPB collects issues #13-18 of the sadly short-lived comic book (damn you, CrossGen Comics, for going in the red). There's a third mystical artifact which ends up with Boon, and this is the mysterious Phoenix Heart. And we finally find out what it does, much to the chagrin of Zhumar's residents, and more people just skedaddled to the back of that line leaving town. Princess Zheng, as seen in the last volume, was condemned to an undeserved stint of damnation in the Hell of Hungry Dragons. A concerned wise woman, Old Mother, futilely consults the Phoenix Fire for traces of the Princess, except that this has the horrifying adverse effect of drawing ghosts into the world of the living. Among these haunts is the recently deceased Judge X'ain, conniving former minister of Zhumar, who may be dead but still hungers for control of Zhumar. To keep it fun, there's also a spectral mother-in-law who comes back from the dead to bedevil her unfortunate son. And, worse, these spirits are soon followed by an even more malevolent ghost, Kung Kung Yi, the devourer of other ghosts and of souls of living men. When you see ghosts fleeing another ghost, well, that's a whole 'nother level of spookiness. Boon Sai Hong actually doesn't do much for most of the story arc, until near the end. As it turns out, the resolution to beating Kung Kung Yi will rest on yet another mystical object, and this is where the Silken Ghost comes in.

Stir in another sub-plot, this one involving the Emperor dispatching his best assassin to do away with Boon Sai Hong, and this assassin quickly enough gets embroiled with what's going down in haunted Zhumar. I continue to love this series, which I've only discovered several months ago, and many curses to the whimsies of fate which caused the publisher of WAY OF THE RAT to fall on irrecoverable hard times. This comic book tells a wonderful, wonderful martial arts story tinged with mysticism and a light comic touch, two elements which writer Chuck Dixon does a great job of balancing. Boon Sai Hong is a great character, not yet exactly a good guy, although he was coming around. WAY OF THE RAT is peppered with colorful supporting characters and chock full of crisp action sequences, illustrated by an artist who obviously has a background in martial arts, although his skills go beyond depicting fight scenes. Jeff Johnson draws facial expressions and poses that are so expressive and spot-on that, most times, textual embellishment isn't required. Even fill-in artist Luke Ross is passable with #14, an issue marked with a near absence of dialogue, as ninja assassins silently infiltrate the Emperor's palace.

And, to this day, to THIS day, Po Po the sarcastic enchanted talking (and hard drinking) monkey remains the best sidekick ever in the history of everything that has ever taken place anywhere.