King of Wolves

    (Dark Horse, 2005)
™ and © 2005 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

When Japanese historian Iba vanishes on his journey to the ancient Silk Road, his girlfriend Kyoko sets out to find him. Instead, she encounters a mysterious whirlwind that hurtles her into 13th century Mongolia, where she finds her love a slave of Genghis Khan.

King of Wolves is an overwhelmingly conventional time-travel-sword-and-sandal saga that’s full of the bloody action you’d expect from the creator of Fist of The North Star. But it has only two distinguishing characteristics: #1, it’s one volume long. #2, presented in all seriousness is the preposterous notion that Genghis Khan was a historical Japanese warrior. This will come as something of a shock to the Mongolian people who still revere him.

But, ultimately, it’s a love story, though not between a man and a woman, but to Japanese swordsmanship, which conquers all contenders. Iba is too distant a figure to be of much interest, and Kyoko’s only memorable act is to threaten to bite off her own tongue before submitting sexually to a stranger.

— S.A. Bennett
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