By Thea Srinivasan
Although this comic was written over several years ago, its charm and beautiful scenery, art, and logic to the world makes it worth so much in the present. I will have to give a viewer discretion for this particular comic as features naked women and violence. This is my only warning for a viewer’s discretion before I go on.
The Mercenary is literally a tale about a mercenary in a distant land where he has a job to go and save the wife of a rich nobleman. After he saves the wife, she tries to seduce him to take her far away from her husband. Like the salaryman he was, he refused the woman. The next day, both of them journey back to the rich nobleman only to find out the wife betrayed the mercenary and wanted him executed. The mercenary escapes again and ends up being saved by an old man in another town. There he finds out that the daughter of one of the villagers was captured and it’s up to him to find a way to save her.
This comic was written several years ago before the idea of feminism and the changing identity of masculinity. Therefore throughout the comic, there are A LOT of stereotypes of how a woman and man should look like in terms of body proportions and how both genders ought to act in society in terms of jobs, personality, abilities, etc. While this isn’t the biggest drawback for me, it does bring up some questionable points as to how I would judge this aspect of the comic. Due to the obvious stereotypes and how it was used to develop the characters, I have to credit this as a huge flaw in the overall development of the comic. The mercenary is just another guy who wants to earn his living and move on. While he isn’t misogynistic, there’s no doubt that this guy is the epitome of a mercenary with a sense of morals. Also, the women just don’t do anything. They’re either trapped or in his arms naked. The only time I see these women as actual characters are later in the story when the mercenary has to save the daughter of one of the villagers. All of the characters are just flat pancakes in my opinion.
But what makes this story special is the beautiful world the author created. Even after several years, the construction of this world and settings are so beautiful and vivid. The best place to start would be how the buildings and towns are created. Although the world is considered primitive, there seem to be several innovations that allow for beautiful architecture and unimaginable feats that could seemingly be replicated in our world. One such feat is the idea of a giant hot air balloon holding a temple up. Although an impossibility, in reality, the idea itself is something that isn’t drawn too far out toward the realms of magic and fantasy. At the same time, this world features the idea of flying dragons that end up looking similar to pteranodons. The creativity and ingenuity of the author are phenomenal, and I have to say this is one of my favorite universes of all time.
The world wasn’t the only beautiful thing, but rather the art was able to stand on its own as a main staple. The style brought me back to a time of realistic hand-painted scenes that makes everything so live like. The only other way to describe would be like looking at a movie poster from the 1950s. The way everything and everyone was painted with such detail. My god, I am awestruck by the artwork. The movement of the piece was so beautiful. The movement between each panel is slower than what would be found in modern comics because of the amount of time it would take to create this detailed, realistic style. But considering the art style that was used, the movement was quite fluid.
I’m on the fence about the overall plot considering the bland characterization yet the stark ingenuity with the world. The only way for me to able to get explore this world, even more, is to follow the bland warrior on his adventures to save even more women. Big whoop in the end. I bet if I followed the mercenary for two or three more volumes, I would want him to suffer an injury and appoint someone new as the main character. But since he’s the main hero of this epic tale, he won’t be permanently injured anytime soon.
Overall, I love the surrealism and plausible creativity that the author has presented within this tale. Considering how old this comic is, I can see why there are several fans throughout the decades and can only hope there are more fans to come. My only hope is that someone else could revamp this world into a spin-off of some sort so that way I don’t have to deal with the pathetic characters in this tale. This story is for the person who wants an old-time comic with a pseudo-realistic fantasy feel without all the bells and whistles of implausible magic and mysticism.
Score: 4/5
The Mercenary: The Cult of the Sacred Fire
NBM Graphic Novels