I have mixed feelings about Gumroad. Gumroad is a comic selling site that many independents use to sell their comics and other things. Most of those things I can’t understand- like, what is a Instagram Family? Do you get like 50 strangers DMing you about their bad boyfriend? I don’t even…Anyway, one positive is that Urban Shogun’s been on their platform and now I can finally complete my review- of sorts. I reviewed Urban Shogun Volume I and II for Talk About It Tuesday a few years ago here and I liked it. Naturally I got busy with other comics and missed out when vol 4 came out but this oversight has been corrected! At long last, VOLUME IV! The art remains good and the story has a great mix of action and drama. We learn about a few new characters and the blood feud between the 2 ATL ninja (?) clans kicks off. The team started with a race between clan members and a fight broke out as Snake Venom the Korean fighter from Vol 3 was waiting in ambush for Crane but she got Cheeta instead.

The art looked crisp and the frames really focused on the actions of the martial arts. It’s a pity the story was only 19 pages as I find it a little difficult to completely consider their action vs static scene writing. Anyway, this leads to another point I liked- the characters are super-human but not super-hyper human. In Marvel they’d be mercked by essentially every minor character but they’d give a S.H.I.E.L.D agent a real challenge. But this makes the writer focus on the fighting technique rather than the flashy graphics. I saw their game is also on sale on Gumroad, which is something I like about the platform. Anyhoo Vol 4 seems to be the end, since they started making the Sankofa Sci-fi line. But who knows? If enough folks buy it, they might shift back to Urban Shogan. So, swing on by here to give them a shot, especially if you’re a fan of Martial Arts comics. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Yes, it’s my Wu Tang Comics style.