Are you a fan of the William Dozier Green Hornet series? Do you wish someone would do a good crime story based on this version? Then you need to be picking up Green Hornet: Blood Ties.
A four-part mini-series from Dynamite Entertainment, Blood Ties serves as a prequel to Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet and Kevin Smith’s Kato. Taking place 20 year’s before the events of the main series, the Hornet and Kato have been operating in Century City for over four years and the mobs are on their last leg. Tony & Joe are two of the last five family bosses. Tony is dying and his hotheaded son is due to take over. Joe is looking to retire but knows that Tony Jr. will be bad for the business he’s spent his life building.
Meanwhile, Yakuza boss, Oni Juuma is looking to avoid the law in Japan so he moves his operations to Century City. As a buy in he offers the other Japanese boss his services in removing the Green Hornet.
As in any good crime drama, it is the criminals that move the story along, as the protagonist is in the business of tracking down the villains. The Hornet and Kato are brutal enough to sell their roles as the people the mob pays for protection. They are sneaky, smart and dangerous. This is a very believable portrayal of the characters, which are essentially deep undercover operators with absolutely no back up.
The story is by Ande Praks, who also writes the Kato title for the Kevin Smith version. He does a great job of tying together stories of father/son relationships with a street level crime story. One complaint: the time jumps, The story starts with “Some Twenty Years Ago” followed by the narration “Over Four Years Now,” later we are introduced to Tony & Joe with the tile “Thirty Five Years Earlier” I kept wondering which starting point we’re starting from and just what year this is all taking place. It’s a minor gripe, but acts as a speed bump for me each time I read it. I just wish they’d give me dates.
The art is by Johnny Desjardins and fits the nourish feel of the story. Again I have a small gripe, while his art if good, there is not enough detail on his characters making them look like variations of the same person. I doubt, however, that Desjardins’ work has reached its pinnacle yet and he is definitely a talent to keep an eye on.
One final complaint, there are a few instances where the word balloons are going to the worn characters. While this doesn’t ruin a story, it always stands out as something that should have been caught before it went to print.
That said, this is probably the best Green Hornet story out there right now. This is high praise considering the enormous talent that is Matt Wagner is doing the definitive golden age Green Hornet story with Green Hornet Year One. But that is another review.
Rating 4 out of 5 Stars
