5 out of 5

Two reminders: that Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo, with its occasionally educational Japanese history / folklore factoids and cute anthropomorphic cast is, generally, kid appropriate, but not always; it is a book written to the stories and characters needs as deemed by Sakai, and occasionally that might mean some adult stuff.

Secondly: Stan Sakai and his cute anthropomorphic bunny samurai are so damn badass.

The Hero opens its two issues with excerpts from Mura’s novel about a demon warlord, the woman he’s kidnapped, and the hero chopping his way through a zombie army to rescue the latter from the former.  Usagi has inserted himself into these excerpts, and Sakai gives us some great, quick battle sequences.  Mura has hired Usagi as her bodyguard to escort her, essentially, away from her husband for a little while, as he’s taken to going on abusive benders over his upset that his status as a samurai is being outshone by his wife’s literary skills.  While Usagi balances his duties as her bodyguard – protecting her from bandits and others – with his reluctant acceptance of Mura’s “duties” as a wife to submit to her husband, Sakai gives us a dark and simple – but nuanced – tale about gender and tradition and intentions and more, balanced out by those fun opening sections.

Sakai’s art continues to be in top form, and it just looks lovely as colored by Tom Luth.  And the covers on these things are just stunning.

Stan, as I’ve likely stated too many times, has shown an insane ability to deliver literally hundreds of issues of compelling and fun Usagi tales, but I do have a deep appreciation for when he occasionally goes a bit darker and delivers something affecting like The Hero.