ChiSai: Karma – The Complete Collected Edition
Written by Bart A Thompson
Various Artists
Approbation Comics
Cover Price: $3.50; Available Now

A lone mystery man has been making the life of crime lord Jeno a living hell with a constant barrage on his henchmen and bank accounts. Jeno has searched through his entire payroll looking for the perpetrator, only to discover that this “man” is actually a woman by the name of Shy, a young trained assassin that used to be in his employ and had thought to be left for dead. Armed with a katana and retractable matching sais, and protected head to toe with bulletproof armor, Shy is out to destroy Jeno’s empire before finally facing him one last time.

But Shy’s life is not as simple as just striking with vengeance. She also has a caring boyfriend that tries every night to talk Shy out of going through with her plans, and a young daughter unaware of what her mommy does. It is Shy’s family that becomes Jeno’s targets when her identity is discovered. When they are kidnapped by Jeno’s lethal right-hand woman, Shy makes a desperate frontal assault on Jeno’s high rise to save them and finally plunge a blade through Jeno’s cold dead heart.

Originally published as a six-part story in the Approbation Comics anthology series Myriad, Karma brings all 48 pages into one advertisement-free collection. Writer Bart A. Thompson showed his chops at setting up blistering fast seven-page arcs with solid cliffhangers for their debuts within Myriad, but as a continuous flow of energy from start to end, Karma works even better.

As a whole, the story of Karma plays out like a low-budget action flick with comic book influences, but doesn’t know that it is in fact a comic book. The story starts with an explosive fight sequence, a requirement for any action flick, which sets up the mysterious Shy and all of her abilities, as well as the Metroid-like revelation that this unstoppable fighter is a woman. From there, the story follows the tried-but-true pattern of establishing the main villain, the lesser minions, the characters that our heroine cares about and will ultimately become the bait to lure said heroine, and then the fast-cutting last half-hour of non-stop violence charged with a techno beat.

Unfortunately the anthology origins of Karma lead to the book incorporating a total of eight artists to bring the story to life. Each artist, some of whom are paired up for their segment, has a very different style, which leads to some very jarring changes in character appearance and how the art assists in telling the story. This is a small problem that doesn’t come near to ruining the story, and the changes were probably less noticeable in the anthology run, but when one page is drawn completely in pencil with very heavy gray shading, and the next is stark high-contrast black and white, it certainly breaks continuity.

The book has a wide assortment of influences and nods that allow readers to feel safe within familiar territory, while embarking with a new character. Of course for almost every comic book fan out there, female plus sais equals Elektra. This is perhaps the greatest obstacle that faces Thompson and may be the primary detractor for readers who think this is just a clone of Frank Miller‘s beloved character. Within Shy, readers may find hints of Dead Pool in her costume and fighting style, the single-mindedness of Batman, and is a brilliant bit of role-reversal Shy’s boyfriend Richard becoming the helpless and constantly worrying Mary Jane who is fated to become bait again and again. Worry not though, for while Thompson employs multiple character traits from different well-known characters, he is determined in every page to make Shy stand on her own two feet. Thompson brings in some classic video game and movie motifs in to aid the flow as well. The main villainess looks remarkable like the Linda character from Double Dragon, while the last half of the book takes the ascension-style of Game Of Death to new heights as Shy fights up through the skyscraper.

ChiSai brings to the comic book stand a strong, powerful, and richly complex female character that doesn’t pander to the spandex crowd, with Karma being the starting point for her adventures and well worth a flip through. Shy is now starring in her own comic book from Approbation.