The Sword Vol. 3 - Earth

So my problem with the last volume, was that it was just so cut and dry. There was not really a whole lot there as far as substance. It was just go here, find bad guy, fight! This one takes that even above and beyond. In the second volume it takes Dara and Zakros two and a half issues to start fighting. In this volume she finds the next guy in one issue... so right after she kills Zakros, Spoiler if you hadn't read vol. 2 yet, she heads to Mexico to find this other douche... it all just seems so easy. There's no build to it, there's not detective work going on to find him, it's just "hey lets walk over here and fight him!" Maybe it's because the writers know that the strong point of this book is the combat, but i can't tell.

There are a few good twists and turns that i didn't really see coming, and i liked the way they played out for the most part. Also there's a lot more back story in this volume, but not on any of the main characters just the villain. Now while these characters are really interesting, and it's cool to see where they came from, and some of the shit that they did in the past, especially when Dara's dad is in those flash backs, but it is kind of a moot point by the end of the volume. I mean This is kind of a big *Spoiler* but does it really make a whole lot of sense to spend six issues building up a character's back story if you're going to murder them at the end of the arc? I dug what i saw, i just don't see why i saw it. It didn't reveal anything about the overall plot, just character development for a dead guy...

But like i said, if you're still reading this it's because of the action. Now while the swordplay in this volume kicks it up a notch, and they keep finding new inventive ways to use it and it's abilities, the "earth bending" we'll call it for lack of a better term, was a bit lack luster at first. See, in the fight with Zakros i wasn't sure what they could do that would top other times I'd seen these kinds of abilities, and they did a great job from the start. Where as here he kind of just throws rocks at her for a while. It was a little uninspiring, but maybe the slow build to the good stuff was to balance out for them finding him so soon. Like you can find the bad guy right away, but we're going to make the fighting kind of lame for a while just so there's still a build. When it gets going there is some cool stuff that he does with the Earth that i kind of had to take my statement back a bit, i just don't know why they didn't start doing the cool stuff a little sooner? Also, my least favorite aspect of the book, the fact that they're fugitives and they're on the run, is kind of ramped up at the end of the book by a kind of plot twist/cliff hanger. It's not a huge shocker when you get to it, I'm just not sure if i like where it's going.

If you read one and two, this one is more of the good stuff from that. But the stuff that those were missing this doesn't give you either... so if you're already liking this then who am i to tell you to stop, but if not then there's nothing that new, yet anyways. Also if you haven't read one and two, you could pick this up if you want. If you don't give a shit about the story, it would almost be easier to just pick up the random issues with combat, because that's really where the book shines. Just pretend it's the Lost Chapters of Avatar or maybe a super distant sequel or something... If you do want to check the book out, you can Search Amazon.com for The Sword Vol. 3 earth, or just click the box below.

Thanks for Reading!
James