Of Swords and Parasols

The Four Constables is a fairly standard wuxia in comic book form, focusing on four swordbrothers raised by (of course) a famous kung fu master named Zhuge. They all have more than one name, but I’l just use their nicknames, which are Emotionless, Iron Hands, Life Snatcher and Cold Blooded. Life Snatcher is immune to alcohol and was a debt collector until his inner softie got him in trouble. He’s also either dumb but lucky, or crafty but acts dumb. Emotionless was crippled as a child, but became a master of projectile weapons and compensating for not being able to use his legs with his arms. He also has a flying wheelchair with projectile weapons. Cold Blooded was raised by wolves. I eagerly await Iron Hands’s backstory.

Unlike most kung fu masters and their pupils, Master Zhuge voted against the standard mountain/cave hermit thing and instead serves the throne and court. Very sensible of him. As a result, the four aren’t naïve young men entering the real world after being locked away on a mountain, but fairly well known heroes. It’s something of a fun mirror on the normal wuxia in this regard. They are currently trying to catch The 13 Masters, who are trying to overthrow the emperor or some such.

The art is pretty spiffy, despite sometimes falling prey to way too many muscles, but it’s rather light on plot and has even more fight scenes than shounen, and there’s something a little too stilted about the translation at times. Despite this, the series and characters have a certain charm, and I admit to being fairly fond of a particular subplot.

( Spoilery WANGST! )

(Where did all my wuxia icons go?)