But his problem is that a character becomes forced into death means going into the past to face him again. Not that I minded going back into the origins of a character - or seeing the past. This one is sort of an "Oliver Twist" gone bad, with EE playing the Fagan role. The role of the Bagh Nakh is also examined - as well as the importance of the Geomancer throughout time. It's not too bad. I do like the period drama to it. Of course, Valiant is slowly establishing a back and forth history that most of the comics will have a difficult time preserving in the future, but... I guess that some of the books are just filling in gaps before the great savior of Chaos comes in a month or so.
The coming of the Swordsman, eh?
I always liked the Swordsman. No idea why. I probably had some silly affinity for the characters I could never read or find - those people that were dead before things started. But I even had an affinity for when the Swordsman came back from the dead in the early West Coast Avengers books to be with Mantis. The issue introduces the Swordsman - and fills in a little bit of Hawkeye's back story, too. I could feel the sound of the Silver Age Marvel - especially in the dialogue of the book. But it isn't bad at all. The costume, while a little silly, certainly, isn't bad. The Captain America shrieking like a little girl when he got the letter from Nick Fury - that's pretty darned bad. The issue, though, is good. We see that Swordsman is nearly the combatant that Cap is, and defeats him - with the tragic fall ending the book. Cool to see the opposites, too. The attacker vs the defender. Nice.