The Devil’s Red Bride: The Complete Series

Deadly deals abound in this cutthroat, beautifully gory revenge mission saga from Girner (the Scales and Scoundrels series). In a red-toned, bloody world rises up Ketsuko, a samurai and survivor of the Aragami massacre. She is drawn to rescue a woman in service, Fubei, from her drunken boss. When she finds out the samurai that employed Fubei are set on slaughtering the ones who massacred her family, she decides to follow, for the sake of her own vengeance. But Ketsuko’s made a literal deal with the devil, which grants her devastating power in exchange for a whole lot of blood. Filled with righteous anger and moral ambiguity, the comic’s war-torn landscape breeds only brutal protagonists, some who are just more sympathetic than others. There are no heroes here, and readers will be shocked to see just how many saviors in disguise have turned to the devil. Bivens’s wonderfully hideous art renders the plot twists into an addictive ride. A few sections suffer from a narrative vagueness (with lines such as “every second before an unbearable eternity”), but the overall onslaught of double-crossing makes up for passing cryptic phrasing. Fans of the samurai genre will thrill in this sleek and splattered modern entry. (Sept.)