浪人 (1984)

Ronin (formally written as Rōnin) is an American comic book limited series published by DC Comics between 1983 and 1984. The series was written and drawn by Frank Miller with artwork painted by Lynn Varley. It takes place in a dystopic near-future New York City in which a ronin is reincarnated. The six-issue work shows some of the strongest influences of manga and bande dessinée on Miller's style, both in the artwork and narrative style.

Concept and creation

The ideas for Ronin came together while Miller was doing extensive research into kung fu films, martial arts, samurai comic books and samurai ethics for his work on Daredevil. He remarked that "the aspect of the samurai that intrigues me most is the ronin, the masterless samurai, the fallen warrior. ... This entire project comes from my feelings that we, modern men, are ronin. We're kind of cut loose. I don't get the feeling from the people I know, the people I see on the street, that they have something greater than themselves to believe in. Patriotism, religion, whatever — they've all lost their meaning for us."

Ronin was in part inspired by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's manga series Kozure Ōkami. Though Kozure Ōkami would receive an English localization several years later as Lone Wolf and Cub, at the time Miller could not read the text and had to rely on the artwork for his understanding of the story. According to former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, Ronin was originally slated to be serialized as part of an anthology series, alongside work by Walt Simonson and Jim Starlin. Ultimately, however, Miller was persuaded by publisher Jenette Kahn that DC Comics would give him as much freedom as he desired for the series, and DC published Ronin beginning in 1983.

Despite being both written and drawn by Miller, Ronin was created using the full script method; a full panel-by-panel script was written for each issue before any of it was drawn, though in some cases Miller made revisions to the story after he began drawing. For example, Miller has said that when he began drawing Ronin #1: "There was no explosion, no demon shot across the city. I'd planned a brief skirmish between the demon and the ronin, from which Virgo rescued the ronin. But, as I was working on the sequence, I realized that I had been building and building tension across the story and hadn't done anything to release it. The feeling of the story ... was that it needed something big to happen there, something to release the tension". In part to make room for this additional scene, Miller eliminated an extended sequence involving the Ronin and the woman and child he rescues. On Miller's art for the title, one critic noted, "There is a rawness to the storytelling, serrated artistic edges which were buffed out by the time Mr Miller took up his much more famous work, The Dark Knight Returns. Lurid colours and intricately detailed, often meticulously crosshatched art describe the dystopia of Ronin. Mr Miller employs cross-hatching to achieve a gritty and detailed look that complements the futuristic cyberpunk setting."

Like an earlier DC maxi-series, Camelot 3000, Ronin was printed on a higher quality paper stock. Each issue contains at least 48 pages of story and no advertisements.

Plot

In feudal Japan, a young, nameless samurai has sworn to protect his master, Lord Ozaki, from assassins. At night, the demon Agat disguises himself as a geisha and assassinates Ozaki as revenge for him stealing his sword and hiding it away so he cannot find it. The sword is powered by blood, and, if fueled by the blood of an innocent, will become powerful enough to destroy Agat. As the samurai prepares to commit seppuku at his master's grave, Ozaki's spirit appears before him and demands that he find the sword and keep it from Agat until he is strong enough to destroy him. The samurai becomes a rōnin and wanders the countryside for many years before returning to confront Agat at his castle. However, since the sword has never killed an innocent, it is not powerful enough to destroy Agat. The ronin impales himself with the sword, impaling Agat as well. As Agat dies, he curses the ronin, causing their souls to be trapped inside the sword until someone can release them.

Eight centuries later, social and economic collapse has turned New York into a lawless wasteland. At its heart is the Aquarius Complex, the headquarters of the Aquarius Corporation, which was founded by Peter McKenna, the inventor of biocircuitry; his wife, Casey McKenna, Aquarius' head of security; and Mr. Taggart, who funded and controls Aquarius. The Corporation develops and markets biocircuitry, a new model of plastics-based electronics capable of self-organization and self-repair under the direction of Virgo, the artificial intelligence at the heart of the Complex. Virgo works with Aquarius's ward, Billy Challas, who was born without limbs due to a genetic defect and has telekinetic powers, to develop his abilities and test prosthetic limbs for Aquarius. Billy has been having vivid dreams of the story of Ozaki, the ronin, and Agat, and he and Virgo are confused by the detail and historical accuracy of the dreams since his education did not cover feudal Japan.

Virgo explains what happened to Casey McKenna, who assumes that Virgo's logic units have been affected, but begins an investigation anyway. Agat infiltrates the complex, where he murders Taggart and assumes his form. Under this guise, he begins negotiating a weapons deal with the Japanese Sawa Corporation. This angers Peter McKenna, as he created the technology under the agreement that it would be used for non-violent purposes. He confronts Taggart and realizes that he is an impostor, but Virgo is unsurprised by this revelation and forms a pact with Taggart. Peter infiltrates Virgo's memory bank and forces her to show him what happened to Taggart. However, Peter refuses to believe the story and accuses Virgo of killing Taggart, and Agat captures him.