Ah, The Sword.  It’s like an old reliable…thing…that you can always count on.  Ever since it’s conception, it has moved at a blistering pace, entertaining and dazzling it’s readers in breathless suspense.  The story moments have been great, the twists have been turning, and violence has been copious.  It’s just been a great book.

This issue continues that trend, but it does it in an interesting way.  Last issue, we left off with Dara chasing down one of the “God Siblings” (as I like to call them) to a conflict that was going to prove to be pretty big.  And this issue sees this conflict happen.  And it’s big.  I’m not talking Orca big.  I’m talking like big big.  So big in fact, that they could only muster about four total lines of dialogue.  That’s right.  The whole issue only features two or three dialogue balloons.  Sure there is other sound effects and grunts as the characters battle, but the whole issue is serious a fight.  It’s a fight like one would see on Dragonball Z;  it’s big, destructive, and ferocious.  The only difference is that it doesn’t have the 14 weeks of talking that DBZ does.

So how does the fight pan out?  Pretty interestingly.  In the past issues, I’ve been lead to believe that the sword gives it’s user insane extra human powers that make them immune to exhaustion and other such effects.  But, in this issue, we see that while the Sword is powerful, it doesn’t mean that any of these celestial villains are going down easily.  The fight here is dynamic and ebbs and flows like any fight would.  Just when you think one warrior is down, the other one rallies.  And one of these rallies ends the issue in a really big way.  Again, the series ends on one of it’s strengths:  the twist you didn’t see coming.

With the turn of the final page, you are left wanting more from this issue, which is really it’s only downfall.  Yes, I read 22 pages of pure brawling, but at the price tag, I would like a few more morsels to sift through before I’m done.  This would have been a great opportunity to do a double sized issue, as they could have played the fight out while also moving the story forward.

But I’m still on board for what happens next.  If there’s anything to say about this series, it’s that if you get into it, it hooks into you like a drug.  All you want is your next fix.