| Heroes Comic: The Ten Brides of Takezo Kensei |
| Tuesday, 01 January 2008 | |
 I've been waiting for this issue for a long, long time.Possibly important, definitely controversial, issue 66 of the Heroes Graphic Novel entitled "The Ten Brides of Takezo Kensei" is bound to set off an explosion of fan theories. Beyond that, it's one of the best issues of the series that I've ever had the pleasure to read. The art is superb, the story is well-written, and the payoff at the end makes the entirety of Season Two look like episodes of "Cop Rock" (bonus points if you even know what that is). The issue begins with Takezo Kensei, still in his casket/prison, reminiscing about the many lives he's led and the many loves he's had over the last 400 years. And it only gets weirder from there... Among the many theories I've spouted here on this site, one comes immediately to mind. In one of my reviews last season, I hypothesized that maybe Kensei was the first evolved human, and that every "hero" from that point on was somehow a genetic descendant of his. At the time, it was just a flippant remark; a breezy "what if" rambling guess. It seems, perhaps, that I might have been partially correct.  The Baby-Daddy drama begins... But the hits just keep on a-comin': Over the course of the story, Kensei reveals that he's shagged more carpet than a 1970's interior decorator. Germany, Italy, France, Japan, The Pacific Northwest, The Civil War South, Montreal, Chicago, L.A... talk about a girl in every port! The clues here are subtle, but there none the less. 1747, Milan, Italy - Takezo marries a woman named Maria, who gives birth to two sons. Kensei, being the simpering twit that he is, decides to begin the long-standing string of daddy issues by "putting the money on the dresser", so to speak, and bailing on them for the new country. Anyone else feel the hair standing up on the back of their necks? Lemme give you a hint: Petrelli is an Italian name. Yeah. Chew on that a while. ...ready? Ok. The string of women continue, including a lusty jaunt back in Japan with Yaeko's great granddaughter. Keep in mind that Hiro and Yaeko never "bent time and space" (if you know what I mean), so it's likely that Yaeko married and had children with another man. It's also possible that Kensei and Yaeko's granddaughter were the eventual descendants of Hiro Nakamura, which means... yup, Hiro was gettin' down with his great-great-great-great grandma! Ewwwww... The only thing that saves me from this theory (and I really, really hope it does) is that after Maria, Kensei realized that he didn't like children. Never during the story is it mentioned that Kensei had children with any other wives, but it's never mentioned that he didn't, either. It's a slippery slope, that one.  The many pasty faces of Takezo Kensei. Kensei continues on his "chicks-I've-boffed" rant, recounting each wife in each city. Some of the tales are beautiful (Kensei reveals his secret to his wife Angelica, who keeps his secret all the way to her death bed at 87), some are tragic (his wife Louisa drinks herself to death after seeing him heal from a violent mugging), but all are interesting. Notably, Kensei saves his wife Diane from tuberculosis by injecting her with a vial of his blood in the early 1900's. Presumably, this is the first time he tried it, which sets a precedent for the events of Season Two. Also notably, after he heals her, she lives on and dies peacefully 20 years later. This means that the effects of his blood are not permanent and his blood does not continue to heal a person indefinitely once outside Kensei's body. Sorry, HRG. You're not bulletproof yet, buddy. While it is possible that Kensei is responsible for the various genetic anomalies that produce all the other heroes, it's also quite possible that this is all just another red herring by the show's creators. Case in point: D.L. Hawkins. He has powers, but is African-American (I hate differentiating people based on genetic ancestry, but this serves a point). So either Kensei would have had to mate with an African-American, or one of his two offspring (if they had powers or carried his genetic anomaly passively) would have had to mate with an African-American, or one of their children, or children's children, etc.  'One ring... to shag them all...' That's what makes this so frustrating. They added in a wife of every race and ancestry so that it's possible he had a part in all of the current heroe's lives. We've seen what his blood can do, who knows what his other bodily fluids are capable of? The Catch 22 is this: it's almost "too perfect". Everything works out a little too well, which makes me think it's all just a wild goose chase to get us looking the wrong way. Or, back on the other hand, perhaps they're just being too obvious. Who knows? The biggest twist however is not found in the past, but in the present. The final page (and I won't spoil it for you, check it out yourself) throws a whole new light on the upcoming season, and possibly answers a few questions that were left open by last season. It's one hell of an ending to one hell of a tale. I think they writers of the TV show could learn a few lessons from the writers of the comic. You can download the PDF of this issue from the main Heroes site (www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels ) or read it online with their flash viewer HERE . Personally, I don't like either and prefer to read it in .cbr format using a freeware program called CDisplay (downloadable here ). WARNING:
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