Review by C.J. Bunce

Get ready for the best action choreography you’ve ever seen in comics form in Titan Manga’s coming English translation of Chinese writer-artist Chang Sheng’s manhua series Yan.  The first of three 350+ page volumes follows Yan Tieh-Hua, an actress in the Peking Opera whose family is brutally murdered.  Why did she take the blame?  Or was her incarceration a conspiracy?  When Yan is believed dead in an explosion, Detective Lei returns to the cold case he worked on as a young cop when a woman appears purporting to live stream the murder of a man she believes responsible for the crime.  Could this be Yan?  Or is she a ghost?

If you liked the fierce and determined warrior of Atomic Blonde, supernatural powers like in Fallen and Tru Calling, an apocalyptic vision like in Alice in Borderland, and a dark revenge story full of martial arts action like that of The Crow, get ready for Yan.

Taiwanese writer-artist Chang Sheng is well-known for his work including the acclaimed novel Oldman, a story of a vengeful queen.  This manhua novel (manga but Chinese created), features visually stunning pencil and pen work, page after page of battle scenes featuring the story’s heroine.  First Yan is merely a young teen, angry at her mother as she discusses her plight with school mates.  But soon she is part of a Chinese performance that haunts her in daytime nightmares.  What is real?

Years later she is partnered (or pursued) by a spirit in the form of origami characters, visually a Chinese version of Marvel’s hardened and battle-damaged heroine Jessica Jones.

Here’s a look inside Volume 1 of Yan:

Yan will take Western readers full-circle back to the early days of manga entering the English market via the Mai: The Psychic Girl manga (Yan soon partners with a “man in the iron mask” inspired girl, a prodigy who is a mirror image of Mai).  It’s an exciting mix of genres, the kind of story readers would love to see adapted into the next CW TV series.  If you like police procedurals and cold case mysteries, you’ll want to follow the detective as he tracks down what’s behind these unusual crimes.

A.I. terrors.  Giant robot threats.  A bridge between worlds, traditional Chinese culture and new world technology.  Add the first volume of Yan to your pull list at Elite Comics or your local comic shop–or pre-order it now here at Amazon, slated for release June 24, 2025.