Lone Wolf and Cub Vol. 23: Tears of Ice

Holy hand grenades! Edo is flooded, and by flooded, we mean crazy-flooded. Bridges are crumbling, rivers are washing past retaining walls, and everything in Edo is floating away, including our vengeful ronin, his foe, and his little boy. In an ironic show of samurai respect, little Cub Daigoro gets saved by the conniving Retsudo Yagyu. And proving he can lend a hand, too, Lone Wolf Ogami pulls someone to safety as well -- but maybe he should have let him drown. Eventually, the two opposing master swordsmen dry off and go head to head in a sword fight of a thousand stances and couple of days length. This seems like it could be the deciding bout between the two, unless that nasty, Abeno Kaii gets in the way, and he seems to do that a lot lately.

Kazuo Koike is a prolific Japanese manga writer, novelist, and entrepreneur. Early in Koike's career, he studied under Golgo 13 creator Takao Saito and served as a writer on the series. Koike, along with artist Goseki Kojima, made the manga Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub), and Koike also contributed to the scripts for the 1970s film adaptations of the series, which starred famous Japanese actor Tomisaburo Wakayama. Another series written by Koike, Crying Freeman, which was illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami, was adapted into a 1995 live-action film by French director Christophe Gans.

Goseki Kojima was a Japanese manga artist known for his collaborations with Kazuo Koike. The team was often referred to as the “Golden Duo.” Kojima’s best-known work was Lone Wolf and Cub. Other titles attributed to Kojima are Samurai Executioner and Path of the Assassin. In 2004, Kojima won an Eisner Award.