Black Jack, Volume 4

July 15, 2009
A mysterious, scarred surgeon charges outlandish fees for fantastic operations like body transplants, but he usually operates for free and also administers justice. Yet everything has a cost, psychic or financial, and both to patient and to doctor. Black Jack is no saint, and while he can deliver medical miracles, he cannot find peace himself. In Volume 4, Black Jack rehabilitates a beloved teacher gone on the skids, bullies a high school radio personality into silence to let her throat heal, and enlists residents of an apartment building to save the life of a militant who had tried to blow them up. Tezuka was known in Japan as the god of manga, and these quirky parables with twist endings show his mastery of cinematographic storytelling. VERDICT This could be his manga most resonant for Americans, with health-care reform on everyone's wish list. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a superdoctor like him? Maybe. The series ran to 17 Japanese volumes and won a Kodansha Manga Award, and this edition was just nominated for an Eisner. Older teens and up.M.C.

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