Ronin: The Deluxe Edition

This darkly kaleidoscopic 1983–84 tale, a forerunner and inspiration for DC's Vertigo line, was groundbreaking in many ways, not least in its manga influences and its creator ownership. After showing his interest in samurai culture in acclaimed work on Daredevil and Wolverine, Miller here made a dystopian near-future New York City the venue for a reenactment of the battle between a feudal Japanese swordsman and the demon that killed his master. The demon inhabits the body of Taggart, president of technology research firm Aquarius; the samurai possesses limbless psychic Danny, a test subject in Aquarius's compound who gains cybernetic limbs thanks to the company's AI, Virgo. Caught between the two are Aquarius's tough, self-assured (and black) security chief Casey McKenna and her (white) husband, Peter, inventor of the company's biocircuitry. Billy-as-Ronin's encounters with New York's street denizens show Miller's emergent satirical side—but much of the work, which features nudity and visceral, violent action, was strongly influenced by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's then-untranslated manga classic Lone Wolf and Cub.