Saints (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Though Saints debuted concurrently with Gene Luen Yang's Boxers in 2013, it is considered by many to be a sequel and not just a continuation of the story. Consulting with both Google and Amazon, Saints is a sequel. I felt like it was a sequel. To call Saints the second volume of the story is wrong because that book actually retells many of the events that occurred in Boxers from a different point of view. The story ends right where Boxers ends with the destruction of the Hanlin Academy Library and the fall of the rebelling Boxers. 

I fact my biggest complaint about this award winning work is that there isn't a third volume that tells of what happened after the Boxer Rebellion ended. Boxers is from the perspective of a Chinese villager wanting to free his land from foreign invaders. Saints is from the perspective of a native who finds the family that they always wanted in the foreign bureaucrats' sponsored Catholic Church. I would have liked a third book from the perspective of the victorious 'foreign devils' after repelling the rebellion.

Saints is the story of Vibiana. In the Chinese language, the word for the number four sounds almost like the Chinese word for death. Being the fourth child in her family, Vibiana is considered a pariah. It also doesn't help that  she was born on the fourth day of the fourth month. Her grandfather also blames her for the death of her father, the elder man's son, and names her 'Four-Girl'. The mistreatment causes Vibiana to rebel, making a horrifying scowl at everyone she meets. When taken to a local acupuncturist, she finds friendship and warmth from the man and his wife who teach her the scriptures. Soon the Four-Girl gets baptized by the local Catholic missionaries and is rechristened Vibiana.

Vibiana proclaims her new faith to her family. In response, she was severely beaten for her conversion to Christianity. Vibiana runs away with the missionaries who have been ordered to congregate behind the protective ramparts of the capitol city of Peking.

Working in the orphanage, Vibiana meets a young convert who is in training to become a monk. Love seems to be in bloom between her and the boy. However, when the horde of Boxers lead by volume one's protagonist Bao, arrives at the city gate, the relative safety Peking's defenses offers appears seemingly in doubt. 

Inspired by visions of the French Catholic hero, Joan of Arc, Vibiana decides to quickly learn about kung-fu from her paramour, seemingly inspired to save her new family from the heathen Boxers. Only in a strange twist fate, Vibiana's new found faith in God will result in saving the life of the most unlikely of all people involved in the uprising; an enemy that readers of both volumes had thought was long deceased. 

Boxers, along with Saints was nominated for a number of awards. It won the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best young adult literature as well as well as being named one of School Library Journal's best books of the year. Boxers & Saints has remained in print by publisher First Second, with several editions including a a 2-volume boxed set and a deluxe size compendium of both books in a single paperback edition.

Completing this review completes Task #4 (A Graphic Novel Sequel) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Boxers

Gene Luen Yang crafts an incredible account of the Boxer Rebellion. While the main characters are fictional, I learned a ton about a part of World History that a week ago, honestly, I couldn't have told you anything about other than I know that the combatants were the Chinese vs. Missionaries. And it turns out that I wasn't even 100% correct about that.

Yes, Christian missionaries, primarily from the Catholic Church, were working to convert the heathen natives of China. However, it wasn't the ruling government who was rebelling. The ruling house in China at the time was pretty much powerless because of a conglomerate of British, German and even the American government, pushing to colonize China. The monks and nuns of the Catholic Church were seen as foreign devils, seeking to pervert the people of China to follow Christ and thus becoming enslaved by Western ideals. To become a Christian meant permanent banishment from your family and possibly your community in China. 

Little Bao is a young boy who sees a missionary destroy one of his village's beloved idol gods. Eventually, some of the villagers become followers. But in reality, some are using their new found religion as an opportunity to bully their own people. Any attempt to resist a missionary or one of their followers is met with government force as the foreign government officials in Peking see the church as a way to subdue the masses. 

When a beloved member of Little Bao's village is killed for attempting to save a town from foreign government brutality, the boy begins a pilgrimage to Peking in hopes of freeing China from it's devilish overlords. Using the lessons in the martial arts that he learned from his fallen mentor, as well as encouraged by visions of the first Emperor of China, Bao leads a group of men to the capital city. Along the way, he gathers countless followers including a group of women martial artists. But once at his destination, the leader of the Boxers, those devotees of kung-fu who fight with their hands and their passions, will find that the situation within the walled community isn't so black and white as war makes even the most noble of intentions become corrupted.

What makes this work so unique is that this is not the end of the story. 2013's Boxers tells of the Boxer Rebellion from the side of the Chinese population who believed that the foreign bureaucrats and missionaries were evil invaders who turned their disciples into traitors. Volume 2, titled Saints will show a different perspective of the conflict. Only it's not from one of the foreigners but of a native Chinese citizen who finds not just safety and religion, but a sense of belonging they never received from their blood family.

I personally own the copy of Boxers that I read. I waited a very long time to get a copy of Saints before reading. While that book is about a third of the size of Boxers, I didn't want to wait a long time to read it. I was also concerned that I might forget something. if I waited. The Boxer Rebellion is so complex. It's not a 2-sided coin kinda thing. There's so many parts, players and philosophies behind what transpired in the very early 20th century in China. I'm very glad at Gene Luen Yang's attempt to present both sides of the story. It's a creative yet bold endeavor from a creator that my fandom is growing with every work of his I read. I look forward to seeing that other side, much sooner than later, thankfully. I think it's going to add so much depth to this already weighty story.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.