Comic Review: Revival Volume 7

Up until this penultimate volume, the Image Comics series Revival has stayed…more or less “sane”.  By that, I mean that even though it revolves around the concept of a noir story in a small Wisconsin town where, one day, a group of the recently deceased all came back to life and can’t quite die, the story had some rules it was following and that was that.  Remove the whole “dead came back” thing, and the story follows a more realistic vibe.

But then the 7th volume, subtitled Forward, threw me a real curveball.

I am referring to the fact that General Louise Cale, who came in as some sort of late-in-the-series villain, decided to hire a specialist to bring in the Cypress sisters.  And the woman is, apparently, an Amish ninja.  And so is her young daughter.

Don’t get me wrong here.  The very concept of an Amish ninja is just so weird I can’t help but dig it, and this series isn’t exactly grounded in realty…but it seemed to be a step further away from what the series had been doing up until this point, and it did knock my suspension of disbelief–and remember, this is a series about the dead coming back and their souls running around separately–for a loop, enough to somewhat knock me out of the series.

As it is, the Amish Ninja and her Amish Ninja daughter are only one more element to toss into the series, even if it is the craziest.

But here’s how things seem to be going:  General Cale really wants to bring the Cypress sisters in, but the sisters still have a couple allies.  Dana’s ex-husband, her cop partner, and the girls’ father (the local sheriff) are all helping in small ways, but then there’s Dana’s young son Cooper.  He gets a playdate with the little girl who came back from the grave, and due to the fact Em killed that girl’s soul, the girl seems to be able to slip around unnoticed.  All that means Cale will have a break-out on her hands, and she is not as in-control of the situation as she thinks she is, or as good a person as she may have tried to convince herself she was.

After a few trades where writer Tim Seeley was answering questions and the like, this one didn’t do so much of that.  If anything, it led to more mystery as yet another lead to Em’s murder turned up nothing, and Em’s pregnancy still hasn’t quite been explained, but that’s clearly for the climax in the final trade (which yes, I do have).  But really, as much as I dig the Amish Ninja concept, it doesn’t fit in with the rest of this series.  It was distracting, and as Seeley and artist Mike Norton set up the conclusion, I don’t think that’s a good time to toss something like that in.

7.5 out of 10 daredevil stunts by the revived.