7th Sword #6 Review


7th Sword_6Admittedly, I went into 7th Sword #6 trying to like it, while expecting unoriginal drivel all the same. Once I read it, I was not surprised. While it dabbles with originallity, it never gets more than a corner of a toe into the water.

First, the official description from IDW:

When the 7th Sword finds its way back to Cray, it seems as though a choice has been made for him. But Cray knows that ultimately, as a Kenji, there was only ever one choice—even in the face of hopeless odds.

7th Sword #6 is the part of the story where the rogue hero (Cray) decides to go back and rescues the team at the nick of time. Honestly – it’s that bland. There’s no detail here. Cray doesn’t get any real decent exposure and nothing truly unique is ever explored, aside from a few nice-to-look-at robots. It’s dry bones from cover to cover.

A lot of this is down to the writing. John Raffo simply just doesn’t try to inject anything into this story. If you consider all the original elements introduced from the start – the non-earth setting, the blend of samarai and mechanical themes – none, if any, are ever really focused on. Raffo introduces some robots, sure, but the crazy spider lady from issue #1? Still nowhere to be seen.

Visually, there isn’t much to look at either. Outside is dark browns, blues and greys while indoors is slightly brighter greys and blues. If you step back to panels blur together. That’s thanks to Douglas A. Sirois, which is a little bit of a shame when Nur Iman’s pencils are the only decent thing in this title.

If you haven’t guessed, this issue isn’t very impressive. The writing is almost phoned in and the art team have to pick up the slack. Unfortuantely, there’s only so much that can be done at this stage.

OUR RATING
3
  • + Looks okay
  • - Bland, unoriginal development
  • - Poor color variation
  • - Can we get this over with?

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