Revival #18 Review

After last week’s issue, the general tone for Revival #18 is somewhere between “tense” and “depressing”. Does it manage to lift spirits or dig deeper into its rural noir mysteries?

The official description from Image:

While Dana is obsessed with discovering the identity of the masked Reviver who attacked her, her family is falling apart. And just what has escaped Reviver Anders Hine been up?

In short, this issue isn’t a happy issue, but its riveting and interesting nonetheless. The general tone is tense with a strong sense of looming doom. Normally I would complain about this stalling and building up, but it does manage to focus on the important characters and, in essence, set the stage. Dana has problems as a mother, Martha has teenager problems and there are a bunch of people up to bad stuff – the usual for Revival.

As usual, Tim Seeley shows the benefits of having a single vision with only a small creative team to drive it. The writing is solid and gets to the core of each character. Throughout the entire issue, there’s a clear idea of the relationships between each key member and, perhaps more importantly, a shifting dynamic that makes the dialogue worth reading. This issue has little to offer in ghosts and mystery itself, but Seeley nonetheless ensures an interesting read.

Visually, Mike Norton is on hand again to depict this small town. Revival #18 focuses on the standard color palette of blues and whites, yet the small changes here and there make for an effective impact – it’s not splashy, but it works. Norton understands human faces and his expressions and attention to detail are a vital part of this title.

All in all, this isn’t a bad issue for Revival. In fact, it’s quite a good one but, in the long run, it just isn’t important to the longer story.