Revival #21 Review

Revival #21 tries to take the title to new locations and introduce new themes, but along the way it risks losing what makes it so special. With such a mixed identity, Revival #21 tends to be a jack of all trades while offering very little progress.

The official description from Image:

Dana becomes the first person to travel outside of the quarantine to assist the hunt for an illegal “Reviver” meat trafficking ring in New York City. Small town girl. Big city.

My main problem is the change to New York. Revival thrives off of its small scale – it’s what gives the characters the need to interact with each other and adds a certain sense of pressure and confinement. Once you throw Dana into New York, this goes out the window. That said, getting back to actual revivers and reminding the audience that Dana is the main character is something I’m all the more for.

While the change of location is questionable, Tim Seeley writes it well. The opening sequence ensures the Big Apple feels different from a simple rural town. For the rest of the issue, Seeley intergrates various aspects together, although the end result is often a lot of big talk about things readers already know. It’s very repetitive and once you throw in a half-decent cliffhanger, this issue starts and ends well but offers very little in the middle.

Visually, the New York landscape gives Mike Norton much more to play with, yet the constant use of interior locations hinders this further into the issue. That said, Norton’s art has always been a solid staple and this issue proves he can effortlessly adapt when he needs to, easily separating the two locales when its needed the most.

All in all this issue had a lot of potential but fell short. It has many strong points going for it but the series often likes to branch out and forget about things. It’s done this in the past and the early signs aren’t good here either.