Structured like the first few episodes of your new favourite TV show, fan favourite artist Mike Norton (Green Arrow/Black Canary, Battlepug) and New York Times bestselling writer Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, New Exiles)’s Revival has shades of everything from the rural gothic horror of 30 Days Of Night and Twin Peaks, to the snow-bound noir of Greg Rucka’s Whiteout and the Coen brothers’ Fargo, there’s so many compelling plot threads and potential drama-bombs laid out for future exploration and detonation.
In backwoods Wisconsin some of the dead no longer stay dead. They’re not shuffling around eating people, mind, they’re just carrying on as before, albeit it with the psychological impact of knowing that they should have kicked the bucket.
Our sympathetic POV in this familiar world turned upside its head is Officer Dana Cypress, a divorcee with a young son, is taking point on all ‘Revival Day’ related crimes while the sleepy town of Wausau lurks under a CDC quarantine, forcing her to balance her personal life, the cabin fever conflicts brought out by this community forced to live under siege, and investigate the murder that her sister kept secret and can no longer recall.
Add to that something seriously strange lurking in the woods, a redneck exorcist convinced that this is his time to deliver everyone from evil, a journalist who’s stumbled on the supernatural, and Cypress’s overbearing Sheriff father, and Revival sets up enough arcs and supporting characters across the first five issues collected here to sustain it for a good two or three seasons if AMC fancy following up The Walking Dead with a far more original and equally character-driven look at unlife after death and the impact it has on the people it hits hardest.
The only disappointed in this first volume – aside from the lack of any resolution, obviously – is that of all five potential pieces of Jenny Frison (Angel, Hack/Slash)’s absolutely gorgeous cover art so far that could have been used to wrap up the package, they went with something considerably less eyecatching.
