- Revolution 9 #1
- Mad Cave Studios
- Written by Mark London
- Illustrated by Carlos Reno
- Colors by Jao Canola
- Letters by Dave Sharpe
- Age Range: Teen+
- Genre: SF – Science Fiction
- On-Sale: 9/25/24
- FOC: 8/26/24
- Cover A UPC: 601947045910-00111
- Artist: Rossi Gifford
- Cover B UPC: 601947045910-00121
- Artist: Raymund Bermudez
- Colorist: Sebastian Cheng
- Release date 09-25-2024
After years as an assassin for the Order of Nine—an ancient order dating back almost 3,000 years—Velveteen has turned her back on the very organization that saved her. Tasked with the murder of otherwise innocent hacker Jasper Dean, she sets off to save his life and discover the terrible secret that marked him for death. With the entire Order after them, Velveteen and Jasper must escape their grasp and prevent them from toppling society as we know it.
I could take the easy way out of this and just say that I read my advance review pdf of Revolution 9, then immediately pre-ordered the series trade paperback. But that just seems cheap. Instead, I’m gonna tell you why I chose to invest my moderately hard-earned cash on a comic to which I’ll already have access as further review pdf copies come my way.
Let’s set the Wayback Machine to November 2019. Upstart comic publisher Mad Cave Studios was releasing an action-packed story of assassins, betrayal, & the machinations of an ancient order behind it all. The book had all the promise in the world and looked truly amazing, but seemed somehow… stifled. Maybe it was a timing thing or a story that needed legs and a little more room to run.
Now, here we are five years later, and Mad Cave is going back for another bite at the apple… but this time Mark London and his crack squad of storytellers are breaking away from the Cave’s tendency to release books that stand on their own. Now Revolution 9 is springboarding a new concept for the publisher, kicking off a shared universe and connected stories.
In the beginning, Mark London was an ambitious writer who wanted to tell all of the stories. Seriously, when Mad Cave started out, he was writing just about everything they were putting out. Because I have been following along from the start, I’ve had the good fortune to see London’s growth as a writer. I’ve always liked his comics, but lately, his pen is putting out some of the coolest releases and personal favorites of mine. I never doubted Mark’s enthusiasm for the work, and I’ve always admired it, but I gotta tell ya he’s hitting his stride these days.
Now… we’re talking comic books here. That means more than just pretty words, it also means pretty pictures presented in sequential fashion to help present a narrative. Carlos Reno picked up the assignment and ran with it. Visual storytelling done right catches both the action in all of its glory and the quiet moments where the characters live. There are sequences in the issue that do everything but move themselves across the page, Reno is so good at capturing dynamic action in still panels. His work is shored up by Jao Canola, bringing color and depth to the world of Revolution 9. Those arterial sprays, the use of brown scale in flashback scenes where the only color is red… Chef’s Kiss, man.
Finally, credit must be given to letterer Dave Sharpe. Where most of the issue’s dialogue is straightforward, there are moments of brilliance. At one point, master assassin on the run Velveteen uses an enemy as a human shield against a hail of bullets. The sound effects go further than just indicating noise. The way Sharpe incorporates them into the panel’s illustration there’s an actual sense of impact. Team Wick couldn’t have done it better.
With all my praise, I can’t say that Revolution 9 is a perfect book. But much like the glicks & glucks you’d get from playing a vinyl record, the small imperfections in the book got me thinking about some of the older comics I loved as a kid. Far from taking me out of the story, they took me back to the days when comics were just pure unadulterated FUN. With more headshots.
Final Score: 12/13
