Revival #18

by

Who’s Under The Mask?

Like all fans of this series, I’m hungry for answers. Unfortunately, we didn’t get too many in this issue. At the same time though, I love the slow burning nature of this story. Minute events that happened months ago are still flowering, giving us taste by taste of mystery, horror and action. The creators aren’t racing to discover what really happened, and even in the way it’s written, solving the overall mystery of Revival Day is low priority to showing the changing relationships of the people in town and the personal struggle that every character must face during forced quarantine. So as much as I want to know, I also want the mystery to go on for as long as it can.

In this issue, a few key elements are fleshed out, including the tenuous relationship between Dana and Cooper, as well as Sheriff Cypress and Ed Holt. The former will likely lead Cooper down a dangerous path of exploration into the Reviver Spirit, while the latter will likely lead the community into a revolution against all authority, especially Ramin. Keep this in mind in the coming issues. These themes are all bridges, that will likely end in powder keg explosions in the next couple of issues.

A few times in this book, we see Martha on the verge of death. Revivers can’t be killed, so why does it look like Martha’s dying? Time will tell.

Here’s a bit of insight on the cover of this issue and what we were all expecting after the fiery conclusion of #17. Now, we all know that the mysterious masked reviver is the very same who we saw burn in the crematorium in the first issue. Since then I’ve been saying, “hey, aren’t their records of the deceased and shouldn’t it be easy to identify this guy?” When we saw Dana open the file on this investigation, I could have sworn the solution was within a turn of the page. But of course, according to the testimony of the crematorium-technician-turned-zen-bowler, the reviver was a first class John Doe. Cop out! Just kidding, it just adds another level to the mystery. It makes the Weimar/Masked Man scandal all the juicier.

If you’re just getting on this series, I highly recommend snagging the three volumes of paperback that are now out for Revival. This is the first issue of the next arc so there’s no better time to jump on than now. In fact, I find that it helps to read the previous couple of issues before cracking open a new Revival, to be fresh on the facts and to ensure you don’t miss out on any important details.

–John