Looking for the ‘talisman’ to use to attempt to reverse the wraithifying of an entire city of people, the group of Rev comrades headed to the last known location of the Axalon discovered in their previous investigations/adventures due to the ship’s ties to the powerful relic. Thank you Mr. Paoli, welcome to the brig…
-Currently-
This issue continues the adventures of, well, GI JOE’s former Adventure Team (Force) members and the current REVOLUTIONARY team members as they work to uncover the secrets of the ‘talisman’ and Project: Iceman. They’re nearing the finish and as you can expect, the action, intrigue, and various threads are starting to be pulled together for the series culmination next issue!
Largely focused on what happened to Sergeant Savage when he took his jaunts through time thanks to the talisman energy, the Axalon, and the notorious scheming of former ally Krieger; this issue begins the end for the series. Savage becomes a person from the 40’s fighting in WWII, to living in the 90’s fighting ninjas and totally picking up on the language and catch phrases of that radical time, to now; all the while upholding his ideals and determination as his story (and the story of the Axalon/Krieger/the talisman) further unravels.
-The Visuals-
The art is acceptable to awesome in this issue. Revolutionaries’ art has been down right good for the most part, I know I criticized Fico Ossio’s art during Revolution, but I think he’s growing in ability, and had some help from comrades like Guido Guidi and Ron Joseph to take some of the load (or maybe I’ve just become accustomed to the style and nuances). Add in a page of guest work by one my favorite artists, Guido Guidi, who draws and colors an action page straight out of the 90’s for good ol’ history hopping Sgt. Savage and some notable 90’s cobra baddies! Mr. Guidi had already practiced this style via his previous Revolution #5 cover where he drew deep inspiration from the Generation 2 Transformers comic to create his beautiful 90’s style incentive cover. The coloring work by Sebastian Cheng on the other 21 pages is excellent helping to give a grainier dull, less focused feel to events happening in the past, and straight up being bright, colorful and sharp for the events happening in the present. No issue would be complete without Tom B. Long’s action-intensifying Skraxxxh, Pow, and Wooms!
-Story-
I’m going to be honest, I went and re-read all the previous issues of REVOLUTIONARIES to fully grasp everything going on in this issue and start to put it all together. Upon my first read of this issue, keeping the characters, and the jaunts through time straight was difficult even with the visual support. Going back and re-reading helped me to focus in on understanding how events lead up to the point of issue #7, and to better understand all of its cool history building. There are a lot of characters, locations, and events to keep track of and it can seem like a whirlwind of confusing events, if not read carefully. But reading carefully, yields a deep story and creatively written unraveling of another piece of Hasbro-verse history. New characters like Action-man, Mayday, Krieger, and Sgt. Savage are being fleshed out to a level where they are becoming enjoyable to read and solid in who they are. Even Blackrock, for TF fans is becoming less annoying to me, although the seemingly misguided Centurion still needs to grow on me more. Kup’s portrayal has always been fun, and welcomed in the series as a bit of a known commodity, but his interaction with the others has really started to grow him more as well. This series and this issue in particular, was a deciding factor in me taking the digital plunge into the latest HumbleBundle by IDW and Hasbro with a ton of GI JOE IDW Collections, and TRANSFORMERS too, it seemed the perfect fit to help me revisit the material that led up to where Revolutionaries, First Strike, and the whole Hasbro-universe is at and gives me another excuse to donate toward a worthy cause.
-Oops-
It is, however, unfortunate that due to some glitch in IDW’s scheduling, we already have some idea of where this issue, and the next are headed, due to First Strike #1 being already available, and the big surprise in this issue of REVOLUTIONARIES was, well, already revealed in said First Strike issue— there might be other clues to the finale based on characters that appear (and those who are missing)-.
We understand, not everything is controllable.
-Rating-
Overall, a more than satisfying read that leads to the final issue of the series. Events are coming together well, the unfortunate big non-reveal (which would have been so much more of a ‘Whoa!’ moment), with the ever enjoyable Kup running at the mouth, and the fleshing out of Sgt. Savage (- I def read Sgt. Savage with Hound’s/John Goodman’s voice-), an interesting TF cameo or two, and tracks to TF issues far past. I think this is a solid issue leading up to the series encore with an above average level of interest for TF fiction fans to read.
out of
