Jessie Robertson reviews 7th Sword #1…
“Daniel Cray—a samurai mercenary—stumbles upon the legendary city of ZenZion, a mysterious desert outpost under siege from a vicious warlord. The peace-loving citizenry beg Cray to defend them… forcing Cray to reluctantly draw his deadly “Malathane” sword one last time to battle a relentless army of robots and their savage masters.”
We jump into this story in a futuristic society where man-made robotic killing engines roam the desert looking for oil tankers; they run afoul of a man named Cray, mysterious, dangerous and an extremely good fighter. The tanker does not survive and Cray awakes in empty sand. He has no water, no food and no way of knowing where he is, and he also clings to one of the people he was protecting on the truck, a young boy.
That is the beginning of the story and you instantly get that you’re in a world that will be fleshed out over many issues, not just a one shot. The backdrop of the story is in a peaceful community, created from the brink of war that keeps its nose clean and away from conflict. But a dictator has made threats towards them and they believe Cray is a messenger. We keep hearing the name Kavanaugh, the warlord whom everyone fears but we never meet him.
Cray has a secret past as a soldier left behind during this cataclysmic war and the people in the community are quick to distrust him except one young woman. Chaos quickly ensues and Kavanaugh has sent a lieutenant to give these people an offer: a half human, half android woman with spider like appendages emerging from her back. She brings with her a group of Sames, cloned lizard creatures and they quickly kill several innocent civilians and give the community an ultimatum to decide.
The book quickly sets up quite a few elements in its world in a brisk pace and as I said, that will serve as the backdrop for a longer story. Right now, every element feels like an archetype (mysterious hero, peaceful city avoiding war only to have war brought to its doorstep, hidden villain) but I’m sure those will flesh itself out. That will be the test of the book to see if there is enough personality in all those elements to keep readers interest. Robotics seem to be a big piece of the puzzle; there have been several already but not yet sure how they fit into all the structures of the story. It was a quick read but kept my interest, so I’m curious to see where we go next.
7th Sword also feels very samurai-esque and we do get that reveal near the end of the first issue where Cray reveals that he has in fact been trained on Earth as a samurai, so that could be another factor to draw people in.
Jessie Robertson
Originally published April 23, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
