Mark Allen reviews Seven to Eternity #1…
The God of Whispers has spread an omnipresent paranoia to every corner of the kingdom of Zhal; his spies hide in every hall spreading mistrust and fear. Adam Osidis, a dying knight from a disgraced house, must choose between joining a hopeless band of magic users in their desperat e bid to free their world of the evil God, or accepting his promise to give Adam everything his heart desires. Writer RICK REMENDER reteams with collaborators JEROME OPEÑA (Uncanny X-Force, Fear Agent) and MATT HOLLINGSWORTH (TOKYO GHOST, WYTCHES) to take you on a hard road through the strange fantasy world of Zhal. All men have surrendered their freedom for fear. Now, one last free man must choose.
Seven to Eternity is an original story, but you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d seen it before. Set in a world of blended sci-fi, fantasy and western tropes, there’s a strong sense of familiarity in both setting and plot, but this doesn’t stop the first issue being an exciting and mostly intriguing introduction with perhaps the best, most confident art of Jerome Opeña’s career so far.
Driven from their home a generation ago, the family Osidis live a rural life in the mountains of an unnamed country on a war-torn planet named Zhal. Their historical oppressor is still in power: alternately called God of Whispers and Mud King, he uses deceit, trickery and magic to bend others to his will and requires unquestioning servitude in return for their lives and some kind of twisted freedom.
It’s not yet clear what the Mud King asks of his servants – the answer to that question is teased at the close of the issue – but it’s clear that Zebadiah, the head of the family, would rather not find out. His son Adam and granddaughter Katie are introduced first, hunting a monstrous boar in the woods. Adam is suffering from an unnamed sickness that causes him to cough up blood, but, being the Stubborn Male Hero he is, doesn’t want his concerned adult child to worry about what is clearly a terminal illness.
When he and Katie are called back to their camp by Zed, it becomes clear that the society they have created is a patriarchal conservative fantasy – one where the old men call the shots and live out in the sticks because they won’t let anyone else tell them what to do. It’s a romantic vision of a now-rare way of life, right down to the Old West dialogue (“Bunkum and balderdash”, “Reckon they always knew”), one which is barely acknowledged as such until late in the issue; before then, we’re given a full-blooded celebration of an old white man’s independence with tone-deaf declarations like “I’m no slave” before his heroic departure.
Thus the plot proper is set in motion, and Adam sets off on more or less a giant Tauntaun to either kill or serve the Mud King. His wrestling with the notion of compromise shows a glimmer of hope that Seven to Eternity won’t share Zeb’s narrow view of the world, but Adam’s order that Katie should stay behind with her mother and the rest of the family is cause for concern. (The major disappointment here being that Katie seems like WAY more of an interesting character than her father.)
Once Adam is out in the world, Opeña has a chance to establish the world’s tone, and the general vibe is one of decay and ruin. There are flashes of The Dark Tower and The Dark Crystal in the book’s monumental structures and vast wastelands, and the artist’s creature design is both gruesome and uncomfortably visceral.
Unfortunately, this first issue of Seven to Eternity feels more comprised of moments than a forward-moving narrative, due to some jarring narration and poor establishment of new locations. Though Adam supposedly travels a great distance, we don’t get less a sense of how this world works and more a brief tour of its horrors. Perhaps that’s the intention – maybe we’re supposed to feel like aliens in this strange place – but it doesn’t make for all that
There’s hope in the book’s closing pages for more clarity about the series’ trajectory – which will hopefully include more of Katie as hinted by her presence on the cover – but overall this first issue is curious rather than compelling. Seven to Eternity embodies a problem that plagues many new series these days: instead of leading us into the real story right off, we’re shown a teaser for that story. This may end up being a dazzling saga of epic weight and mastery, but spending an issue getting to the start is a little tedious.
Rating: 6/10
Mark Allen
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Originally published September 24, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
