Bob started a part time local job while he also began commuting to Berkeley to work in John’s and my store. He eventually bought into the partnership and in fact spear-headed another store within a store, the “vintage comics & collectibles” room in the Telegraph Avenue store. He ran until the three of us broke up in 1975. Bob left to start his own store down the street in Berkeley, Best of Two Worlds. Nutshell elevator pitch for Seven Sons is a pretty decent hook: there’s a Second Coming afoot, built on a magic prophecy written in the birth of seven identical children to different mothers across the planet on July 7th, 1977. If it seems too good to be true, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear the whole thing was a scam concocted by mad science. Problems compound when an actual resurrection occurs in the midst of all the vigorous fakery. Cue hijinks.

PORTLAND, Ore. 03/16/2022 — Co-writers Robert Windom (Stars Fell On Alabama) and Kelvin Mao (10 Minutes Gone) team up with superstar artist Jae Lee for his first new creator-owned project since 1994 in the upcoming thriller Seven Sons. This seven issue miniseries is set to launch from Image Comics in June. He’s been around for a fair while, our Mr. Lee. He started really young - not even 20 years old when he got his start on a Beast serial in Marvel Comics Presents that ran concurrent to Sam Kieth’s breakout Wolverine feature, 1991. Kieth's was the trippy serial that immediately followed Weapon X and somehow managed to not stink up the joint. A fairly high-profile gig for both artists. Oh, and Lee’s credited co-penciler for the first two parts of that serial? Rob Liefeld, incidentally. And the funny thing was, our first store pretty directly led to San Jose boasting three stores just 15 months later. As Jim Buser details below, the five partners sold out their shares in the first store to the sixth (and oldest) partner, Frank Scadina. We didn’t really have a seventh, Seven Sons just sounded better than Six Sons. The other partners were John Barrett, Jim Buser, Tom Tallmon, Mike (Michelle) Nolan and Bud Plant.Beyond this world, though, Seven Sons offers little in the way of characters. Readers are introduced to an array of people, but few beyond one of the sons and the mysterious man who wanders throughout the book seem to have real staying potential. This isn’t necessarily a problem as the book is going more for an epic tone, but for readers who like their apocalypse on the more intimate side, there just isn’t a lot here.

There’s another essay that could be written on the position of Islam in this text. I’m really not the one to write it. There was some good with the bad, even as I don’t know if it works as well as the writers want it to. Of course, Islamic radicals are the main dissenting voice in this world. The story asks us to believe that the Seven Sons scheme was convincing enough to wrench the whole of civilization off its axis, in favor of breathless anticipation of a Messiah who promises to arrive via pay-per-view. The aforementioned Islamic radicals committed to putting an end to this wildly blasphemous scheme can’t but be seen in a heroic light, as among the very few people shown to have retained their original religious affiliation in the face of the encroaching event. Certainly not given the context of the entire world having fallen into the clutches of a plainly dubious money-making scheme. Alongside this announcement, three NFTs from Seven Sons were auctioned by ComicLink though I just saved the images to my hard drive for free. Jae Lee's Seven Sons Comes To Image Comics in June 2022 At its best, the story reminded me of another film from long ago, The Rapture. Mimi Rogers vehicle - one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen in my life, despite being in no way a horror movie. Takes the idea of a Second Coming very seriously, real woozy end-of-days feel to it. Pre-millennial tension up the wazoo.

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The apocalyptic world of Seven Sons #1 begins in an alternate timeline where Las Vegas is now New Canaan, and the Second Coming is a bigger PPV event in 1998 than any boxing match could ever be. It’s an event as American as can be, complete with authors that “predicted” everything, blonde hosts, and a military flyover. And of course, healing for a limited time only. Over the decades, Lee’s line has evolved into something far more delicate. The closest comparison I can find is in Lee’s precise contemporary Paul Pope. There’s a similar purposeful tentativeness in their lines, something that recalls a more mature iteration of Tony Salmons’ diaphanous mid '80s style. Very rare to find any manner of solid bold line in a Jae Lee comic book.