With visuals that completely and utterly outweigh the narrative it is hard to rate this above three stars. The visuals are have such a distinctive style which is hard to master in the graphic novel universe.

Seven To Eternity by Rick Remender | Goodreads Seven To Eternity by Rick Remender | Goodreads

A standard Remender reading experience. Phenomenal art with terrific colors and detailed creature designs; wonderfully inventive world-building with a great magic system (particularly love the huge metal-jawed lizardman who can teleport people by swallowing them); and standard issue shoddy, disappointing Remender writing. That's about the first two and a half issues. By this final volume, the story is some place else--some place ultimately worth reading, but wow what a place to end it all. Spoilers abound after this. Plus the art by Jerome Opeña is flat-out amazing. Not only is it pretty, but he tells the story clearly without trying to be fancy. Everything is communicated and it flows easily. Remender delivers some great quotable dialogue and a story twist that I didn’t see coming. This story was actually a villain’s tale. Though if I had been closer attention, I should have seen all of this coming.We're kind of thrown into this world and lore is dispersed a little in each issue, A "hit the ground running" instance occurs. I was a little confused at first but hey I was curious to put the pieces together. I firmly believe that the right is far worse in this regard than the left, but let’s be honest, this is something everyone on all sides is guilty of. And that’s what gives this story it’s sting: it’s dark and cynical, yes, but it’s also all too often correct.

Seven to Eternity : Rick Remender (author), : 9781534319318 Seven to Eternity : Rick Remender (author), : 9781534319318

The Mud King’s driver is complicated and perverse. He wishes to to prove to a dead man that no one is beyond corruption. The dead man is a zealot, Zeb Osidis, someone who scorned the Mud King as flawed and beneath him. Zeb is able to determine who has succumbed to the whispered promise of Garils Sulm, and regards those who have as beneath contempt. To prove that point, the Mud King does worse than corrupt Zeb’s son. Instead, he remakes him as his successor, the one who would unleash ultimate destruction upon the world. Under all the fantasy trappings are some core themes that help ground the book. The question of principles, and when to bend, is constantly on Adam’s mind, as his father’s unwillingness to compromise is largely responsible for his family’s current state. At what point do you stop fighting fights based solely on principle? It’s a struggle many people can relate to, especially when Adam is tempted by an easy solution. The God of Whispers’ abilities to subtly control people, to pull their strings and spread lies, leads to some interesting questions about power and the concept of truth. I can’t help but see some parallels to the currently political landscape.And then, the titular climax - why this comic is named so; the weight and misconception of prophecy; the vicious cycle and its breaking. A very satisfying and entertaining end to Remender’s and Opena’s fantasy epic. It felt a bit rushed at times, but that might have been a reflection of my own desire not for this series to end. I was enjoying my time in this world too much. The narrative is peppered with cliffhangers and plot twists that keep you riveted, making you question your own moral compass — who’s good and who’s bad? Remender is a master of letting everyone reach their own answer to that question. In Seven to Eternity, Spiritbox is not especially unique in being both dead and alive. The lines between life and death in this comic are blurry. The main cast visit a swamp haunted by the malevolent ghosts of the dead goblin civilisation, killed by the Mud King upon his ascension to power. We also witness the occasional and very compelling appearance of a huge, Lovecraftian creature who catalogues the dead, giving the suggestion that the afterlife is in fact a library. And like all other Mosak knights, Osidis has a special power, in his case, to launch fragments of the souls of his deceased relatives as weapons. This enables the shade of his father, Zeb, to determine whether or not Osidis has indeed listed to the Mud King’s offer, and judge him. I could go through the book and point out the flawed world-building, annoyingly unexplained plot elements and myriad other problems but suffice it to say, though I can’t fault Remender’s ambitious vision, there’s too much here to take in at once and he’s not a good enough writer to lay it all out well. I’m not saying I need everything spelled out for me or that we should know everything in the first volume, but there are key elements to the plot that we should at least have an idea about to start with and the detail just isn’t there. And this is a problem with magic stories in general: without limitations and anything can happen, it’s really hard to care about any of it.