Seven Swords #1

Seven Swords #1

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Evan Daughtery

Illustrated by Riccardo Latina

Coloured by Valentina Bianconi

Lettered by Dave Sharpe

Backmatter Design by Charles Pritchett

A weary and jaded D’Artagnan is drawn into a final conflict with the wicked Cardinal Richelieu, whose ruthless quest for power has led him to the supernatural. But the Last Musketeer can’t defeat these infernal enemies alone.

To save the world, he’ll need to join forces with seven iconic swashbuckling heroes: Don Juan, Captain Blood, Cyrano de Bergerac, to name a few. SEVEN SWORDS, who must overcome their host of differences and work together if they have any hope of thwarting Richelieu's diabolical plans.

What an incredibly interesting concept this book has. We are all familiar with the Three Musketeers on some level and the great thing about this is that we don’t need to know the full story to enjoy this book. It is very much akin to an Alternate History kind of tale that takes some of literature's finest swordsmen, and woman, and brings them together to after the ever elusive Cardinal Richelieu once and for all. It really has all the earmarks of what we would consider an Hollywood blockbuster and considering who Evan is that makes perfect sense.

I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see is mighty interesting thanks to how we see the dialogue, character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter. I do like that we don’t see everyone at once and that one is still hidden from view as he’s ashamed of his face. Sound familiar well the dialogue there is phenomenal! The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, introduces us to the characters as well as the world in which they live is brought to life beautifully.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story start to emerge and grow is interesting. Mind you the way that the story segues from one segment to the next is very full stop then start and all over again so that could use some work. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward needs some tweaking but otherwise is well achieved.

I am a fan of the interiors here. The linework that we see is fantastic and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create detail work that we see is extremely well rendered. When we see backgrounds they are utilised perfectly to enhance the moments and help determine the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book. I’d like to see them utilised more however. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a superb eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine! How we see colour blocking and then some gradation within that is bloody genius to see. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exquisitely rendered.

​

This is going to be a swashbuckling drama that will be as thrilling as it should be interestingly told. The idea of taking such vastly different characters and bringing them together to right an injustice in their world should take a splendid story and make a character driven piece that just happens to be filled with action, adventure and tons of intrigue. This is going to be no small feat to accomplish and the framework is clearly evident and I am excited to see how this is going to end up playing out before our eyes.