Comics Features Reviews

The Revisionaries Vol.2 Brings the Life to the Party

If you happened to read through our review of the first volume of The Revisionaries, you would know that this is a story that is full of violence, swearing and extreme body mutilations across the brutal backdrop of the second world war with a little hint of sci-fi time travel mixed in to great effect. Now, the next thrilling issue follows that trend and expands upon our narrative, offering more insight into our characters as well as an imminent force that threatens to derail their plans and ruin their fun.

Continuing from where we left off, The Revisionaries have become instant war heroes and stories of their acts have quickly spread across the battlefield as much as the trail of enemy soldiers they leave in their wake. Wartime propaganda at its most bizarre. Amongst their travels to the heart of Germany, they come across an Oktoberfest in full swing in a time of suffering and rationing. Not suspicious at all is it? Whilst Ashkenkazy and Cecily smell a trap, our fearless leader Dash is more than happy for the gang to dive into the festivities and the alcohol. And you can guess who was right. Can Cecily and Ashkenkazy defeat the overwhelming numbers of enemy soldiers disguised in their lederhosens and save the team? And now that our mysterious foe has made her existence known to them, what is her intentions? And what the hell is that thing she has for a pet?

Nico Sucio returns true to form and is just as grotesque with his designs as the first with his intricate detail of violence, gore and all too glee faces of The Revisionaries doing the killing. The gore is ramped up to 11, as we get the explosions, loss of limbs, and fountains of blood that has quickly become the norm in this series. A particular highlight is the arrival of our unknown antagonist, with her menacing, soul-less stare and overbearing shadow in the face of our heroes. And her “Klaus-Hund”, her pet? It raises a lot of questions that I fear The Revisionaries will come face to face with all too soon…

Andrew Adams also constructed a strong narrative that flows at a great pace and contains plenty of twists and questions to leave this issue on one hell of a cliff-hanger. We get to see particular growth in Buck and how he leads not with logic or reasoning but rather his fists and his guns. Perhaps Cecily was right when she said she should be leading the team after all. Scarlet gets a lot more dialogue and interactions in this issue as well. Trust me, she is just as much a savage killing machine as the rest, but I’d like to think there is still a lot more to learn here, other than she find her bloodlust a massive aphrodisiac that Buck enjoys just as much. All while Red-5 records it all as the action unfolds. Did I mention these guys are psychotic?

All in all, this issue whilst brief, helped to grow the story and characters in interesting ways and helped to lay the foundation of our enigmatic antagonist that seems set on terrorising our heroes. With a strong mix of clever writing and fantastically twisted images, we witness a narrative that still has many twists and turns to reveal with humour balancing the violence to great effect. But where can we go from here? Or more accurately, when…

What are your thoughts on The Revisionaries? Which character is your favourite so far? Sound off in the comments or send us your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter!

About the author

Connor Filsell