Seven Sons | Robert Windom, Kelvin Mao, illustrated by Jae Lee

Prophet Nicolaus predicted that seven identical sons would be born to seven virgins on 07.07.1977. When it actually happened, it shook all world religions to their core and made Nicolaus a respected and wealthy figure. But now Muslim terrorists calling themselves Allah's Watchmen are killing the Jesi.

Wait, what? I really hope this graphic novel takes great care with such a touchy subject as religious extremism. It doesn't? Well, gosh. But let's shelve this for later.

Seven Sons is a seven-issue miniseries, available collected into one 230-page paperback. The art is very nice to look at, done in a rough style. There's decently stylish violence, impressive religious icons and architecture, and dynamic page layouts.

After a strong hook and an okay introduction to the setting and characters, the story takes a quick nosedive into the boringly terrible. The supposedly world-spanning events feel small and are connected in a disappointingly simple and straightforward manner. The main driver of the story, the mystery of the Seven Sons' origin, is revealed in the middle of the story in an underwhelming manner and with no big consequence. All plot developments after that point are repetitive, and there remain no clear stakes. While the nonsensical details of the plot are not predictable, the character arcs are telegraphed much too clearly.

Even though the first issue was published somewhat recently (in the middle of 2022), its themes can more closely be placed in its 1977 setting. In a world of secularisation and a simultaneous resurgence of spiritualism, this graphic novel instead criticises the financialization of religion, and the sensationalist legacy media. The most salient point might be the complete absence of religious faith in its world and story, but I'll hardly give big credit for not doing something.

Let's return to those Muslim terrorists, whom I teased earlier. Overall, I felt that the handling of religions was a very mixed bag. I'm no expert in any religion, but it seemed to me that the authors did an okay portrayal of a couple of religions in some unimportant side characters. But then they need some violent extremists for their plot to have some stakes and pressure and they opt for "Allah's Watchmen." The first twist even made me think that the authors might be aiming to subvert this idea, but nope.

In conclusion, this is a book that's nice to flip through for its art, but the antiquated themes and observations, the subpar handling of religions, and the boringly simple plot make it overall not worth a look.

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