By Jacob Cordas — Seven Secrets will almost certainly be a fantastic series. Tom Taylor hasn’t written anything I don’t like. He has an incredible knack for taking tired concepts and weaving them into gold. He was able to turn a video game tie-in comic into a must-buy. He was able to take super hero zombies, a concept that has never worked before, and make the best elseworlds DC comic since Multiversity. He’s turned Suicide Squad from a comic I uniformly ignored to one of the best ongoing titles at DC (behind only DeConnick/Rocha’s Aquaman and Spurrier/Campbell’s John Constantine: Hellblazer).

But, regardless of the faith the author has earned from his audience, his writing still struggles in Seven Secrets #1. 

To hit on the good things first, the art is uniformly fantastic. Daniele Di Nicuolo’s (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, co-creator of Jeff the Land Shark*) art is dynamic without a single line wasted. It is clean and precise. There is a light cartoon quality to the faces that make them emotional and engaging. There’s a point midway through where through minor changes he is able to show one of our main characters steel herself. It’s phenomenal work. 

Walter Baiamonte (The Backstagers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) with the aid of Katia Ranalli (Prison Witch) brings a brightness to the whole affair. The colors are vivid, perfectly matching Di Nicuolo’s art. Baiamonte and Di Nicuolo have worked together before and it is immediately clear why they continue to do so. They bring out the best in each other on every single page. 

And now let's get back to the problems I skirted around earlier. Tom Taylor sets up a plot that could very easily be expanded into a great book but right now feels like almost any other mystery box story. 

It starts with an establishing of the mystery. In this case there are seven secrets that can do something, I’m not sure what, and mysterious group A is trying to steal it from mysterious group B. The lack of clarity of stakes isn’t anything new or really to be unexpected from a first issue. But the sheer broadness of it (They are described as “[w]ords, wonders, weapons and worse, with the power to change the world... in a heartbeat.” Which could be literally anything.) makes it fundamentally uninteresting. They are currently just glorified McGuffins. The Atlantis comment in that same scene implies a degree of history to it but not enough to make this different from the how-many-other protect the McGuffins stories we have been inundated with as of late.

The other clear misstep is the narration. I won’t spoil the narrator or the overarching plot of the issue. What I will say is the narrator speaks with a degree of ironic remove from the story itself. Which is a great choice, when dealing with established characters, but when you are trying to create an immediate connection with the audience ends up doing the opposite. This is epitomized in a moment about halfway through when the narrator is finally introduced and, over a panel of intense loss and suffering, the narrator who starts to be sincere cuts themselves off to say, “Sorry. That was a bit melodramatic.” I’m not saying that isn’t a sincere character beat but does serve to create a dissonance that hurts the comic. 

There is no way around the lack of points of interest. The mystery is currently too vague to be anything other than something that we just have to sit and wait to see if I can learn to be interested in. And for an issue that needs to give you something to grab onto, the narrative really struggles with that here.

I’ve read a lot of Tom Taylor’s work and I wouldn’t be surprised if six months from now I’ll be calling this one of the best indie comics currently being released. The team working on it alone makes you think it would be. But right now there just isn’t enough to grab onto. 

This is the barest skeleton of a mystery right now. Once it has a bit more meat on it, I’d love to see what kind of creature it really is. 

Overall: Seven Secrets #1 struggles with the set-up for the overarching series but will almost certainly turn into a great series as it goes along. 6/10

*I have been able to get friends to read comics they wouldn’t otherwise read purely off Jeff the Land Shark being in it. I am so eternally grateful for his creation. 

Seven Secrets #1 - REVIEW

Seven Secrets #1
Writer: Tom Taylor 
Artist: Daniele Di Nicuolo
Colorist: Walter Baiamonte
Color Assistance: Katia Ranalli 
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
For fans of “Once & Future” and “Undiscovered Country” comes an all-new original series from #1 New York Times best-selling author Tom Taylor (“DCeased”) and artist Daniele di Nicuolo (“Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” ) about seven powerful secrets-words, wonders, weapons, and worse-with the power to destroy the world.. Seven Secrets could destroy the world. For centuries they've been locked away and protected by The Order. When their stronghold is attacked and a secret revealed, the entire Order must go on the run. The Order's youngest member, Caspar has been trained his entire life to protect the Secrets he will never know. Now is his chance to prove his worth-to become a Holder of one of the deadliest secrets in the world. But Caspar has a secret of his own. And his secret could prove more dangerous than anything the Order protects….
Release Date: August 12, 2020

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My name is Jacob Cordas (@jacweasel) and I am not qualified to write this.