Review by Booklist Review
A terrorist attack on his workplace somehow sends disillusioned, powerless young journalist Sam into a double life. On one day, he's trying to stay alive in a U.S. reduced to chaos. On the next, he's back to his same-old same-old boring job, desultory relationship, and too much alcohol. And so it goes, oscillating between terror and tedium. Only after discovering the element common to both realities can Sam glimpse how to stay in one or the other. Kindt gives Kurt Vonnegut's trope of being unstuck in time a roaring good workout as he shows a disillusioned, powerless guy forced into rising to the occasion in both his realities. If Revolver doesn't pack quite the wallop of Kindt's unconventional Super Spy (2007), it's easily about as good as mainstream adventure comics get. It's arguable that Sam is more fully developed than the necessarily veiled personae of Kindt's spy fiction, inarguable that Kindt's kinetic, spidery drawing style, cinematic realization of scenes, jump-cut-like transitions, and veristic dialogue are as impressive as ever.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Kindt takes a good idea and runs with it in this follow-up to his award-winning Super Spy. His main character, Sam, a born loser in the everyday world, goes to bed one night and wakes up in a postapocalyptic nightmare. But is it a nightmare? There, Sam is suddenly able to be the strong, decisive man he isn't in his real life. He helps found a revolutionary watchdog newspaper, murders in self-defense, and gets it on with the lady boss who always looked down on him. So when Sam wakes up back in the world he's always known, it sort of seems like that's the bad dream. Soon, Sam understands that he's destined to go back and forth between the two realities like clockwork every day and soon figures out how to use information gained in one world to his advantage in the other-and the id unleashed in the war-torn world begins to show up in the first. Kindt's use of ticker-tape news items at the bottom of the pages and alternating color alert the reader to the nature of whichever world we're in. A good concept is occasionally dragged down by heavy exposition, circular philosophizing, and cliche characterization (particularly of the female characters), but overall it's a thought-provoking foray into postapocalyptic mayhem. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Sam goes to bed after another boring and predictable day, only to discover when he wakes up that the world has changed. It is suddenly beset by disasters including an outbreak of avian flu and a rapidly escalating war. These events begin to change the characters in a "desperate times call for desperate measures" kind of way, and Sam finds himself doing things he would never have guessed. If this plot device had been the main core of this book, it would have been a good read. But what turns it into an astounding read is that when Sam wakes up the next day he finds himself back in his ordinary world where he leads a humdrum existence and his girlfriend doesn't understand him. Then the next day he's back in the postapocalyptic world where Seattle has been destroyed and Sam's sexual tension with his boss is escalating. Each day he alternates between these two worlds, where some things are completely different and others are the same. Sam soon realizes that he is one of several constants between the two worlds, and he embarks on a dangerous journey to try to save humanity and change both worlds for the better. Kindt's artwork is dark and gritty, simplistic at times but able to convey a range of emotions. The cover image is especially effective at grabbing prospective readers' attention. Teens who give this book a try will be richly rewarded with a very unusual story.-Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
