MASSACRE has claimed a life from the Renegades’ own ranks… and their new mission starts now: to rally as many psiots to their cause as possible. Now, this damaged team of telekinetic teenagers are off the grid and on the move, traveling America to recruit soldiers for the inevitable war they all see coming. But they are being watched…

You know those comics that sound really interesting from the previews and solicits, but then fail to live up to any of the promise shown in those texts? Yeah, that’s this one.

Harbinger Renegade #7 has the dubious task of following on from an interlude issue (albeit a pretty good one) which in turn followed the first part of the Massacre story line in which half a dozen or so semi prominent Valiant characters were killed – but none of those characters had previously appeared in this series, so it’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen the Renegades in any real form – and this is our first chance to see how they’ve reacted to the events in Rook. Unfortunately, the emotion shown from the team as they react to the news of their friends being nearly wiped out feels, with one exception, a little blasé (although one could make the argument that with all the death they’ve seen in their young lives, this is exactly the point).

That being said, the tone of this issue is one of grief and how people deal with it in different ways; unfortunately the execution isn’t as strong as one would hope, and while there were an occasional small hill, overall the issue felt a little flat – though a large part of that was likely due to the art.

To say that artistically, this really wasn’t my cup of tea would be bordering on an understatement.  While the pages did have some interesting layouts, the art is far from my favourite. Obviously this is personal opinion, and you may love the art – if that’s the case then I’m happy for you – but I just found it generally boring. I feel the need to reiterate that this is purely personal preference because the art is well done it just didn’t excite me; in fact I felt the exact same way reading this as I would when looking at an Archie Digest comic: the art is just there, but it’s nothing special.

Ultimately this isn’t a bad issue, and I’m hesitant to rag on it too much because I feel it’s just a weaker chapter in the overall direction of the comic, rather than the new quality level we’ll get going forward. I also think that the gap between issues isn’t helping the series, either and while part of that is down to the placement of the interlude issue (which I quite enjoyed) last month that directly  interrupted the flow of the Massacre story line, the multi-month gap since we last saw the Renegade team isn’t helping either.

If you’re reading this series, then it’s worth at least flicking through Harbinger Renegade #7, but if you want to start with Valiant’s comics, then you can do a lot better than starting here.

Story: Rafer Roberts Penciler: Darick Robertson
Inker: Walden Wong Colourist: Diego Rodriguez
Story: 6.5 Art: 6.0 Overall: 6.0 Recommendation: Read

Valiant Entertainment provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review