Seven Secrets vol. 2
The first volume of this series was surprising. Surprising in the sense that I came away more impressed by the art from Daniele Di Nucuolo than the writing from Tom Taylor. That remains true here as the artist once again delivers some dynamic and exciting art that elevates the overall story. Which picks up after the First Secret has been opened and the Order walks between worlds to escape its aftermath. It’s while doing this that Caspar strays from the path and encounters a couple of faeries, a selkie, and a magical island that he may have spent his childhood on. This may seem weird, but it’s preferable to the horror and chaos that await the Order as they make their way back to the real world and find out what the First Secret has wrought. Now it’s time for them to take the fight to the Seekers to get some answers and make them pay for what they’ve done.
Taylor is a skilled enough writer that he knows how to deliver a fast-paced, action-packed story with enough character and humor to keep the reader invested. Vol. 2 of “Seven Secrets” remains compulsively readable throughout its length even as I’m feeling that its execution has some real issues. First and foremost among these is Caspar who remains likeable enough, but is given even more special-ness here even as he spends most of this volume in the background. I got that he was “The Chosen One” in the previous volume, but the revelations here feel like they’re adding complications to his character than dimensions. Not helping things is the fact that he takes a backseat to the rest of the title’s very large cast after the first issue, robbing him of further development.
As for that large cast, it was something of a struggle to remember a lot of them in the time that has passed since I read vol. 1. The ones that I do remember tended to make the strongest impression even if Taylor does the Order no favors by having them constantly be outsmarted by the Seekers and their new leader Amon. If there’s a breakout character to be had here, it’s him. While most of the flexes he pulls here can be described as “villainous” we get enough information about his backstory to see that his history is more tragic than anything else, and that he’s got actual reasons for doing the things he does. It’s enough to make me think that he may have the right idea here and that I could actually be rooting for him than against him. I’m not sure if that’s Taylor’s plan, but the bar for series that have (unintentionally) managed to get me to root for the bad guy is quite low at the moment.