Revolver (DC Comics)

Prior to creating Revolver, Matt Kindt had been a designer for Sporting News and had published comic work with Top Shelf Productions (Pistolwhip, Super Spy) and Dark Horse Comics (3 Story). The idea for this story came from Kindt's general fascination with the end of the world, It was Kindt's first work set in the modern era instead of the past, and also his first work focused on a single character. Kindt tried to explore the comic medium in ways that would make the story unfilmable. Kindt colored Revolver with only two tones, blue and brown. He differentiates between the two worlds Sam inhabits by alternating which color is dominant and which is used for highlights. The boring world is primarily blue, and the apocalyptic world is primarily brown. The book shares a fictional universe with Kindt's other works and the character PK Verve is the uniting element. Although he is killed in Revolver, Verve appeared in Kindt's follow up work, MIND MGMT, as the husband of the main antagonist. Revolver was released in hardcover by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics in July 2010, ==Plot==

After a night out drinking, Sam wakes up with a hangover. When he arrives at the Chicago newspaper office where he works, he discovers it has been bombed and the city is in a panic. He is helping his boss, Jan, evacuate when the two are confronted by her angry ex-boyfriend. During a panicked scuffle, Sam kills the ex-boyfriend. He returns with Jan to his apartment, where they fall asleep. Sam wakes up alone the next morning and his injuries have vanished. He discovers it is the same day, and that the city is not under attack. He is certain what he remembers was not a dream. Sam continues to live each day twice, alternating between the two worlds. In the chaotic one, he works with Jan and two other coworkers to produce a leaflet-style newspaper reporting the disasters. In the calmer one, he grows increasingly frustrated with how superficial his life is. He uses his time in the calmer world to learn skills that aid him in the more frantic one, such as hot-wiring a car. He and Jan become close in one world while they remain distant and unfriendly in the other. Meanwhile, Sam's relationship with his girlfriend Maria becomes sour. The man suspected of masterminding the bombings, P. K. Verve, is a motivational speaker in the calmer world. Suspecting a connection between Verve and the dual worlds, Sam seeks to meet the motivational speaker. He convinces the unfriendly Jan to finance his trip by blackmailing her with a confession she made in the chaotic world. When Sam finally meets Verve, he learns that both of them are alternating between worlds, but that Verve originated in the chaotic one. Verve claims the two divergent worlds were created when his brother died in a government-arranged plane crash one day and was alive the next. Verve has used his motivational speaking to travel and learn secrets which he then uses to commit terrorist acts as vengeance in the other world. Hoping Sam will be his ally, Verve arranges for them to meet in the chaotic world. Sam meets with the military and takes a tracer with him to the meeting. After confirming he is with Verve, the military bombs the hideout, killing them both. Sam awakens in the calmer world and stops entering the alternate one. He abandons his former lifestyle and convinces Maria to leave town with him. They head for one of Verve's seminars, where Sam is planning to kill him. ==Reception==

Upon release, the graphic novel was compared to Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club and Christopher Nolan's film Inception. In combination with Kindt's prior works, NPR felt Revolver makes "quietly compelling arguments for the comics medium's narrative potential". While Booklist and Comic Book Resources faulted Revolver for lacking the storytelling twists of Super Spy and 3 Story, the faster pace was appreciated by the Los Angeles Times. Despite this contemporary praise, Revolver was described as a "forgotten" Vertigo comic by Geek.com when it was included in a 2017 list of comic properties that could be adapted into successful TV show. In his review for The Los Angeles Times, Ed Park said the title Revolver came from the repetitive way Sam's two lives followed one another, but noted similar themes between the comic and the Beatles' "schizophrenic" 1966 album Revolver. Park went on to say the plot began "with the sort of 9/11 nightmare that's become a permanent feature of our headspace". The explanation of the story's hook seemed so contrived and irrelevant to the emotional core of the narrative that The Comics Journal speculated it was only addressed because of interference from DC editorial. Kindt's art is an acquired taste according to Wired, but other reviewers offered less qualified praise for it. The Comics Journal said the "fragile" and "delicate" line work gave Revolver a "visceral charge". ==References==