Terrorwar #7 - Image Comics

TERRORWAR No. 7, November 2023

Waiting until this comic’s very end before presenting its readers with any sort of noticeable action, Saladin Ahmed’s narrative for Issue Seven of “Terrorwar” is arguably something of a slog. Indeed, for those bibliophiles willing to wade through the cast’s consistent swearing and profanities, there’s still sadly not much storytelling to enjoy until Doctora Z casually allows Muhammad Cho’s team to waltz straight into Representative Ronali’s supposedly impregnable flying fortress in an attempt to sabotage Blue City’s power grid.

Before this cliff-hanger of a conclusion, all the American author pens is a strange row between the dishevelled contractors as to who is willing to sacrifice everything in order to save Humanity, and somewhat surprisingly, which of the Terrorfighters selfishly just want to return to their loved ones before civilisation's end. These arguments are debatably rather illogical considering that all of Cho’s comrades-in-arms now realise the psychic manifestations are actually helpless sentient lifeforms knowingly being turned into liquid fuel by the powers that be, and have seen first-hand the devastation the surviving creatures will cause in their desperate attempt to throw off their mass-murderer’s chains.

Furthermore, so much of Muhammad’s journey to Safehaven is made super-easy by Doctora Z’s sudden betrayal of Ronali, even though no mention has ever been made as to just why the planet’s greatest scientist has suddenly decided to switch sides. Admittedly, the green-haired inventor does unapologetically make mention of the “armoured, sealed, self-sustaining community” being built to protect the world’s children. But without the physicist inexplicably turning up out of the blue and repeatedly providing the slowly dwindling freelancers with top secret intelligence and conveniently superior technology, “the fancy part of town” would already have been destroyed with only the upper quadrant’s people presumably surviving the attack.

Adding another element of ‘hurriedness’ to this twenty-two-page periodical is Dave Acosta’s artwork, which whilst being perfectly proficient in places, appears rather rushed and ill-disciplined in others – such as during the journey to Safehaven inside Doctora Z’s limousine when everyone is shouting at one another. However, for those bibliophiles able to find the illustrator’s original pencils for this publication on social media, a lot of the man’s linework appears to have been sacrificed by inker Jay Leisten in order to either allow colorist Walter Pereyra to provide some garish hue to the proceedings, or simply to help the book hit its deadline.

Written by: Saladin Ahmed, Pencils by: Dave Acosta, Inks by: Jay Leisten, and Colors by: Walter Pereyra