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Lazarus: Risen #7 brings the series back after a break of over a year. Despite the delay, this issue picks up directly after the last and has major ramifications for the entire series back when it started in 2013 before the rebranding. Was this reveal worth the wait?
The Horrific Truth
A long time ago, back in the early 2010s when Greg Rucka and Michael Lark began to plan this series and release small morsels of information, a fan theory arose. In the back of the first few issues, there was a timeline for the dystopian future the story takes place in. The timeline detailed key events from various characters and eagle-eyed fans ready to buy into the fictional world noticed something.
Malcolm Carlyle went to the same university as Leah Hock. Additionally, Leah Hock’s suicide happened during that period of time. Then as we got more background information on the heads of the family, we learned that Jakob Hock was very close to his sister and when she passed a rift between him, and his long-time friend Malcolm Carlyle began to form. So, the fan theory went that Malcolm killed Leah during their time at university and that he covered it up and it was only known by a few. Lazarus: Risen #7 confirms the fan theory as not only completely factual but provides enough detail to it that it changes our perception of the entire series.
This entire series, all original issues, the miniseries, the reformat in Risen, the sourcebooks, the RPG, etc. come down to this one event. The rivalry of Malcolm and Jakob, the Conclave War, the creation of the Lazari, absolutely everything is informed by this one moment. Malcolm was dating Leah, the Hock and Carlyle’s were inseparable, then Malcolm went his own way and killed Leah as a consequence. He plays to win as he always says, he needed an enemy to have an excuse to enact his plans to lead to the world we have now. So, he created one in a dear friend, Hock.
While this has been a big fan theory in the fandom for nearly a decade at this point, a theory I subscribed to, the execution here is brilliant. Noticing something like this is the product of excellent foreshadowing by creators at the top of their game. (I [Kyle] cannot describe how excited I [Kyle] am to see this confirmed, and Lazarus: Risen #7 being part of the triple-sized reformat issues means that Rucka and Lark can sit at this moment and really explore it for all its glory.)
Lazarus: 2013 – 2028?
With all that has been said above, this comes with a caveat. I got into the Lazarus series in 2016 when I picked up the trade paperbacks at a comic shop on Free Comic Book Day after noticing one of my favorite creators was the writer. In that time, we have had two issues of the main series, a miniseries with different artists, and the reformat which has come to a close in Lazarus: Risen #7 — a little over twelve issues, seven of which are triple-sized, over the course of six years.
The problem with all of this is that this series is super serialized, building like a well-structured TV show or novel — waiting for a year in the case of Lazarus: Risen #7 means that readers who want to get the full impact have to reread all the back issues or go off rough memory from the previous year. This is not a problem for trade waiters or people that read in chunks, for reviewers like me this is detrimental and for the average month-to-month reader it leaves them thinking the series was canceled.
While not all the faults can be laid at the feet of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, some of it has to be. They admit as much in the letter pages of Lazarus: Risen #7. From a view on the outside, you see creators who have had to make various compromises on personal and professional levels. Rucka has three Netflix films, Lark dealt with power issues in his local area, and both had to endure the pandemic.
However, the insane gaps in between issues, and the decompression of their triple-sized issues lead to many pages devoted to slowing down a moment to just reaction shots which used to be a positive in this series but are now just another nail in the release issue, and the conflicting number of issues they say we have left, this has to impact the score.
(I [Kyle] hate to do it, but I fell in love with this series in 2016, I love the work of everyone involved, and I loved the idea of reformatting. But since the reformat was announced in 2018, we have had seven issues. This is just too much time.)
Lazarus: Risen #7 Gives Us Exactly What We Wanted — But Way Too Late
Lazarus: Risen #7 is a big issue for the story going forward, the world-building, and the characters. So many great moments beyond the Leah Hock reveal, Forever telling Malcolm no, the death of Beth, and the freedom of Eight — among many more. The art is always well-excuted, the dialogue is hitting a pace that makes each moment pop while still tapping into the anxieties of the current day.
However, the wait was just way too long, and we have another year to wait before the series resumes for hopefully the final time but at this point who knows?