Top Cow’s Pilot Season program comes to a close this week before the voting begins with the release of 7 Days From Hell. Should this series claim your vote? 

7 Days From Hell sees the death of John a mercenary. Instead of going to hell, where he rightly belongs, John is ‘saved’ by quite possibly the sexiest demon ever created, Mandy. Mandy makes John an offer he can’t refuse: perform hits for her within a timeframe of seven days in a bid to be saved by god or spend eternity in Hell.  John accepts and hence why the story is called 7 Days From Hell because that’s the situation John actually finds himself in. 

The problem I had with 7 Days From Hell was I didn’t feel any suspense in the story. I never felt like John wasn’t going to succeed in his mission even though the issue tries to set it up that John has no margin for error. Sure the way John ends up succeeding was a little unexpected but the fact that he did never was never in doubt. Maybe when it’s a series they’ll be able to build suspense because they won’t be limited to a singular issue. 

I’m also not so sure where the story will go apart from John appearing all over the globe to kill a variety of people in 7 days. Don’t get me wrong that sounds cool and all but I think there needs to be more than that. Maybe it will get a bit more spiritual/supernatural with agents from Heaven and Hell trying to stop John. If they combine those two elements then it could definitely work.  

That being said it is a pretty cool story that could throw up some interesting characters and situations and I’m already questioning whether John deserves or is worthy of redemption as he is a total bad-ass. Even now he is doing evil to do good. I’m also really interested in Mandy and what her deal is apart from wanting to get back in Heaven’s good books.  

The art work was fine. It’s not something that’s going to blow you away but it’s also not going to leave you disappointed it’s just a very efficient, solid style for telling John’s story. It did kind of freak me out though that in a lot of panels John didn’t really have eyes he always looked like he was squinting or had them closed. Also a lot of people get shot but I didn’t really notice any bullet holes. They didn’t have to go super gory but something would have been nice, a bit of authenticity.  

Like every Pilot Season entry 7 Days From Hell has its flaws. The pace of the book was too rushed to create any suspense but overall it seems like an idea that, if handled correctly, could be really cool. It’s a shame only one story can win as I’d be interested in seeing where 7 Days, Asset and Forever all end up.