4 out of 5

Like, I’m guessing, some other Copra readers, I followed Michel Fiffe’s nod to Chuck Forsman in his backmatter to Revenger, to see what’s what.  Alas, I followed it too late to get print copies of some issues (which I prefer over digital), so until the collection of the first five books comes out, I had to dig in with the recent ish, #6.  Good fortune has made this a one-shot.  Or at least that’s what the cover says.  Without having read other Revenger, I can’t say if the seemingly recognized characters in the contents are carryovers from what’s come before, or if Chuck is just writing snapshots of ass-kicking weirdness.  Either way would be fine, as Revenger is action over in depth plotting, and satisfyingly so, as it doesn’t pretend to be otherwise.  That doesn’t prevent there from being some groovy story happenings wherein Revenger is shot at, then tossed in a cave where she’s attacked by weird hillbilly types with weird hillbilly habits, then all types of awesomeness like legs twisted off and battle armor donned then shed for a knife fight.  Forsman’s foreshortening is a little rough, causing some of the action to suffer from looking stilted, but at the same time, it matches the one-man-army grit of the book well, and there’s certainly no denying the overall hoot-hollerin’ fist-clenching vibe here.  It is, indeed, a kick from panel to panel, and if I had any doubts about whether or not I’d like Revenger, they – pun fully intended – were out the window by the time I got to this ish’s last page.