Revival #19

written by Tim Seeley
art by Mike Norton

Chuck seems to have been hijacked by a "passenger".  Maybe it's just the plaintive fear in Chuck's posture and face or maybe it's the creepy thought of an inhuman voice coming from a dog, but Chuck's death—vomiting blood, not unlike Em Cypress—is heartbreaking, especially for Lester.  Then the "passenger" comes after Lester, and in the brief moments before he spews it back out, the man catches glimpses of a small nest of baby squirrels in the woods where he and Chuck were running.  The "passengers," it seems, are not exclusively human, if they ever really were.

Meanwhile, Dana Cypress's life is about to get significantly more complicated, and there was already plenty of complication to begin with.  Dana first attempts to enlist Ibrahaim in her search for Em's killer.  It doesn't start well.  Ramin is galled by her refusal to register Em as a Reviver and report her murder to the police.  Whatever frustration Ramin may feel toward the situation, he defends his loyalty to the C.D.C.  At first.  When he discovers her shredded back, helps her remove the remaining glass shards, and patches her up, he finally agrees to help her.  When her ex Derrick sees her hugging Ibrahaim on her doorstep when he and their son Cooper drop by to pick up a video game, his unwarranted—and not a little bitter—jealousy kicks in.  And May Tao, drunk and mildly threatening, knows about the Cypress sisters' involvement in the death of the Check brothers, and now the FBI has shown up in Wausau to question Dana about them.

While Dana's personal investigation and private life keep her occupied, her father Sheriff Cypress has his hands full with Ed Holt and his militia of blue-collar discontents with a plan to escape the quarantine by burying underneath it.  And Martha meets the likely incarnation of the Jackass crew should they be fortunate enough to be undead and possibly undying.

Revival #19 builds logically on the steps before, but after the previous issue's quiet release, it seems more designed to reposition the immediate conflicts than anything else.