Rachel Rising Vol. 2: Malus

by Terry Moore

With this second volume of his latest series, about a young woman who doesn't seem able to stay dead (despite giving it a couple of very good goes, unintentionally, in the first volume), Moore gives a much clearer picture of what is going on in the town of Manson.

It seems that the town once had a witch problem, and now Lilith, the first woman (remember her from Sandman?) is working to exact her revenge on the town for something that happened three hundred years before.  Malus, a demon, has been working with her, but also working towards his own ends.

As for Rachel, the undead hero of this book?  I don't want to spoil what her deal is.

As is always the case with Moore's work, character development is front and centre, and he's done a great job with characters like Rachel, her friend Jet (who now also can't die), and Rachel's Uncle Johnny, who is laid up in the hospital.  Also, as is often the case, Moore's male characters are a little less nuanced, but I like the way people like Earl, the assistant mortician who is in love with Jet, and Dr. Siemen, the kindly doctor who keeps the body of his long-dead wife in his kitchen, round out the cast of this book.

Moore's art and draftsmanship are always very nice, and it's interesting to see him take what is, on the surface, a story about pretty ordinary-looking people, and twist it around to the point where demons are believable on the page.

My only complaint is with how quickly each of these trades read.  I probably should have waited until the series was finished, and collected into a nice chunky omnibus...