By: Terry Moore (story/art)
The Story: More of the back story comes into focus…..or does it?
A few things: 1). History lesson. – The opening five pages are a big recollection of the horrible “witch trial” from hundreds of years ago. This is all brought to us by Lilith (the ringleader of the witches) and from her account, you can really understand why she might be kinda pissed off. That puts her in an interesting ethical place: clearly she and the other women of this town were wronged in a past, but that doesn’t mean that killing the great-great-grandchildren of your enemies is appropriate. She’s kinda wrong for the right reasons….
And, Lilith’s account is problematic. Perhaps part of the reason why I’m having a hard time hanging onto the details of the back-story is that those details are in motion. Several times during her recounting, Rachel stops her to say, “Wait a minute, before you said that ______ happened…” This is clearly Moore’s way of telling us that Lilith is an unreliable narrator of events, but does that mean that Lilith is (a) a confused or insane spirit or (b) a vicious entity lying to Rachel to gain her assistance?
2). A protective Malus? – The Jet/Malus character is a really cool one. She/It is kinda a combination of some of the most memorable character moments in the series to-date. For one thing, Jet was always a pretty nifty friend to Rachel; she was just funny. Then you mix in the Malus entity from the little Zoe-girl and you have a neat hybrid creature – with a crazy bending neck. And the way that Moore depicts her as wearing black, standing in the shadows with photo-negative word balloons is very menacing. But, what really struck me about this issue was how Jet/Malus seemed to almost be looking over the little girl Zoe. Why would Jet/Malus do this? Is it some of Jet’s personality forcing its way to the surface? It seems unlikely, but does Malus feel badly about all the nasty things he did while inhabiting Zoe’s body?
3). What’s the deal with Rachel?? – Why does she remember nothing? The other possessed women (Jet, Lilith and the snake-mouth lady) seem to know what they’re about. So why is Rachel such a blank slate? Why is Rachel still shining through for the most part and not the spirit witch? Did her witch-spirit not take to her for some reason? Is that why Lilith puts her back in the ground?
4). Exquisite art! – One reason a series can leap to “must read” for me is consistent art. With a series like RR, you know what you’re going to get and it is quite good. It’s funny because normally Terry Moore doesn’t seem like my style: I usually like things bold and visceral. Terry Moore has such a fine line to everything. This art looks like the kind of thing that would be EASY to screw up if he stopped paying attention for a second or if his hand got tired. It just looks like an incredibly unforgiving style, yet he never has a bad panel. What’s more, all of the women in this series look different. That’s no small feat if you’ve ever fallen in love with a new artists and then realized all of their characters look the same. I also have to say that I think Moore is still growing as an artist. I was flipping through Echo (his last series) the other day and he’s better NOW than we was just a few years ago (and he was pretty hot back then).
Conclusion: Another wonderful issue. The mysteries and the story are compelling and the art is outstanding.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell