Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Listen, I wasn’t very prepared for things to get biblically weird in Terry Moore’s ‘Rachel Rising‘, with fallen angels, witches, and centuries’ worth of trauma. The story started off with a young, beautiful woman called Rachel rising from her grave, and now a few more women who should’ve been dead are walking around town like nothing happened.
Titled ‘Fear No Malus‘, volume two of ‘Rachel Rising‘ packs issues #7 to #12 of the horror comic-book series and gives readers some concrete answers about what really is happening with Rachel and the other walking-dead women. Volume one had ended with Rachel, her aunt Johnny, and best friend Jet getting into a car with a lost little girl called Zoey and meeting with a terrible accident.
Also Read: Rachel Rising Volume 1 Review: Black, White, and Weird All Over
Volume 2 thus kicks off ‘Rachel Rising‘ by quickly showing what is going on with some of the primary characters: Rachel once again survives the accident unscathed, Aunt Johnny is hospitalized with severe injuries, and Jet is pronounced dead on the spot. However, in a twist, Jet wakes up at the morgue; meanwhile, Rachel starts to look for the little girl, hoping she knows something about the mysterious blonde woman who has been popping up everywhere tragedy strikes. And if you remember, the little girl is a violent serial killer, under the influence of the sinister blonde.
The artwork by Terry Moore in ‘Rachel Rising‘ is the best part of this horror comic-book series. I absolutely love the black-and-white illustrations that eerily carry this supernatural story forward. Several pages have no dialogues at all, needing none, letting the pictures speak for themselves, establishing the landscape and settings of the story. With Jet dead too, and then alive, her character is given the same bloodshot eyes as Rachel, and the best friends almost look like identical twins in this volume. Thankfully, Moore makes it easy to distinguish between them. Rachel has light hair, while Jet is a brunette with freckles.
Issue #8 of ‘Rachel Rising‘ reveals the mysterious blonde woman to be Lilith, an ancient witch, who has been stalking Zoey because a demonic entity resides within the girl. Now, I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say the story gets a lot more ambitious and crazy in scale when Lilith’s true intentions are unmasked. But well, this is a horror tale, so crazy exaggerations are always welcome, especially when they combine ancient feuds, vengeance, angels, demons, witches, and mass graves.
These issues feature a few more gruesome deaths, violence, and an investigator trying to piece together all the strange accidents happening in the small town. Readers are explicitly told why Rachel, Jet, and the other woman who dies in volume one do not simply become decaying bodies like the natural order of the world dictates, but continue walking like animated anomalies.
At this point, I don’t think this is a spoiler, but Rachel dies again towards the end of volume 2. I mean, she already dies thrice in volume one, so it’s become like a morbid comedic gag in ‘Rachel Rising‘, because of course, she rises from her death for the fourth time, but with a clearer idea of what she wants. Vengeance. Sort of. Even though I feel like the creator is muddling the story with too many characters, it’s going to be interesting how all the oddball supporting characters fall into place in the next few volumes of this series.
If you’re a fan of supernatural horror comic-book fan and love good old black-and-white artwork, give this a shot.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Rachel Rising is also on Kindle Unlimited.
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