Rachel Rising Vol. 2 : Fear No Malus

Collects Rachel Rising # 7-12I turns out Zoe's invisible friend is not the one making Zoe kill people. She's Lilith, who calls herself the first woman, and is thousands of years old. The killer is Malus, a demon who may be the Devil himself, and has been possessing Zoe for... a while. Lilith wanted Malus to punish the town of Manson for something that happened 300 years ago. Malus has his own End Times agenda, of course. Malus can only exist in people, and can only leave a body after it's died. Not that it has to stay dead...Take Jet, for example. She's become like Rachel now.Later, Lilith changes her hair from blonde to brunette.Terry Moore continues with excellent writing and art, with the occasional humor.

This series is becoming one of my favorites fast. I only wish terry moore would add some color to the frames.

Set in the small American town of Manson, Rachel has risen from the dead after mysteriously being killed. But there’s more – her best friend, Jet, recently “killed” is also back, and still more of the town’s residents who died violently in the first book have returned as well. Plus there’s a creepy pale woman stalking an 11 year old girl called Zoe who’s murdering people for some reason. What the hell is going on!?! Well, the second volume unexpectedly tells you everything!I can’t remember another series that set up mysteries in the first volume and then uncovered ALL of them by the second! It’s surprising as most multi-volume titles like to tease out answers over time but with Rachel Rising, Terry Moore provides instant gratification - and yet I’m not sure that that was the best move.The pacing is a little off here because of so many info dumps from the characters as they make lengthy speeches explaining who they really are and what they’re after. And while it is nice to know what’s going on, the mystery added extra spice to the mix – without it, the story loses a dimension and feels less exciting.With the pretty supernatural female leads, Rachel, Lilith and Jet, the series is starting to feel a bit like Buffy, especially as the town, following the revelations of celestial doom and magic, is starting to resemble the Hellmouth, Sunnydale. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but the story seems less original as a result.The strong character work, superb art and layouts still make the series worth reading but by showing too much of what’s happening, Moore’s nailed down readers’ expectations rather than allowing them to soar. But I did love that scene where the graves vomit out corpses into the sky to form a giant pentagram – never seen that before in a comic!Rachel Rising is still a good series even if Moore may have tipped his hand a bit too early, though with all the exposition out of the way, hopefully the series will regain its more streamlined style of storytelling.

Rather than keep readers in suspense, Moore uses Fear No Malus to answer some of the burning questions left at the end of the first volume of Rachel Rising. No, Rachel (and now Jet) are not zombies. Yes, that really is Lilith - and she's ultra pissed. No, things have not hit bottom for Manson yet, not by a long shot.The question for the reader, of course, is how many of these answers we can truly believe, as they're frequently voiced by characters who are less than reliable. Rachel herself questions Lilith's story of the witch-burning (or was it drowning?) which drives her desire for vengeance against Manson, and finds herself back in a grave for her troubles - and this one's not-so-shallow.So for now the only thing I'm trusting is that the art will stay delightfully creepy (bunny predators! exploding graves!) and that the narrative will keep me on the edge of my seat. As to the rest...

At first, I thought this series was sort of a new approach to the whole zombie thing. But that's not it at all. Yeah, some of the characters are dead, but this is more demon-y than zombie-y. This volume does a great job of spending time with the characters, even getting a little closer to some of the peripheral characters, while still allowing room for carnage and mayhem. This is turning into quite an epic story.

Amazing horror comic. Rachel rising volume two continues the horror story from volume one. It answers alot of questions and the story is great. Amazing artwork. A must buy