Rai #7 Review

Rai #7 is another outstanding issue and a climatic build-up to all out war. Why should readers be all over this series?

The official description from Valiant:

“Battle for New Japan” explodes! Romance threatens to destroy a necessary peace between Raddies and robots as Rai builds his army for the final assault on Father! Plus: a glimpse of Earth 4001 and the secret weapon hiding out on the planet’s surface that could be the key to taking back New Japan!

The second arc in the Rai series comes to ahead in issue #7. At the brink of war with the Raddies and in an effort to take out the all knowing “Father” a well-worn villain from across the Valiant titles rears his ugly head. Matt Kindt starts this issue off with a surprising and quick origin of free-willed Positron, Momo. How she came to be was a little bit of a shock and well-played by Kindt.

Meanwhile, Spylocke is still on actual and decaying, Earth, and finally finds what he’s looking for which even though hinted at in earlier issues still comes again as a bit of a shock. Clayton Crain‘s art has a lot to do with that as well. Beautifully illustrated as usual. The art alone is well worth buying the book but Kindt’s excellent storytelling makes this book near perfect.

Between, Rai & Momo, Lula’s bombing set-up, Spylocke’s search and Silk’s treachery, Rai #7 has the feel of immense diversity which plays out like a finely tuned instrument. After much anticipation, the war with the Raddie’s finally breaks wide open and the timing couldn’t be worse. It feels bad and it’s depressing but again Crain illustrates with such detail and depth that the horror of war looks beautiful in it’s ugliness.

Kindt finally adds one more layers to this story at the end and again longtime readers of not just Rai but Valiant in general knows why and who shows up in the final pages. It continues the tightly woven mythos of the Valiant Universe and adds another wrinkle to Rai’s plan to stop war and defeat “Father.” Rai #7 is great and rises to a new level of this already outstanding series. Kindt has the knack to make sci-fi and even the extreme future palatable to all readers and Rai is a must buy in my book. One on Valiant’s best books ever.