4 out of 5

Because Dan writes approximately ten billion books, I’ve had to draw a line somewhere in terms of what I’ll buy, and a relatively non-gray line is between 2000 AD and creator-owned properties, and… y’know, the Marvel and DC stuff. I’ve long held in my mind that Dan scales his style to the genre, and since I’m often not a Big Two soap opera fan, even if I dig his stuff, I can opt out and save ten billion+ dollars.

But it dawned on me that A. while 2000 AD isn’t really soap opera, it’s arguably just another superhero universe and B. what of some of the non-2000 AD indie stuff… like Valiant comics’ reboot, and Dan’s take on Rai. I had what I figured might be a bite-sized take on that work with Valiant’s double reboot in 2024 under Alien Books, with a little 2-parter from Abnett that would slot in to a larger crossover. Crossovers are, like, never a great indicator of the quality of a book (or a company’s output, really), but maybe that was exactly the point: test the mettle, and make it harder for myself to like the material.

Yeah, well. I guess I’ve proven to myself that there’s a reason I’m stuck on Dan’s writing in the 2000 ADverse – he knows how to script a comic.

Despite this absolutely not being a jumping on point, given that it stuffs a rundown of Rai’s surprisingly wildly complex world into a few pages, then also has to set up the crossover – essentially a war between technology and magic – and a first issue twist which has Rai brainwashed and living a family life with other ‘Rais,’ I found myself pretty hooked. Even when we drop into the clear set up stuff in issue two, with characters from other books dropping in, Dan keeps it all corralled and moving forward. Artist Emilio Utrera is a bit of a mixed bag, but their somewhat plain character models help to sell that family life section more effectively, which helps to ground this “I’m half technology / half organic / carry the spirit of other Rais within me” bonkers stuff; otherwise, that mixed bag results in a lot of action happening off screen, and some slightly wayward page layouts, but I got the sense of an artist aware of their limitations and trying to push at but not exceed them… and I kind of dig that. So from both writing and art, we sort of back up into a vibe that works for a new reader: there’s a lot of between the panel crossover drama, while we’re getting a slight pause for a Rai tale.

Whether or not this rating would hold up once / if I read Abnett’s other Rai material, or the rest of this crossover, I don’t know; I’m admittedly on a sliding scale where I’m just impressed by how much I ended up enjoying my time with the issues.