Rai (2020) #8

[Dallow Spicer1]

Been said many times before, but this is the only current title worthy of the Valiant name.

Took me a while to get issues 7&8 so re-read 6 as well to refresh my memory. Abnett’s plan of doing an ‘episode’ per issue has been a great success in this series. Constantly moving the story forward, Rai and Raijin meet new characters pretty much every issue. Here they meet a society of Positronics who have an interesting leader goes by the name ‘Fusion’. But as you’d expect all isn’t as it seems and it turns out that Fusion is the carrier of 2 pieces of offspring and the issue ends on a cliffhanger as he attacks Rai.

Meanwhile a sub story is happening linking Lula with Bloodshot as they hatch a plan to rescue him from within Father. This is nicely interwoven with the main story.

Side note: the preview of XO #2 looks horrific, the art/inking look like they’ve been thrown together in a short space of time which is ironic given how long Valiant have had to put this out.

Rai 4.5/5 - another great issue, if you’re not reading it then you should be

[SwiftMann]

This is good comics. That said I feel like the series has come to a screeching stop momentum-wise. I feel like 7 & 8 should have been a single issue at most. Again, these are good, they just aren't the first five issues great.