The road trip part of the apocalyptic road trip kicks in in Joe Hill’s Rain #2 as Honeysuckle Speck heads to Denver to tell her girlfriend Yolanda’s dad, Dr. Rusted, that his wife and daughter died in the rain of stony needles. Along the way, she picks up a couple stragglers/traveling companions and runs into a weird doomsday cult that gives Zoe Thorogood and Chris O’Halloran a chance to showcase their action chops. However, for the most part, Joe Hill, David Booher, and Thorogood focus on the human side of the end of the world. Like how do you wake up and eat breakfast when the woman you love is stuck with hundreds of needles and a short drive to Denver becomes a hell of a walk thanks to the whole tire puncturing thing.
With the exception of a giant wall of text exposition scene featuring the supporting character Ursula talking about her husband being possibly murdered by the government, Rain #2 never feels like an adaptation of a novella. For example, Thorogood uses a classic nine page grid to show the big picture of the president tweeting about the needles and the more personal story of Honeysuckle removing the needles from Yolanda with a news anchor getting emotional about his wife and kids being stuck in the epicenter of the event acting as a middle ground to show that is a horrifying event that not even the most calm and collected profession can evade. On top of the art is Booher’s narrative captions which collect Honeysuckle’s feelings and memories of Yolanda in evocative prose. It makes for a dense, resonant reading experience with O’Halloran’s flat reds and blues conveying the reflection meets sadness/rage that Honeysuckle and other folks in this Kansas/Colorado area are feeling. Thorogood also picks interesting angles for her images, and Honeysuckle doesn’t even show her face until page three because she is consumed with grief while also coming up with a plan to find Yolanda’s father.
Another strength of Rain #2 is the dialogue from Joe Hill and/or David Booher. At times, Honeysuckle feels like a cowboy, and Thorogood puts in lots of panels focusing on her boots that will protect her from the needles littering the ground on her way to Denver. She quips like she’s in a Bruce Willis movie to a death cult/tax shelter that claims the rain was predicted by their leader and will help them find enlightenment in another dimension, and she scraps like an unlikely hero in the aforementioned scene that is also depicted in yet another nine panel grid. (Silent this time because talking or even captions often ruin the flow of a fight.) Wisely, Hill, Booher, and Zoe Thorogood don’t strip away all the slice of life trappings from the book with waffles, iPads, Starbucks, and (not that they’re helpful) umbrellas still making appearances in addition to two page spreads of apocalyptic landscapes with impaled bodies. Plus a determined Honeysuckle isn’t afraid to go all Wolverine on some cultists.
Not really in content, but in form, Rain #2 reminds me of the better Vertigo books which would pair a prose stylist with a skilled visual storyteller to create comics bursting to the seams with information while also being fun to read and follow. Joe Hill, David Booher, Thorogood, and Chris O’Halloran have balanced heavy emotions of unexpected loss of life with quirky post-apocalyptic story elements like a kid with a cape who thinks he’s a vampire or an MMA fighter turned cat protector. Zoe Thorogood’s ability with facial expressions and Hill and Booher’s insightful captions really connect me to Honeysuckle as a character while I’m also intrigued to learn more about how this disaster is affecting the world and perhaps even its origin.
Story: Joe Hill Adaptation: David Booher Art: Zoe Thorogood
Colors: Chris O’Halloran Letters: Shawn Lee
Story: 7.8 Art: 9.0 Overall: 8.4 Recommendation: Buy
Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: comiXology/Kindle – Zeus Comics – TFAW
Source: Graphic Policy
