I didn’t like the first Rai comic as much, and I gave this one a go just to make sure. There are Rai fans out there, to be sure, and there is a long history of comics for these to stand on that I haven’t read, so maybe I’m doing these a disservice by not reading the entire back-catalog first. This just isn’t my cup of tea.

I absolutely loved book 1 of this series and gave it five stars. Book 2 was a let down for me. It's true that i don't have the deep history with the Valiant universe to appreciate the epicness of some of the set pieces here, but the bigger problem with book 2 was that was more of the same as book 1. Sure there are some new major characters and settings, but for the most part it was Rai being a callous jerk, going to new places, looking for pieces of his AI father, and trying to kill them in epic ways. Not development, no new ideas that were given room to explore before they were destroyed. Hopefully the continuation of the series, set up by an admittedly cool cliffhanger, will not be a retread of the first book like this one was.

This book is a great new approach to the Rai character and fantasy world. The art has realism that helps ground the speculative fiction. Imagine a post apocalyptic future that focuses on artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. While there is frequently violence, i’ll be comfortable having my middle graders read it.