Rain Like Hammers #2 Review

Creator: Brandon Graham / Image The second entry of Rain Like Hammers does not resume the adventure of Eugene. Rather it opens up with the wanted poster of Brik Blok. Brik Blok is very much diametrically opposed to Eugene. Even the locations they navigate are opposite, with Eugene escaping from Elephant, the roaming city in an unspecified desert, and Brik Blok crash landing on Sky Cradle where he immediately switches bodies with a butler to preserve his own life. And I do not know how exactly these stories will intersect outside of the fact that there is a map that puts the two worlds as neighbors, but I do know that the larger universe that Graham has constructed is still exemplar. Rain Like Hammers #2 is much more active than its predecessor. Brik Blok is a man on a mission with set directives and purpose. His crime is not specified, only hinted at, as is his mission to infiltrate the Sky Cradle’s aristocracy to rescue El, whose story takes up the back half of the chapter. This vignette serves to expand the scope of the world, and it does nothing but multiply the number of questions I have. But the core thematic is still resonate. The fact remains that Graham is still writing about the failings of a future society with problems rooted in current sources, namely the greed of those in the power who refuse to relinquish power, the cycles of abuse and servitude that are perpetuated as a result of these systems, and the violence that comes with the territory. It is a fascinating…