Moonshine Volume 2: Misery Train by Brian Azzarello, art by Eduardo Risso

Image Comics, 2018

ISBN: 9781534308275

Available: Paperback, Kindle and comiXology editions

I need to be up front about a few things in this volume. There is racist language, and physical and threatened sexual violence against PoC.

The second volume finds gangster Lou Pirlo, Delia, and some of her family in a train car, running from the police. With Hiram Holt missing or dead, with his family wanting revenge, and the gangsters back in New York City equally wanting his head on a pike, Lou  finds himself clapped in chains and thrown in a different type of gang altogether. He also has another problem; he was bitten by a werewolf. When a cottonmouth snake strikes him, and doesn’t end up killing him, his fellow prisoners know something is not quite right. The gangsters are also wise to the werewolf menace in Appalachia, and have sent a deadly monster hunter on their trails.

Volume 2 is better than the first, with a more cohesive story and intense action. One of the gangsters from volume 1, L’Ago, is much more front and center dealing with the Holt family. However, the story is still missing something. I still can’t get invested in the characters, perhaps because they are too flawed and stereotypical. I had high hopes, since it is a 2018 Stoker nominee, but I don’t feel invested in any of the characterss. As much as I enjoy reading about flawed characters, there needs to be something redeemable, or at least worthy of respect, for me to engage with the text. I don’t get that here. If you want a good noir crime series by this team, pick up 100 Bullets. Recommended, with reservation.

Contains: blood, nudity, racism, threatened rape violence

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: Moonshine Volume 2: Misery Train is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.