The Rage, Vol. 2: Kill or Cure
Written by Pierre Boisserie
Illustrated by Malo Kerfriden
Colored by Boubette
Translated by Virginie Selavy
Cover by Malo Kerfriden
Titan Comics
Release Date: January 7, 2015
Cover Price: $10.99

Imagine your world has been ravaged by a virus that causes its recipients to feel an uncontrollable desire to savagely kill the uninfected. Now, imagine that these animalistic, zombie-like humans are your own children. This is the premise of The Rage: Kill or Cure, written by Pierre Boisserie and illustrated by Malo Kerfriden.

In the final chapter of this post-apocalyptic horror, one mother will risk all in order to save her murderous son.

I’ve said it before: I love a good zombie story. When I first read the premise of The Rage, I have to admit that it did sound like a fresh twist on the zombie genre, and that was a thrilling thought. Boisserie does a good job at setting up a small, contained city in which the adults are doing their best to survive and restore order. The government politics, rebel militia, and underground testing facility give the story some much needed intrigue; however, while reading Boisserie’s story, I knew there were some serious problems that I just could not let go — leaving me with the harsh feeling of disappointment.

The world has somehow managed to set up safe zones within cities, with small sections that hold the infected children cordoned off. The government and military are up and running and seem to have a highly functional operation going. With that being said, the action of the story seems unnecessary, solely to keep the book moving at a solid pace. For example, small groups of four to five military personnel are sometimes dropped off in these closed off areas to retrieve certain rage-filled children for whatever the reason may be. This tends to result in the death of at least one team member each time, as the entire group enters the area with dozens of rabid kids surrounding them. It’s surprising to me that a highly trained and well-equipped military would not have come up with a better way of extracting their targets. Perhaps they could use tranquilizer guns to slow the little beasts down and save some lives.

The above issue might just be nitpicking, but the real problem I found with The Rage is the lack of dynamic characters. Out of all of the men and women introduced in this story, only one goes through any significant change, and it’s really hard to care for this person at all based on the individual’s history. A cast of static characters makes for a boring story.

Kerfriden sure knows how to make creepy looking monster children. They are scary, that’s for sure; however, I found that many of the other characters look too much alike, causing some confusion as the story progresses.

The Rage: Kill or Cure is the final installment in the two volume series; unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend getting started, I don’t think there’s a cure for this one.