Rani #3

The subtitle "Esclave" (Slave) sets a stark, immediately gripping tone for this 2012 Le Lombard album, and Francis Vallès's cover makes the stakes viscerally clear: Rani sits draped in rose-red fabric beneath a Moorish archway, her wrists bound in shackles, her expression a quiet mixture of defiance and vulnerability. Van Hamme and Alcante's series has always excelled at placing its heroine in impossible situations, and this third volume promises the tension of a woman refusing to be defined by her captivity.