Trees Vol 2: Two Forests by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard

Trees Vol 2: Two Forests written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Jason Howard follows on from the first volume, titled In Shadow, which was one of my favourite comic trades ever. After waiting for a long time for Two Forests to come out, I then left it on my shelf for rather a while before I got around to reading it... but at least that means I'm now closer to the eventual (hopefully) release of volume 3?

A survivor of the Blindhail Event looks for signs of imminent global disaster among the megaliths and relics of Orkney, while the new mayor of New York plans to extract his revenge for the awful thing that happened the day the Tree landed on Manhattan.

The first volume had a lot of point of view characters but, due to events, there are fewer in this second volume. The two main story lines follow a biologist who was close to the action in the first volume, and the soon-to-be mayor of New York. We only get a small hint at the end of what some of the other characters are up to (and we don't hear from all of them) and the overall story remains incomplete, as is expected for an ongoing series.

I enjoyed the opportunity to delve into some of the story lines in more depth. It was nice to get a larger chunk of two stories rather than smaller chunks of more stories, which are harder to keep track of when the volumes are so spaced out. (There is currently no anticipated release date for Vol 3 due to the creators spending time on a TV pilot of Trees.) What we are presented with develops both personal stories and the overarching story of the Trees, and what they might be doing — not that any key questions about them are really answered.

I enjoyed this instalment but don't have quite as much to say about it as the first volume — mainly because all the background and basis for awesomeness has already been covered. If you haven't read Trees before, I highly recommend that you do and that you start with Vol 1: In Shadow. This isn't the kind of series you can pick up mid-way and expect to make full sense of. I recommend the series to fans of darker science fiction and comics/graphic novels.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2016, Image Comics
Series: Trees vol 2 of ongoing series (with two volumes out so far), collecting issues #9–14
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Some sort bricks and mortar comic book shop (I have forgotten which country it was in though)