Rai (comics)

Rai ran nine issues, concluding in November 1992 with Rai #0. It was relaunched six months later as Rai and the Future Force, a new series which continued the numbering from Rai.[2]

By the year 4001, industrialization in Japan had begun to consume every square inch of free space within the island nation's borders. To house and feed its growing population, the country had built upon its own infrastructure centuries before, turning the whole of Japan into a towering pillar, hundreds of miles wide. Eventually, the nation detached from Earth entirely, and now orbits the planet.

Governed by a mysterious yet benevolent artificial intelligence named Father, the Japan of 4001 is divided into various sectors, with names derived from the time of founding, and generally separated among the lines of economic status and social class. Where a citizen's sector falls in the literal hierarchy of Japan's many sectors also directly affirms their social ranking; the closer you are to the Earth, the less essential you are.

While the higher classes of Japanese society rely on advanced technology, including sophisticated, human-looking robots-or PT's for Positronic Minds-on every level of their daily lives, discontent has brewed for centuries on Japan's middle and lower levels, resulting in the formation of an extremist anti-technology sect called Raddies, who have vowed to overthrow Father and every symbol of his technologically enabled reign.

Standing solitary guard at the top of Japan's miles-high structure is Rai-the lead enforcer of Father's justice and a figure of near-mythic stature to Japanese citizens of all ages. To some he is the ghost of Japan's past personified, to others a "spirit guardian" and folk hero. They say that he can appear out of nowhere, and possesses a near-universal sight over Father's people. But few have ever seen him...until the first murder in nearly a millennium brings Rai to the forgotten sectors of Father's empire, and threatens to topple a Japan that has taken nearly two thousand years to erect.[3]

Over the course of his investigation Rai would come in contact with the mysterious Spylocke, a rebel rousing super agent who is normally relevated to holo-vid projections for the entertainment value of the masses. Eventually he and a wayward resident girl of new Japan named Lula Lee would come to an alliance against the false utopia's creator after Rai discovers how he was created and is told of the harsh living conditions new Japan truly boasts beneath its feigned perfection. Eventually he meets and falls in love with a recently companion-less Positronic A.I (PT) named Momo, who was among many of her synthetic kind to gain awareness of herself and her social situation.

Momo vows to herself to bring New Japan crashing to the Earth below for their creator and the humans' mistreatment of her people. Joining their shared cause is fellow outcast and renegade experiment Izak, a hybrid blend of Father's livewire and long extinct alien genetic material fished from amongst the stars; his new race was meant to be a proceeding protectorate task force for the floating city but were too volatile and bloodthirsty to ever be controlled, therefore being cast down to Earth with only him escaping.

Having made Stalwart allies of this group of renegades with the aid of the tumultuous Dr. Silk, a long time resident of New Japan and greatest if not most conniving scientific mind of the 41st century, Rai managed to stall an all out war between Momo's faction of self-aware Positrons and the anti-father/PT terrorist cell known as the Raddies, which would serve to further the despotic rule of the A.I.'s hold over New Japan. After having allied both sides to his cause, Rai and his fellow insurgents led a civil war within New Japan while he and his predecessor Rai IX headed into the heart of the problem, taking the fight directly to the tyrant ruling from within; only for both to be routed by his newest creation Rai XI. The battle ended with Rai IX dead and Rai himself stripped of power and cast down to the wasteland that is Earth, abruptly ending the opposition from both armies brought under Rai's banner.

But the fallen champion had not perished there as many were led to believe. Instead he would go on to survive his ordeal but in a battered and damaged state of being, eventually getting picked up by wastelanders native to the post-apocalyptic world. Meanwhile, back on New Japan Rai's friends and fellow revolutionaries have either been driven underground (as many are in hiding) or have been captured for interrogation and participation in bloodsports as a means of execution.

As time passed however Rai would eventually regain his strength, replacing what he lost with something new and profound, taking on the sword of a fallen warrior who was burned out of existence by New Japan's harmful solar exhaust that constantly burned the earth; courtesy of a captured Geomancer under Father's thumb. Even coming across new allies and enemies along his trek across the wastes in order to find a way back home, most notably Lemur; a resident of the burning earth who can sense a person's moral fiber, whose home was burned by the dead world christened "Always Rising Sun" due to its constant solar waste dumping upon the world.

More importantly the famed undying Fist & Steel of the Earth who would lend his services to Rai in exchange for retrieving Karana, the latest speaker of the earth from father's clutches. As the trio make their way to an armament that may aid them in the upcoming battle, the night sky comes alight with falling stars. But only Rai knows they're pieces of New Japan that are being jettisoned to earth by Father, in an effort to purge his systems of a computer virus the late Spylocke and a wounded Lula cast into his core processor. Rai, Gilad and Lemur eventually find themselves within a cave harboring a long thought lost ancient weapon created by man, an old X-O Armor Mecha Class which was left over from the war that engulfed the earth just as New Japan ascended to the skies.

Valiant Masters: Rai, collected Rai (1992) #1–8.

In 4001 A.D., a massive machine known as the Host covers the entire island of Japan. Fifty billion Japanese dwell inside this mighty construct, which is, in fact, a single, enormous robot. Rai is the hereditary defender of the Host – its living immune system. Rai draws weapons from his own body to protect the people of Japan and his creator Grandmother, the sentient artificial intelligence that controls Japan. The line of Rai were created by Grandmother in the image of the 20th century hero Bloodshot. She hoped to inspire her people by invoking his heroism.

Japan is torn by two warring ideologies: the traditionalists, who believe Grandmother should continue controlling every aspect of life; and the extremist Anti-Grannies, who want to destroy Grandmother and believe that Japan should begin caring for itself.

Early in the 31st century, the entire land mass of the island nation of Japan was blanketed by hundreds of levels of high-tech urban sprawl. In order to support such a spectacular megalopolis and its population, a tremendously powerful central computer was designed to control every aspect of the island's function. In 3050, that computer went "freewill", meaning that it and its motivation became independent. The populace dubbed it "Grandmother" because of its clearly benevolent desire to care for and protect the people of Japan. To insure her own safety, Grandmother created a security force of one, her Spirit Guardian. It is called Rai, the kanji word for "spirit", though it is spelled "Rei" in English.[4]

• Rai Zero

• Valiant Entertainment official website
• Rai entry at the Valiant Comics Encyclopedia
• Valiant Comics Fan Site
• "Valiant Days, Valiant Nights – A Look Back at the Rise and Fall of Valiant