As I pointed out when I wrote about the first half of the graphic version, Brain Drain Part 1, the real story was boring: a pathologist removed Einstein's brain and eyes after death - and against the physicist's wishes - and gave out brain segments to his colleagues what seemed like willy-nilly for the next twenty years until the public finally learned about it. No important research resulted.
Gomont seems to want to follow the general outlines of that story in this second volume, Brain Drain Part 2, without actually saying the dénouement takes place in 1978, as it did in the real world, or tying himself to that sad "no important research." It makes this second book expansive in odd ways, as readers who know the timeline start wondering if decades are passing between pages. In his fictional version, there's also a major scientific finding - somewhat parallel to the real-world research of Marian Diamond in the 1980s - by his fictional neurologist Marianne Ruby.
But let me start at the beginning. Pathologist "Stolz" is on the run with "Professor Albert," who appears as an older man with the top of his head missing and an empty cranium (he wears hats a lot, so people don't notice that), and with the brain of Einstein in a jar. The independent existence of the Professor - zombie? ghost? avatar? - is the central motif of the series and its defining fantasy element; Gomont never explains it: it just is. It is presumably 1955, the year Einstein died. The FBI is chasing them, for never-fully-defined hugger-mugger reasons - the Professor does not want them to get their hands on him, nor does Stolz.
Stolz is said to be married with children; they appeared only briefly in the first book and he has fully abandoned them in this one. He apparently never contacts them again after running away with the Professor. The narrative also blithely says that a doctor can always find work, given his skills - presumably to explain how Stolz has funds for this life. But a doctor can find work as a doctor because he is officially licensed, under his name, on large, maintained lists that detail his training and expertise. This seems implausible for a man officially on the run from the FBI.
Anyway, after hiding out for some indeterminate time, Stolz tries to broker a deal with the head of the Institute where the Professor worked, a man called only Otto. Gomont doesn't give all the details - and the Professor assumes the unqualified Stolz will be in charge of the overall project - but it seems that there could be a research project, blessed by the Professor's family and the Institute, under Stolz as a figurehead and with Ruby as the primary expert.
The Professor and Stolz do enlist Ruby, but the FBI is not a part of (or amenable to) this deal, and capture the Professor and his brain for presumably-unpleasant researches of their own. (This is the MK-Ultra era, though that was the CIA.) Stolz somehow rams the FBI agent's car to retrieve the two remnants of Einstein, and the three (or four, counting the brain separately) flee (in what must be another car but isn't explained), more deeply Most Wanted than before.
Up to this point, the Brain Drain story seems to be taking place basically in 1955 - possibly a few months have passed, but no substantial amount of time. From here, though, the calendar becomes much more flexible.
Ruby demands to begin the research, so Stolz looks up an old professor, Dr. Seward, who now runs an odd, out-of-the-way asylum in Kansas. There are a lot of brains there for Ruby's comparative anatomy studies, and Seward does his own LSD-based researches on the Professor, escalating to cloning the brain (!!!) multiple times and doing surgery on the original that leaves the Professor unable to speak. Stolz is sidelined this whole time, but finally breaks free with the Professor after Ruby finishes her research and heads out of the plot almost for good.
Some years seem to have passed, during which Stolz has not worked as a doctor. But he goes back to hiding out with the now-silent Professor for what may be another decade or so. And he eventually sends part of one of the cloned brains to Ruby, which allows her to expand her research and finally make solid, groundbreaking findings, which she releases in the standard scientific manner.
…which tells the public that Einstein's brain was preserved, and causes a media frenzy. This leads to the actual ending, which I think is meant to be in roughly 1978, as in real life. Stolz finally does what he should have done, back at the beginning, and Gomont's narration nods towards the outlines of real history.
That narration, by the way, is assured and supple and smart: Gomont is very much telling this story, and makes it clear several times he's diverging from history to do so. His art is equally enticing, with realistically lumpy people, sometimes impressionistic vistas, and detailed mid-century objects to ground it all.
I don't think Gomont's themes entirely line up with what actually happened in the real world, and I find his timeline a bit odd. He also seems to want this to be, in the end, the story of the posthumous friendship of Stolz and the Professor, which is entirely fictional - and, for the bulk of those years, the Professor was incapable of speech after the events of this book. It is a very odd and quirky thing. But I do appreciate that about it, and I think it's almost exactly what Gomont wanted it to be. And that's a great thing to be.
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