Echo: Desert Run, released last week, is the third volume in what I still can’t help myself calling “Terry Moore’s new series after Strangers in Paradise.” Echo has been going on for a couple of years now and has created a pretty big footprint on the comics industry itself—but Strangers in Paradise is the kind of thing you can’t escape.
At any rate, Julie Martin’s adventures with her crazy power suit of “alloy” finally start to make a little sense in this third volume. Up until now, it’s been about characters—a group of disparate individuals tossed into a crappy situation together with no real explanation for the situation, but a lot of hints. In that way, it felt a lot like life. This volume, which comes with a lot of narrative satisfaction, is a lot less like life and a lot more like storytelling. The crazy, nameless homeless guy who’s been killing people from day (read: issue) one gets a name and a very unexpected agenda via a mental link with Julie, while huge chunks of the book are given to HeNRI’s people to explain the purpose of their organization, the suit and their internal conflict.
Meanwhile, it’s setting the stage for a lot of great character moments in the next few months of the monthly series or the next trade. Ivy’s family drama and a few clues as to what might be hidden away in Julie’s secret box set the stage for what’s next to come with them—and the addition of Pam, Julie’s sister, to their merry band of travelers (as opposed to being in the lunatic asylum where she spent the first ten issues or so) is a welcome one. Having had Dillon and Julie together, alone, on the road for so long it seemed like only a matter of time before he’d be making out with her—and given that she’s wearing bits of his last girlfriend’s exploded DNA on her breasts that’s just a little too much for me. The minute he noticed how hot Ivy was, I felt like the whole book was a lot less predetermined.
Moore’s art remains some of the strongest in the business, with expressive, often comical faces that give a real sense of humanity to the characters beneath. Echo, of course, has given him a little more opportunity to play at the extremes that most other comic creators call home lately, with things like a character being introduced, developed, hinted as a major player and then almost immediately (and graphically) blown up.
Julie’s next volume should take her into the belly of the beast, and the much-shorter shelf life Terry Moore has in store for Echo than he did for Strangers in Paradise should ensure that things start getting very crazy, dangerous and action-movie loud sooner rather than later.
