A review by narflet
Echo: Collider by Terry Moore

5.0

Gosh. First, this opens with an issue that made me well up. I love the fact that Ivy is a mother and is also going all around the country with her Sherlock-like mind. It's fantastic to see such a positive female character being both an excellent mother and excellent at her job. It's not that every female character should be those things, it's just that these are the things that she wants to do so she can, of course, do them and there isn't any nonsense about it. So long as a person is doing what they want and are happy then no one should tell them that they shouldn't, or can't, be doing what they're doing. Which is why it's also so lovely in this issue to see Pam so happy with Lulu, as she's clearly getting an echo of what she loved to do, and what she wanted to be, which is to be a mother to her children.

I routinely mention how amazing Terry's art is, because it is, but there's sequence at the start of this volume that really illustrates why his work is something really special. As Julie is taking off her top layers so she can have alloy-to-skin contact with Lulu her hairband is knocked backwards from pulling her clothes over her head. It's touches like that which make the characters so real, the fact that Terry has observed and understood what happens when someone wearing a headband takes their top off! And then, after her headband is sitting on the back of her head, Pam very sweetly removes it for her. It's such a touching detail. Outstanding work.



After the first tearjerker of an issue, we then get a full on mind-boggling expositional info dump. Amazing, but with a sad ending. And, as if that wasn't enough, the rest of the volume follows up with the return of Cain, the introduction of a new black-ops hunter character

Spoiler

(Dan! sniff)

, bad-guy character development (which ends in a dark place), and finishes with the emergence of a super creepy bad-guy freak show. Hong really does push believability somewhat, which is saying a lot based on the rest of the contents of this series; It's totally ridiculous that he'd actually be up and walking about, let alone alive - and where on earth does he manage to come up with that little speaker from so he can talk?! It's just a little bit daft, which seems out of place with the rest of the series. A little too crazy-Bond-villan.

The other thing bothered me about this volume was the total lack of explanation of how we got from Julie, Dillon, and Pam driving away from the explosion at the end of the last volume (and leaving Ivy behind them) to Julie and Pam being flown by Ivy to her house and Dillon staying behind to meet back up with Dan. Felt like there was an issue missing (but there isn't of course).

I know I've mentioned a couple of issues that I have with this volume, but it still gets five stars, because it is an amazing piece of storytelling and artwork and it really feels like this is the volume where everything comes to a head. Now we're just heading to the big finish.