Review: "Echo"

Echo by Terry Moore
4 out of 5 stars

Ah...Terry Moore. One of my favorite graphic novel authors. When my dad loaned this to me back in the summer, it took me a while to actually pick it up (mostly because the complete edition weighs about 15 pounds), but once I did, I started falling in love with Julie and Ivy and the rest. The drawing and style is very reminiscent of Strangers in Paradise, which is always a good thing to me. But it did make me want to go read those again.

This is essentially a story about three women saving the world from total destruction. There is a lot of science talk which went way over my head most of the time, and quite a bit of violence, but the relationships and back stories made up for that. Annie is a scientist working on a special project, an alloy suit that gives her all kinds of special powers, but once she gets most of the kinks worked out, her higher-ups decide that she is a liability and kill her. Or so they think. Annie's boyfriend, Dillon, also plays a big part in this story as he tries to find out what happened to her.

Julie is a young woman who is not having a good time in life right now. Her sister, Pam, is in a hospital after losing her children and her touch with reality, her husband wants a divorce because she is too damaged, and she has a mysterious box in her closet that holds some deep, dark secret which WE NEVER FIND OUT. Seriously, I marked it down half a star just for that. Julie is out in the desert taking pictures, when she is swept up in Annie's death and her life suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

Ivy works for the government in a very special capacity and is hired to bring Julie in before she messes things up even more. But as Ivy gets deeper into Julie, Annie, and Dillon's lives, she starts to realize that she may be working for the wrong side. She's also got a little girl named Lulu to worry about. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? It's hard to tell at first. While I enjoyed the overall story immensely, the ending was so rushed and under-explained, that it forced me to mark it down that other half a star. But even with that, this is still an excellent story and I highly recommend it.