Echo: The Last Day

Echo #6

by Terry Moore

Deep underground in the frozen Alaskan Yukon, military leaders gather, preparing to test Alloy 618 through the Phi Super-Collider. But the alloy's inventor, Annie, was convinced such a test would destroy the earth. Now dead, Annie returns to life within Julie in a desperate race against time to guide her to the Collider and stop the test. The Last Day collects the final five issues of Terry Moore's award-winning series, and includes a gallery of Echo pin-up art and sketches. Don't miss the thrilling conclusion to Terry Moore's award-winning sci-fi thriller

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Book

104 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2011

About the author

Following the examples of independent comic creators such as Dave Sim and Jeff Smith, he decided to publish Strangers in Paradise himself through his own Houston-based "Abstract Studios" imprint, and has frequently mentioned a desire to do a syndicated cartoon strip in the authors notes at the back of the Strangers in Paradise collection books. He has also mentioned his greatest career influence is Peanuts' Charles Schulz.[1] Some of Moore's strip work can additionally be found in his Paradise, Too! publications.

His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including receiving the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story in 1996 for Strangers in Paradise #1-8, which was collected in the trade paperback "I Dream of You".

It was announced on June 15th, 2007 that Moore would be taking over for Sean McKeever as writer of Marvel Comics's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series starting with a new issue #1. On July 27th, Marvel announced that Moore would also take over for Joss Whedon as writer of Marvel's Runaways.[2]

On November 19th, 2007 Terry Moore announced in his blog that his new self-published series would be named Echo and its first issue would appear on March 5th, 2008.[3]

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the big finale, with the particle accelerator of doom about to end all life on Earth if our heroes can't stop bantering long enough to stop it.

Ah, to hell with it. Let 'em banter. It's what I'm here for. The plot ceased to matter a couple volumes back, for sure.

Let's have a sequel where they just all hang out in a coffee shop, flirt, and exchange zingers every issue.


Side note: Strangers in Paradise fans will be happy to know there are some cameo appearances by supporting characters from that series.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Echo #25-30.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terry Moore's conclusion to Echo is OK. It's a little hand-wavey about what happens at the end, and the denouement is even more so. But up to that point there' s a lot of fun action-adventure and fun character interaction in an unusual environment.

I do have to ask what was up with the biblical stuff that seemed to come out of nowhere in the previous volume, and got real serious here. It seemed out of place in a SF drama, in part because it didn't get enough attention for its weirdness. (I'm more sanguine about the SiP stuff, which was a neat aside.)

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun conclusion to the series, although Moore definitely wraps up endings with a lot less fanfare than I personally like. Overall it was still a really cool story with a lot of great characters. Unfortunately I did not get my Julie/Ivy endgame but there was some more stuff with Cain in this one and also between Julie and that assassin [?] lady I was being absolutely sniped the entire time with Large Women TM so I'm happy overall ;)

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, that was a disappointing ending. 90% of this was the characters "snarking" at each other, with only 10% actually spent on tying up the plot. The good guys break in to the secret base, they do... something, and then suddenly the world is back to normal.

About the only thing in this that lived up to previous volumes was the art, which was as beautiful as ever.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that's it. The end of Echo, one of my favorite comics series I've read in years. And I have to say, for a weird, occasionally metaphysical, often spiritual, sci-fi mystery, the ending is 90% satisfying. Honestly, that's a massive compliment. Most stories of this ilk, things like Lost or Morning Glories, end up diving so heavily into their philosophical metaphors that they don't bother to tell a satisfying story in the real world. Echo does, with only a few lingering questions, none of which are ultimately all that important.

For instance, there's a literal mystery box Moore set up several volumes ago, and we never get to find out what's inside. It's intentionally left unanswered. But, honestly, I never cared what was in the box? It has nothing to do with the main story, and was at best a character-building reveal for Julie, whose character I think we know very well by now. So, no big deal.

My only real complaint about this volume is its climax. For 6 volumes we've been building to a theoretical huge showdown between Julie and government. Something monumental and insane is going to happen. We've even had a potential Biblical prophecy about the end of the world stemming from this showdown. And then, when it happens, it isn't given enough time to breathe, to explore its consequences. It's not vague or poorly-executed or anything, it's just... short. I wanted to really feel this big payoff, and unfortunately I just kind of didn't.

But, that does little to detract from how much I loved reading this series, beginning to end. It's a tour de force of art, philosophy, and character, all wrapped up in a semi-realistic sci-fi "superhero" story (imagine the quotes around superhero are enormous). I couldn't have asked for this to be much better than it was, and it's turned me into an instant Terry Moore fan. Highly recommended!

[John Elbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

So the big payoff volume definitely delivered. This was satisfactory conclusion for the most part. Big showdowns. Beautiful images put together to form the big moments at end show Moore is a visual powerhouse when he flex his artistic muscles. Most questions asked in the series were answered to some degree. Let's see what happens down the road if anything or anyone from this series appears later on in the 'Terryverse'.

[47Time · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julie, Ivy, Dillon and Vijay are heading for tge North Pole, to the army installation where the collider is being built. Meanwhile they have to deal with Julie being invaded by Annie's consciousness, Ivy continuously aging in reverse and, still unknown to them, the black ops guy on their tracks. They infiltrate the installation and split up. Julie and Ivy head to the detector while Dillon handles the generators. The army has a bomb that needs to be disabled as its purpose is to threaten China, but it has the potential to destroy the planet. Julie and Ivy confront Foster, the head HeNRI scientist that opposed Annie. He shoots Julie and the forfe of the blast pushes her into the collider, destroying it completely, but leaving the people alive. The shockwave is felt hundreds of miles away, but the world survives most likely because of Annie's intervention.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh. I stand by my original sentiment that this is a great series. Easy breezy reading, yet probing questions about the intersection of science, humanity, nature, etc. sprinkled throughout. I guess I should admit that I didn't understand exactly what happened there at the end (maybe it's kind of unclear on purpose?), but I don't really care all that much. I realize now that I'm really drawn to this type of stuff - high entertainment containing questions of our fundamental knowledge of ourselves and our world, a la "Lost," "Battlestar," "Y The Last Man," and Ex Machina." (okay, okay, practically every super hero comic attempts this, but I digress). The only bummer about these for me is that they are extremely difficult to wrap up in any satisfying way. Probably because all those big ponderings we did throughout the series? Well, we still don't know...anything. So all they can do is give us a happy ending to the story and tell us to be on our way! (I'm still angry at Lost for an ending that sucked SO BADLY). Anywho, looking forward to Moore's next endeavor.

[Darinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and entertaining story. The ending was a little bit of a let down, but overall, it was a great series. This volume contains issues 26-30.

[Bookworm Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love!

[Andres Pasten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reservé el 5 para el final, para este notable comic. Terry Moore tiene mis respetos.

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly unsatisfying ending. I'd have liked just a little bit more. Ivy and Julie are both suddenly back to normal (just a little bit rejuvenated and a little bit taller respectively) and how the apocalypse was avoided is a little wishy-washy. Ah well. Perhaps the most frustrating thing though is not finding out what was in Julie's box. It was made to sound like some kind of sex thing, but I don't see why Julie's husband would've though that she was perverted so it must be something a little out of the ordinary. I hope we learn something more about this box in Rachel Rising, although it seems likely that it's just the box that the same/similar; it seems unlikely that the contents would be the same.

The arctic fox at the start of this volume was adorable. The continuing comedy between Ivy and Julie was still entertaining. The tidbit about Cain's finger was very interesting, and ties in with the larger Terryverse that now includes witches and demons. I wonder if Terry was looking forward when he wrote this, whether the ideas were already forming.

I certainly enjoyed Echo, and it's certainly something I'd recommend people read, but I think I'm enjoying Rachel Rising just a little bit more. Now I just need to re-read the rest of Strangers in Paradise. For those that don't know (although I expect anyone reading this far does know), there's a fun little cameo appearance from a couple of SiP characters, with references that won't really make sense if you haven't read SiP.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terry Moore shifts from romance to science fiction here (the romance isn;t completely gone) and in some ways Echo is a better read than Strangers in Paradise. He avoided dragging the story out, and he kept the science in his science fiction within the realm of possibility (I did not completely fact check him) and questioned the ethics of the situation. Super colliders are a hot issue with some people, and the the problem is whether the collider is being used for science, personal power, or war. While Annie/Julie is a good character, I truly enjoyed Ivy more. I do wish we had been an explanation for Ivy's cure, but she is around at the end. A fun plus was the cameo by Tambi from Strangers in Paradise.

[Zedsdead · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final showdown. Julie, Dill, Ivy and Vijay journey to Alaska to find the collider and stop the black hole/bomb tests. Things get weird between Dillon and Julie/Annie.

Hmm. This is the only volume of the series that I rated below 5. The dialogue sparkles, and Moore's art dazzles. But for the first time, I was disappointed plot-wise. The good guys had an absurdly easy time infiltrating a super-duper-ultra-secret government-funded remote site. They arrived in truly cliched fashion at the last second of a dramatic countdown. And what happened after that just made no sense. None. I actually checked the binding for missing pages. An unfortunate end to an otherwise amazing series.

[Daryl Nash · Rating 1 out of 5]

Moore's art, as always, is good, but the pseudo-science and literal Biblical tie-in finally got to me. Not to mention the handwavy finale where everything goes boom and then is inexplicably better just because Julie/Annie is so awesome. Oh, and WTF, Strangers in Paradise cross-over--was that really necessary? In fact, this series was very reminiscent of the action/intrigue portions of SiP, which were my least favorite parts.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

End of series conclusion: Fun SF adventure, many interesting tangents, likeable characters, somewhat unsatisfying end - wrapped up the story, but left a lot of my why's and what's unanswered. (Not about the infamous box - more, like, why did the thing do the things it did - an answer with a little more heft than "Because Annie" would be cool.) ANYWAY. Pageturning fun, I'll recommend to people who can tolerate and appreciate "Agents of SHIELD"-levels of, uh, science.

[Mirrordance · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terminata la serie rimango sul mio giudizio. Il tratto descrittivo dei personaggi rimane troppo omogeneo e sembra di avere gli stessi protagonisti di SIP, in questo ultimo episodio addirittura lo stesso nome e ruoli analoghi.
Mi aspettavo qualcosa di piu'dui un finale caotico e poco chiaro. Nell'insieme non entusiasmante e poco "sci-fi".

[Keerthi Vasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an engrossing series. Terry Moore's art is so detailed and beautiful to look at. Loved the science stuffs and characters. That being said The ending could've been better: A sudden BOOM then everything went back from total chaos to normal.. Other than that i really had no complain. A great book and it would make a wonderful TV Series.

[Jeff Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid conclusion to a comic series I've loved for some time and kind of hate to see over. We don't see as much resolution to the mysteries as one would hope, and I was okay with that, which says something to the strength of this one. Looking forward to what Terry Moore has to say next.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

End. Satisfying if a little too neat. Love the characters they became, and wish I could spend more time with them- learning, laughing, feeling sympathetic towards them.

Good series - well worth the effort. Comes easily, a story well told and well drawn. Can't wait to see the movie.

[Penny Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wavered over the fifth star - only backed off because I really wanted this series to continue! Julie's, Annie's, and Ivy's stories were so compelling. A decent wrap-up if a bit too hurried of an ending, but a satisfying (if unexplained) epilogue.

[Greymalkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good ending, even if it was a bit hard to follow and felt a little anticlimactic. Perhaps I need to reread it to get the subtleties of what was going on. But the characters were great and I really liked the interactions and epilogue.

[Artemisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this series. This book I kind of hate and not because it is the last one.
I hate the ending. It doesn't feel like it ended. Nothing had consequence. It was a big run to a boom and then everything was back to normal (minus a secret military base or so)

[Tee Cee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew!

I am SO glad it's over, but I want more! What about China? I want to see more of these great characters's lives. This series is one hellava ride, and I can't wait to start another Moore series.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still want to know what's in the secret box, and I'd like a little more of Ivy, but Moore's conclusion to this fascinating story is powerful and thoughtful.

[RogueHireling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terry Moore's wife must be an incredible woman. I can only imagine since this is yet another fabulous ode to womanhood. Bravo.

[Nick Riemondi · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only complaint is that the series had to end.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I mostly enjoyed it, although it left me with quite a few questions. The first and most important being, "What the hell actually happened?"

[Jdetrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending is a little quick and leaves some questions unanswered, but it's generally a good wrap up to a great story.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite epic. A gateway to dark matter. So many questions yet to be explored.