Echo Vol. 3: Desert Run

by Terry Moore

Echo is a great series.  The premise is that Julie Martin has been covered with bits of a high-tech atomic suit, which has bonded to her skin.  She was covered in the material after witnessing an explosion in the sky, caused by HeNRI, the company that developed the suit, attacking its test pilot, Annie.  Now Julie and Annie's boyfriend are on the run from HeNRI, a homeless vagrant who also has some of the suit, and Ivy Raven, a woman who was originally hired by HeNRI to find Julie, and is now looking for her for her own reasons.

Sounds complicated, doesn't it?  The thing is, Moore writes this story so smoothly that all of the pieces work very well together.  With this volume, we start to learn a little more about HeNRI, confirming that Annie's death was not as accidental as it may have seemed at first, and that the big military research corporation is, indeed, evil.  Of course, corporations in comics (and the news) just about always are evil, so that's not a surprise.  A new scientist is introduced to the story, as is his weapon that can be used against the beta suit that Julie is now wearing more of.  Why this new character, a Chinese scientist, looks like a bad drawing of Whilce Portacio of Sebastian Shaw's son Shinobi on the cover, I don't know.  He doesn't really look like that in the book.

With all this plot, Moore still finds plenty of time for some nice character moments, reuniting Julie with her damaged and mentally delicate sister.  He also raises (if not resolving) the issue of how one goes to the bathroom in a metallic body suit that has bonded completely with one's body.  This is good stuff.