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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Review: Y: The Last Man Vol. 3: One Small Step

Cover of Y: The Last Man volume 3

Review:

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Y: The Last Man's debut, I'm reviewing the original 10 TPB collections. Find the other reviews here: Unmanned, Cycles, One Small Step, Safeword, Ring of Truth, Girl on Girl, Paper Dolls, Kimono Dragons, Motherland, Whys and Wherefores.

The third major story arc in the ground-breaking series Y: The Last Man, compiled here in volume 3, brings more explosive revelations, dramatic conflicts, wry humor, and more evolutions in the relationships of the core characters.

After their confrontation with the Amazons in rural Ohio in volume 2, Yorick, Agent 355, Dr Allison Mann and Ampersand the monkey make their way by train to Kansas. This time, though, they are joined by Natalya. A nail-biting rooftop battle on a moving train between Natalya and 355 eventually leads to them making common cause, and the Kansas detour.

What is worth delaying their cross-country trip to Dr Mann's west-coast lab in their quest for an antidote to the plague? The promise of tripling the number of men on earth! Kansas is the chosen re-entry site for a capsule of three astronauts returning to earth after nearly a year of watching in horror from orbit as the plague wiped out all males on the planet.

But as Alter Tse'elon of the Israeli military and her squad close in, 355 needs to make a dangerous gambit and a shocking confession.

This is superb story-telling. Brian K. Vaughan does a brilliant job with plot pacing, drawing out this space-drama over seven issues, making this one of the thickest volumes of the series. He takes his readers on a roller-coaster ride of building tension, shocking twists, multiple climaxes, all interspersed with quieter moments of reflection and bonding.

Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan's art rises to the challenge of Vaughan's narrative. They know when to zoom in for a tight close-up and when to pull back for a wider shot of the larger picture. They provide enough subtle clues that it is no problem distinguishing, for example, the similar characters of the Israeli soldiers.

They save their greatest work, though, for the covers - stunning silent statements of the crux of the tensions in this gripping story arc. I truly could not put it down, mowing through it in one white-knuckled reading.

This story scores 4.5 capes out of 5.

Read all 10 reviews of Y: The Last Man here: Volume 1 Unmanned; Volume 2 Cycles; Volume 3 One Small Step; Volume 4 Safeword; Volume 5 Ring of Truth; Volume 6 Girl on Girl; Volume 7 Paper Dolls; Volume 8 Kimono Dragons; Volume 9 Motherland; Volume 10 Whys and Wherefores.

Description:

The adventures of Yorick Brown continue in Y: THE LAST MAN: ONE SMALL STEP, collecting issues #11-17 of the critically acclaimed series. A Russian Soyuz capsule is coming down from the International Space Station carrying three passengers: one woman and two men. Could this be the end of Yorick's tenure as last living male?

Collects: Y: The Last Man #11-17
Authors: Brian K. Vaughan
Artists: Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan
Published By: Vertigo 
Published When: April 1 2004
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN-13: 9781401202019
Language: English
Pages: 168 pages


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