The Beauty Volume Six
Jeremy Haun & Jason A. Hurley, story; Thomas Nachlik, Matthew Dow Smith, Jeremy Haun & Danny Luckert, art; Nayoung Kim & Brett Weldele, color
Image Comics, 2022
The series ends here, after a big pandemic pause. The collection includes issues #27-29 (published back in 2019) plus the "All Good Things" one shot, an oversized conclusion. The storyline continues from the previous volume, leaving behind the political intrigue and the crime stories of the earlier volumes. Most of the story focuses on Gang-banger Timo and transgender assassin Ezerae and Detectives Foster and Vaughn from The Beauty Task Force, although there is also space for more of the one-shot narratives that the series has always done so well.
In fact it opens with two of them. The first shows a young couple about to have their first child. But they are also negotiating the beginning of the end of the Beauty virus, as they are on the subway train where the first exploding woman makes the news. In the second a young would-be actor named Gerald pursues a career. Just as success is in sight his clock runs out.
At this point over 60 percent of the world population have the Beauty virus. Timo and Ezrae fight their way to revenge, only to find their target dead from the virus. But the mob still seeks vengeance for what they have taken in their retaliation for the death of their mentor. Foster and Vaughan continue to seek answers, Finally Foster exits with his family, and Vaughan stays with the police, transformed into her pre-Beauty form. It is the only statement the series has about the world of the Beauty after the cure. The series may have ended differently without the pandemic, but rarely has the real world mirrored an imagined world so completely.
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