Great Pacific #6 wraps up the first arc of Joe Harris and Martín Morazzo’s odd little environmentally minded tale.  How did it turn out? Here’s the official description from Image:

“TRASHED!” Conclusion
The United States Navy has come to drag fugitive, would-be Garbage Patch ruler Chas Worthington back to the America he left. But Chas has one more trick up his sleeve, and the future of New Texas will never be the same.

That description sums the issue up pretty well, although it’s not Chas‘s actions that will have the biggest impact, unless I miss my guess.

Great Pacific‘s biggest problem has always been its universe. Just as the reader thinks he has an understanding of how Chas’s world works, something throws her off. The characters will take some out-of-their-world development in stride, or Chas will exhibit some previously unacknowledged talent, and nothing is said about it. Case in point: this issue, Chas uses his HERO device, which we thought was just supposed to break down plastics, to create a long, snake-like bridge of junk to get him closer to a Navy ship. Imagine those ice bridges Iceman of the X-Men makes, but made of water bottles. Where did that come from?

Inconsistencies in the flow of the story create similar problems: halfway through his conversation with the Navy captain, all the sailors start yelling at him to drop his weapon, despite nothing in the previous seven panels that should have prompted that response. Later, we’re told that Yalafath, the giant octopus, is moving in two directions at once. I don’t even know what that means.

Poor writing  can make a book nearly unreadable. With comics, at least the reader has pictures to fall back on. Martín Morazzo continues to produce absolutely gorgeous landscape within wide-angle shots. I’m even coming to grips with his somewhat stiff-faced characters. I’ve realized that I’m mostly bothered by everyone having a tiny chipmunk mouth, but that’s a stylistic quirk on Morazzo’s part that I can tolerate. One face he does have trouble with is that of the octopus, whose visage is noticeably lopsided in one scene.

As frustrating as much of this issue was to read, I will give Joe Harris props for a surprising, though not unbelievable, ending. It will definitely make future issues interesting.

2.5/5