The fourth and final volume of Supurbia chronicles the showdown between good and evil, the Meta Legion versus Hector Hunt and the shape-shifters, the one for all the marbles that has been brewing from the very beginning.  The book opens with Agent Twilight having been captured and tortured by those shape-shifters.  Meanwhile Zari Jenkins has also been kidnapped by Hector Hunt and Hella Heart, though Hella too is an almost unwilling participant in the current proceeding.  What follows is a battle on two fronts with a lot of drama, a lot of tense moments between team members, family members and more, not to mention a lot of action as well.  When everyone comes out on the other side of it, nothing and no one will ever be the same again.

Grace Randolph delivers a final, solid entry into her series that merges the everyday happenings of the hero’s families with what the heroes do.  It is a series that actually places the supporting characters above the leads and thereby reverses their roles creating an interesting concept for the book.  The closest thing comparable would be the television show Army Wives that looks at what goes on behind the scenes when everyone else goes into battle.  The great thing about the book is that it actually worked and worked well.  When reading the book, you found yourself caring about these characters and though you might have wanted to see what the heroes were doing, you did not necessarily need to as the story did not focus upon them.  The lives of those who support the heroes are almost far more interesting than the heroes could ever be.  Eventually, Randolph would tie these two different worlds together by this last book and it was interesting to see how they functioned when paired up.

There are a lot of interesting characters in the book to say the least.  Eve White, our leading character and the wife of the new Marine Omega is a strong woman and though she finds it challenging to live in a superhero community, she makes the best of it.  Batu and Jeremy, as well as their two kids, are one complicated family that goes through many trials in the book.  The relationship between Agent Twilight and Night Fox is an interesting one, though highly complicated as they are both gay and both in love with each other, except Night Fox just happens to be married to Alexis.  The most intriguing character of all though is Helen Heart or Hella when she was a villain.  She is physically beautiful and trying to be the same within, doing her best to make nice with her neighbours and perhaps do a little to make up for the bad she caused in her life.  Reforming is not easy though as it is a simple thing to slip back into the familiar and even though she is dating and living with Sovereign, every day is a battle.

There is still one little problem with the book, the same problem as the last collected edition, and it is the lack of a recap page of some sort.  When you start to read the book, it literally drops you head first into the middle of the story with little to no idea who anyone is or what is going on.  Eventually you pick up on some of it, but if you were a new reader going into this, it is not the easiest book to start with.  If you had read this title on a monthly basis, or were to read all three trade paperbacks consecutively, this problem would be nonexistent.  But if you waited for the trade, as some do, the wait in-between them is not a helpful element to the story.

Other than that one small thing, the volume did ultimately deliver as a wonderful bookend to the series.  This book, which collected the last four issues of the series, was a breeze to read through as the pacing was exceptionally fast.  Better yet, the story captivated you and held your interest through every page and panel.  Russell Dauterman`s artwork is fantastic in the book.  Tight, slick and utterly gorgeous and after you read the story, you just want to go back and look at it all again to really appreciate the pencils he lays down.  Though this might be the last volume and the end of the story, Randolph leaves it wide open should she want to return to it.  This book has an amazing concept and there are endless stories that could be told with and about these characters, and they are so well thought out and engaging, that hopefully she intends to come back sooner rather than later.

4.5 out of 5