By Cat Wyatt

Things have been progressing pretty steadily for Evolution (unless we’re talking about the actual evolution happening in the series, in which case it is occurring in leaps and bounds). I feel like this issue has given me a better idea of which events are happening when, without actually telling me anything concrete. It’ll be interesting to see how everything falls into place in the end.

Like the last few reviews I did, I’m going to focus on each group of events as units, instead of going in the particular order given in the issue (I love the way they do it, but it does make it a bit more difficult to talk about).

This issue starts off in Los Angeles, with Claire and Mr. Hurwitz. Mr. Hurwitz is asking Claire a bunch of questions which may not normally come off as creepy, but given what we’ve seen, and Claire’s body language, the whole thing is mildly disturbing. He’s offering to be her be her mentor, but he never explicitly says what he’d be mentoring her in (though I’m sure we can all guess – it has to do with the plague/evolution).

Which raises the question – what does this man know about what’s going on? When we first saw him he was killing a person fully taken over by the infection, and he didn’t seem phased by it. He was also seeking out tapes, one of which included what appear to be a vivisection of an infected human.

Part of me is starting to wonder if Claire’s story is happening at a later date from everyone else’s. Could Mr. Hurwitz be the doctor? And this is the later stages? It seems plausible, though he’s more…sane and stable than the good doctor, so it’s probably not the case. Not to mention how dire things appear to be during the doctor’s time – how could he have had so much more time, after the path he’s started down?

Anyway, back to the conversation at hand. Hurwitz seems to know exactly how to get to Claire; asking her how Rochelle feels about everything, poking and prying in the perfect manner to get Claire’s nerves on edge. I’m not sure how much Claire has told Rochelle, but based on her reactions I would have to assume not much.

While Claire hasn’t told Rochelle everything, it’s clear that her partner is not stupid. When they meet up for lunch later (with Rochelle dropping the dreaded “we need to talk”) Rochelle cuts right to the meat of the story, and man, does she ever have reason to be concerned about what is happening right now.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia Abe (the ‘good’ doctor) has introduced Dr. Setia to the horrors of what is going on. I’m not entirely certain on if Abe was looking for help or confirmation here, nor do I know what the long term consequences will be for this action. Those infected with…whatever this is…they seem to know when a person has become aware of it, and thus he’s potentially put Dr. Setia in quite a bit of danger. Though I’m sure he doesn’t care.

He teaches Dr. Setia the importance of acting fast against the monsters (for lack of a better term), and quickly dispatches the patient he used to prove the truth with (I almost feel bad for the poor bastard). Also, he may have kidnapped Dr. Setia. Or at least he led her back to his lab to force her to help him solve the problem. I’m not sure how voluntary the whole situation is here.

Abe seems to think that he’s found a way to fight the infection…but I have some major concerns. For one thing, he’s fleeing the place he was living and working. He says something about how he can’t stay because they’ll find Conley (I have questions about this one) and Dr. Setia…I think he killed the doctor he enlisted. Which is not good news. It certainly doesn’t mean anything good about his sanity or morality for that matter.

Hannah has made it to Germany, only to find things even worse than she expected. There are bodies of the infected everywhere. At first glance it appears that they all dropped dead from their conditions, but upon closer inspection it’s revealed that they did not die of natural causes (unless one would like to consider a bullet to the head natural). I very much doubt that all of these people committed suicide like the first victim Hannah met…which can only mean one thing.

The questions is, who did this? Will Hannah be in danger, considering her infected state? Which is already in question. Hannah seems to think she is fine, once again, as her shoulder is clear, but I have concerns. Abe thinks it’s smart enough to hide, so what if it’s figured out a way to mask itself from her? After all, the last time it appeared in excess Hannah literally tried to cut it out of herself, so the best way to preserve itself would be to hide. Just a theory.

The guards that Hannah saw removing the body from the church are here, which immediately implies something nefarious, like a cover up or some such. Her friend seems to think they’re running a triage…but how many triage centers make use of guns on the victims? There’s more to this than meets the eye, sure, but that doesn’t mean these people are trying to help. More likely they’re trying to contain what is happening.

Evolution has done a great job with slowly building up what is happening. By splitting the perspective into three parts we’re allowed to see three different sides to the same issues, as well as three different locations on the globe; giving us a comprehensive idea of how well known this issue is. I feel like I’m constantly grasping at bread crumbs with this series, but in a good way.

I’m still enjoying the rougher quality to the artwork with this series. This issue had some gore, which was accented by the sketchy style. It helped make the scenes grotesque without them being graphic. It’s an interesting balance, all things considered.

Score: 4/5

Evolution #6
Image Comics