2 out of 5

Eglington is at least focused on what he wants to do in the middle of the Outlier tale, as volume one swung way outside of the initial alien-investigator noir it hinted at to diarrhea itself all over a messy (redundant?) abortive mush of grunty action dude tropes and forced, twisty, sweaty, double-crosses; at this stage we’re firmly in action dude territory – no vestiges of intelligence or world building remain – and so Karl Richardson can flex Image muscle and splash green alien blood about.

Carcer (human, becoming alien) and Caul (alien, wants to he human) team up to break into the Hurde ship (Hurde: aliens, no personality) to rescue, like, women and parents because aw shucks easy sympathetic fallback McGuffins.  There’s some minimal Ocean’s 11 heist intrigue, and, y’know, the series temporarily isn’t that bad.  But, like the preceding mess, Eglington gets confused again and starts going wayward with his plot, doing too much to try to humanize boring characters and thus boring us in the process.

It ends with roles swapped – Carcer has gone native; Caul is human, but on the run for war crimes – and to my recollection from reading this before, the ride doesn’t solidify into anything better by thrills’ end.

Also included: A chuckle-able, but juvenile, “how Tharg makes the progs” one-shot by David Baillie and Anthony Williams.