Five Years

Five nations have secretly acquired the formula for a bomb that can destroy hydrogen — the most common element in the universe. When that news finally breaks, the countdown to extinction begins. Five Years is the crossover event Terry Moore spent three decades building toward: the moment every corner of his interconnected “Terryverse” collides in a single apocalyptic story.

The story

As the superpowers race to weaponize the ultimate doomsday device, Moore’s entire cast of heroes comes off the sidelines. Katchoo and Francine, the emotional heart of Strangers in Paradise, have moved their family to a remote hideaway with Sam from Motor Girl standing guard. Katchoo’s lethal sister Tambi hires Rachel and Jet from Rachel Rising to run intelligence operations in Russia. And Julie Martin — the living weapon of Echo — joins her former pursuer Ivy Raven in a desperate bid to stop the test before a man-made black hole consumes the Earth.

It’s a story about family as much as survival: characters who once lived in separate books — a love-triangle romance, a desert junkyard comedy, a New England horror, a sci-fi chase thriller — are now revealed to have shared one world all along. When things go horribly wrong, Katchoo must choose between spending her family’s last days together and joining the fight to stop humanity’s extinction.

Publication history

Following directly from Strangers in Paradise XXV, Five Years ran 10 issues from 2019 to 2020 through Abstract Studio, collected into two volumes — Fire in the Sky and Stalemate — and a complete omnibus edition. Bleeding Cool described it as weaving “the many strands of the ‘Terryverse’ into one epic saga, years in the making,” and Moore himself called it the story he’d been steering toward for decades.

Perfect for fans of comic book universe crossovers done right, the emotional heft of Buffy’s endgame, and anyone who’s ever wanted Katchoo, Rachel, and Julie in the same room.