'Strangers in Paradise' to Cross Over With 'Rachel Rising,' 'Motor Girl' and 'Echo' in 'Five Years'

Beginning in May, Terry Moore's first post-Strangers in Paradise XXV series will launch, spinning out of the events of that series and featuring a cast made up of characters from all of Moore's creator-owned comics.

Five Years, which Moore announced on social media, tells the story of a group of women determined to combat a world-ending danger that threatens to wipe out humanity within five years. The crossover will be the first of its kind for Moore's shared universe, and something fans have asked about ever since Tambi Baker showed up in Echo.

"I feel like I've earned that," Moore told fans at Comic Con two years ago. "It's like you've set up all your dominoes and so you're the one who's earned the right to push them, and I've set up all this inter-networking of characters and the day I can draw them all in one scene is going to be a delight."

That threat, fans of Strangers in Paradise will know, comes in the form of Phi Science, the volatile, experimental nuclear science that drove the plot of Moore's Echo, the series which followed the original Strangers in Paradise.

The key to the Phi project was destroyed in Echo but has resurfaced thanks to the machinations of Rachel Rising villain Lilith in Strangers in Paradise XXV. Tambi Baker and Rachel Beck estimated that the world probably has about five years before various nuclear powers decrypt a message Lilith planted in a scroll written by Cleopatra and briefly exhibited in a museum before it was stolen and destroyed in SiP XXV.

If unleashed, the catastrophic effects of the Alaska collider accident will be replicated on a macro scale, likely leading to the end of the world. To emphasize this, Moore has the cast standing against a nuclear doomsday clock on the image he released today with his announcement.

The doomsday clock is set at five minutes to midnight, meaning that as the series progresses through the five years it will likely draw closer and closer to the end of the world.

The image features Rachel and Zoe from Rachel Rising; Francine and Katchoo from Strangers in Paradise; Sam and Mike from Motor Girl (along with a supporting character from that book, Francine's aunt Libby), and Echo's Julie Martin and Ivy Raven. At the center of the group is Tambi Baker, whose machinations drove Strangers in Paradise XXV and who was the principal player that connected the original Strangers in Paradise and Echo comics.

The team's purpose, as stated at the end of Strangers in Paradise XXV, is to locate the handful of scientists worldwide with the capacity to interpret the Cleopatra scroll and prevent them from doing so in order to save the world.

While Katchoo traveled around the world in Strangers in Paradise XXV and interacted with the various characters from Rachel Rising while Libby brought the Motor Girl duo into the home of Francine and Katchoo, Five Years will represent the first time Moore has had what amounts to a line-wide event in the interconnected world he half-jokingly calls the "Terryverse."

Moore's works have always generated Hollywood interest, although at this point none have made it all the way to the screen. Moore himself has been involved with pilot scripts for Rachel Rising and Motor Girl, while both Strangers in Paradise and Echo were optioned as feature films. Strangers in Paradise and Motor Girl are supposedly still in development.

You can check out the first image above and the official description Moore provided to fans below.

What would you do if you knew the world had five years left? If you could do something about it, would you? Who would you call for help? The Terryverse joins together to fight a common enemy and the countdown begins in May!