We're cranking up for a bang-up finale. Motherland does a great job of ramping up the excitement and keeping the revelations coming at a steady rate.

We finally discover the identity of Toyota's employer, and that leads to several more revelations, some of them devastating. And the reason they're devastating is that Brian K. Vaughan has done an excellent job of setting the reader up for maximum effect.

We finally learn the cause of the "gendercide," but that revelation kind of pales in light of what's become the true core and heart of this series: the relationships between the three main characters. Vaughan gets his audience really invested in the characters over the course of the season, and his pacing is impeccable. You don't get bored with the characters, and their relationships are vibrant and real and ever-changing.

Volume IX is so good that it makes you almost afraid that Volume X won't live up to it. That's about the highest compliment I can pay to the penultimate volume of any series.