Sean
Murphy, you are my kryptonite apparently.
Even though I am against anything and everything big two related (with a
few nostalgic exceptions) it apparently doesn’t matter as long as Sean Murphy
is the artist. I gleefully trotted out
to the comic shop last month to pick up issue one of The Wake (but had something else in mind to review at the time),
and with this week’s second issue release I now present you with a review.
Cover:
Sean
Murphy can draw better than most if not all of the artists in comics
today. That being said, this cover is
incredible as a standalone piece of art as well as part of the overall poster
image that it will create once all of the covers are completed and placed
together. Movement and design have
always been one of Murphy’s strong suits and that is not hindered by the fact
that this is a piece of a bigger design.
In fact, Murphy has done a phenomenal job of making sure that each cover
(at least for the first two issues) can stand on its own as an image and not be
reliant on other subsequent covers to make sense of what is going on.
The
cover itself doesn’t really have anything to do with this particular issue, but
it does show more of the underwater creatures and scenes that Murphy has
excelled at in the first two issues.
Everything is perfectly referenced and entirely believable in terms of
the sea-creatures and even the dive suits on the humans.
8/10 – It’s a great looking cover. Not as immediately iconic as the Punk Rock Jesus covers but well done
nonetheless.
Story:
Scott
Snyder is following a pretty standard horror-story blueprint for the
writing. This is not bad, but it is
fairly familiar, and he hasn’t done much to differentiate his story from its
forebears yet. Each individual in the
underwater oil rig that is their home for the duration (which just replaces the
space station, haunted house, asylum, etc.) has a different skill set. If he follows the standard horror trope, they
will get killed off one by one and their skills will not be able to be
utilized. Pay attention to the badass
poaching lawbreaker as he will probably be either one of the first to go. There always seems to be the “bad boy” that
you think will be able to handle anything because that’s what he does for a
living, then he gets killed just as easily as those less familiar with
violence.
Where
Snyder does differentiate from many of his influences is in his inclusion of
both the distant past and the distant future in the story. This isn’t something that a movie could
really do with too much success anyway, but it’s nice to see Snyder utilize the
comics medium instead of making a book solely for a movie deal (though with how
well the comic is selling, don’t be surprised if Warner Brothers tries to adapt
it in the near future).
The
book moves along at a relatively slow pace, and while I generally do not like
that kind of decompression, for this kind of story it is actually ideal. The slow drag out of the plot points only
helps to heighten the awareness of the gravity of the situation. I will admit that the lack of dialogue on
many of the pages can lead to a couple confusing instances, but it’s not
anything that lingers. While we are not
becoming any more invested in these characters, and therefore won’t care too
much if they die, with the decompression of the story, it does give that
feeling of a long walk down a damp, dimly lit hallway that serves this story
well.
The
fact that the “villain” is a monster and yet we aren’t really sure who the real villain is feeds into the
horror-movie magic as well. Is the
creature really the villain or are we the villain because we invaded their
turf? This could turn out to be either
very good (if not relatively predictable) or it can be another allegory for man
overstepping his bounds in terms of exploration and cultivation of natural
resources (the addition of oil as the main catalyst for their underwater
drilling has not fallen on deaf ears either).
6/10 – It’s a bit heavy handed and formulaic, but the hook
is there and the use of different time periods to essentially tell three
different stories that will all (conceivably) tie back together is a nice
touch.
Art:
Murphy
is the man. Everything that was
incredible about Punk Rock Jesus
works here too. His artwork doesn’t
appear as minutely detailed this time around, which could be due to the fact
that he’s not really dealing in real-life environments like a house in Ireland,
and instead in a fictitious underwater oil rig.
That being said, the art lacks a little of the comfort and hominess that
Punk Rock Jesus did. This may just be by design though as the
scientists are all in an alien environment without their normal creature
comforts.
I do
have to mention the coloring by Matt Hollingsworth. After seeing Murphy’s work in its uncolored
form, the fact that he is being colored on this project feels like a step
back. As good as the coloring could be,
hell he could have had Jose Villarubia using the same incredible techniques he
uses on Jae Lee’s art, it would not compare to the look and the feel of those
uncolored inks. I realize it was a
different book and a different feel in general, but the art feels
under-represented here. Many of the
subtle nuances that were present in Punk
Rock Jesus are nowhere to be found here (either by design on Murphy’s part,
or unknowingly covered up by the color).
This is not a knock against Hollingsworth or the work he does, I just
think it was a mistake to have it colored at all.
8/10 – The art in general is great and the characters are
all varied and interesting in design (not just boring cookie-cutter
humans). I could have done without the
coloring but it’s not a deal breaker by any means.
7/10 – It’s not the home-run for me that Punk Rock Jesus was, even with the
enhanced pedigree of Scott Snyder as the writer. It’s still good and it’s nice to have a story
doing well that isn’t steeped in continuity, meaningless events, or as a setup
for a movie script.
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