I don't really know the name Stan Winston, the creator of Mutant Earth, but I do know the names Takenaga and Tan, from their work on Wetworks and Taleweaver, respectively. Unfortunately, neither of those projects connected with me, and Mutant Earth doesn't either. The creators keep the audience at a distance from the story, seeking to impress with shiny art and flowery speech rather than clearly-explained concepts and solid storytelling, and the result is that I was not entirely sure what was going on, and not interested enough to spend more time finding out. Takenaga and Tan provide some exciting action and grotesque mutants, but what they don't provide is an accessible narrative.
Mutant Earth provides a gory and powerful setting, a world that makes the "Burned" world of Just A Pilgrim or the post-apocalyptic setting of Road Warrior look like Disneyland. Many are mutated, everyone suffers under the thumb of horrible creatures, and the rule of the day is the cruelest sort of anarchy. It's a setting that is perfect for a hero, with a level of desperation that could be overwhelming without the sense that someone is out there who is going to fight for a better world.
Unfortunately, Takenaga and Tan don't provide that hero. Sure, they've got the resident badass, who shows off his skills with guns and hand-to-hand combat, but he doesn't seem motivated to be any kind of hero. There's reluctant heroism, and then there's just apathy, and so far we're stuck firmly in the latter. We also don't really have any idea who our hero is, as he talks to a seemingly invisible narrator, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. In addition, though we're meant to believe that there are aliens, mutants and humans sharing this world, I can't really get a sense of who's who. They're all equally grotesque, violent and cruel.
Of course, a lot of that can be laid at the feet of Tan, whom I had similar problems with on Taleweaver. While there are certainly some beautiful designs and vivid scenes, the storytelling is lacking. I can't follow who's who for the most part, and I can't get a sense of the players or their motivations, because they all have the same pseudo-horror look to them. Tan crafts a vivid and powerful portrait of a world driven to the brink of extinction, but he doesn't provide any distinctions or shades within that world to give the reader a sense of who's who.
Mutant Earth is a pretty book, at least as pretty as a book can be that is so evocatively capturing the grotesque and the horrible. The thing is, these days there are a whole lot of pretty books on the market, and most of them have much stronger storytelling, characters and plots to back up the artwork.
