The sheer bizarre nature of this concept, combined with a kickass creative team, was what intrigued me about We3. However, the execution of the series is done in a very strange, experimental way that isn't as enjoyable a read as I had hoped. It's not that the work is bad, because Morrison and Quitely have definitely accomplished what they set out to do here, and that is tell the story from a somewhat distant point-of-view, closer to that of the animals than the humans, but in so doing, they have made the story difficult to read and get invested in, and I question the wisdom of that decision. That said, the book is gorgeous to look at, and what little glimpses we get of the characters in this issue, I like, so I'm hoping that with the story opened up a bit more by the end, the storytelling will also open up with the next two issues.
It seems that the approach Morrison and Quitely are taking here is not one that plays up the absurd humor of the concept or the character of people who would do this sort of thing, but is instead a cross between surreal horror and ultraviolence, reminiscent of the comics work of Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow on Hard Boiled or the films of Darren Aronofsky and David Cronenberg. The opening sequence is shown entirely through the animals' point of view, and that makes it hard to connect with on some levels, but it is a fascinating storytelling challenge. For his part, Quitely makes the whole thing compelling even when I can't quite get into what's going on, and the double page spread of bullets just tearing apart a human adversary and rushing toward the reader is a fascinating page design.
It seems like Quitely has found a whole new way to work on We3, combining a very cinematic style with one that uses very unusual points of view to give the reader a different look into the series. Thus we get shots of people's feet, views from within walls and vents, and ambitious 18-panel grids that tell the story through a variety of security cam footage. This latter shot is technically impressive and notable for the risk-taking, but in my opinion, it just doesn't work, as one can't really read what's going on with the story. One is left to guess at what happened, and that takes away considerably from the horror of what was going to happen to the animals, the rage that they would obviously feel and the way that their escape plays out. It's just so distancing that it's hard to get in there and care about the characters, which is a pretty significant failing.
For all that the artwork is taken from the animal point of view, the writing is very much from the human point of view, and there's a weird disconnect as a result. We learn a fair bit about the casual cruelty that defines the human originators of this project, the sadistic joy they take in using their technical skills to inflict harm on the animals, but the animals themselves are left as more of a mystery. Even the creepy but effective scene when the animals first talk to the humans is focused on the human reactions, and we never really see how the animals react to the whole thing. We finally get a taste of their personalities when they escape the lab, and it's very interesting to see how their language combines their primal nature, their relative intelligence and the computer code running through them, but it's just a tease, and with a three issue miniseries, I'd think Morrison would have given us a bit more of an intro to these characters in the issue. I learned more about them from Quitely's promo interview in "On the Ledge" than I did in the issue itself.
Ultimately, while this issue disappointed me, I'm still definitely onboard for the next two issues. For one thing, while I question the wisdom of some of the storytelling decisions, Quitely deserves credit for trying some experimental stuff, and regardless of the relative strengths of the storytelling, the artwork is just drop dead gorgeous. The designs for the cybernetic suits in particular are very effective. In addition, that last splash page really encapsulates the possibilities of the series, with the animals headed into a sprawling wilderness as human weapons of war move in to take them on.
