Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing The Wake 1, originally released May 29th, 2013.

Shelby: There are certain things you come to expect from stories. As an example, with a rom-com you know there’s going to be the initial meeting between protagonists, things will go well, then things will go poorly, then everything will fall apart (usually with a sad montage), and then everything is resolved in the end, often with some sort of grand declaration of love. Throw in a spunky, comic-relief sidekick bestie for each protagonist, and you’ve got the next big girls-night-out hit. Now, The Wake is certainly no romantic comedy, but I definitely had some expectations about the kind of story I would get. Underwater sci-fi horror means: a rag-tag team, a mysterious monster lurking about for a few issues, a gory reveal, and eventually a big final fight. Leave it to Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy to somehow give me exactly what I expected and still deliver something very fresh and new.

Meet Lee Archer.

She’s a cetologist, focusing on the sounds and calls of whales and dolphins. While in the field, Agent Cruz of Homeland Security flies down in a heliocopter to ask Dr. Archer for her help with a very peculiar sound. She ends up at the home base, an illegal deep-sea oil rig, where she meets the rest of the team. Dr. Marin was told there was a relic to look at, and the taciturn Meeks was told there were tissue samples to analyze. Just then, the oil rig workers drag in a man missing most of flesh around his left eye. Despite being told he only opened the tank for a second and seeing the result, Lee investigates said tank, and discovers something she wasn’t totally prepared for.

Oh, I am so very excited for this book. Snyder has very elegantly developed these characters already, and upended some of my expectations in doing so. Let’s take Lee’s character. In her opening panels, Snyder makes it pretty clear who we’re dealing with. She has a son, but not custody; she might be a little bit of a flake, but mostly she has a dangerous and somewhat transitory job that keeps her away from her family. What’s so interesting about it is she’s a she; the absent, somewhat bumbling, but totally well-meaning parent is usually the dad in these kinds of stories. It thrills me that Snyder has a female character bucking the traditional “mother” role for a non-traditional “life at sea with whales” role.

I’m also happy we already met our monster. I get that this is only a 10-issue run, so we don’t have all the time in the world, but I would expect our team of scientists to explore the site for a while; you know, examine the trail the creature leaves behind, argue about something that can’t possibly exist before WHAM! There it is. Instead, Snyder shows us our monster plainly, already captured and totally brutal. The discovery part of the story has already happened off-screen; I think that speaks of a much larger scope to this story than I originally envisioned. This is supported by the flashes forward and back that bookend this story. At the beginning of the issue, we see a world 200 years in the future that appears to be more underwater than above it. At then at the end, we see a caveman painting on a wall 100,000 years ago. He picks up some sort of device and looks through it until his eyes burst, showering his painting of The Creature with blood. This is a story that started a long time ago, and it’s looking like it’s going to have a very lasting effect on the world.

The artistic team on this book has already knocked it out of the park. Murphy’s dynamic, high-contrast lines get just the right amount of softness from colorist Matt Hollingsworth. I loved Murphy’s work on Punk Rock Jesus; the only complaint I had about it was, since it was just in super high-contrast black and white, it was occasionally a little hard to follow the action. Hollingsworth solves that problem beautifully with straight-forward color washes that are a perfect balance to Murphy’s rough and raw pencils.

I know I already said this, but I am so excited for this book. As much as I have enjoyed Snyder’s world-building and epic crossovers in Batman, I look forward to seeing what he can do with a much more fast-paced and finite story-line. And I can’t say enough good things about Murphy’s art, and the whole creative team on this title. Already after just one issue, we’ve got a book that looks ready to deliver a gory, underwater, sci-fi horror thriller that is ready to go beyond the normal tropes one sees in that kind of story. And the book is beautiful to boot. I know I’m gushing here, but I think my gushiness might be deserved; what do you think, Drew?

Drew: Oh, man. One issue in, and this series has already hit on some of my favorite sci-fi elements. Bringing a reluctant team together with the promise of funding their research (a la Jurassic Park)? Check. Mysterious monster discovered at the bottom of the ocean (a la The Abyss)? Check. Entire cast trapped with said monster inside a tiny, inescapable vessel (a la Alien)? Check. But it’s like you said, Shelby: in spite of the familiarity, this feels surprisingly unlike anything I’ve seen before. You’re definitely right about how meeting the monster now changes the tenor, but I’m most surprised by those opening and closing bits.

The issue opens 200 years in the future, only we’re not told that, we just meet a hang-gliding woman and her armored dolphin friend as they search for something inside a flooded city. Their search is cut short, however, when some kind of monstrous something emerges from the water.

You’ll notice that this scene has none of those easily pigeonholed tropes — it’s just straightforward adventure with a straightforward animal sidekick. Oh, and it also takes place in a dystopian, polar ice caps have melted future. Oh, and there’s some kind of skyscraper-sized monster living in the water. I can’t wait to find out more about this future, these characters, and what they’re looking for.

And Shelby, you’re absolutely right to praise Sean Murphy’s artwork here. You mentioned his pencils, specifically, and while I agree that his layouts, framing, and acting are all stellar, I’m most enamored of his ink work. Look at the above panel. He uses just about every inking effect I can think of — splattering, dry brush, zip-a-tone, blotting — but it never feels busy. Indeed, the image is cohesive enough to call to mind Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

The thing that has me most excited about the future and past bits of this story are just how unrelated they seem to be to the main action. Sure, they somehow feature water, monsters, and violence, but I can’t imagine that they were included for such loose thematic connections. No, I think the events of Dr. Archer’s story must be more than simply being terrorized by a monster on a sub. That’s especially exciting, since I’d probably be happy with reading a story where this group is just terrorized by the monster — knowing we’re getting something more is an embarrassment of riches.

This series is going to be something special. We’ve got a hot writer on the top of his game, an incredible artistic team ready to kill every single page, and a wonderful grab-bag of sci-fi elements. This issue already surprised the hell out of me, so I can’t begin to imagine what the next nine have in store. We’ll just have to wait and see.

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page.  Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore.  If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to Comixology and download issues there.  There’s no need to pirate, right?