Today, Shelby and Spencer are discussing The Wake 3, originally released July 31st, 2013.

Shelby:  For me, Scott Snyder’s The Wake has been an exercise in scope. Considering our story seemingly encompasses all the oceans, large portions of space, and a span of time stretching over billions of years, it’s pretty safe to say that scope could be classified as “broad.” Just when it seems to be too much to take in, artist Sean Murphy steps in to remind us of the intimate character moments Snyder has sneaked in to this story. For every flashback 3.8 billion years in the past, there’s a quiet moment of a man hallucinating his coworker just tore his arm off and is eating it. Gotta love those intimate moments.

I wasn’t exaggerating about that flashback; the issue opens with pristine, blue Mars before it was catastrophically struck by a meteor 3.8 billion years ago. Meanwhile, things are going poorly on the Ghost Rig; the creature can spray some sort of neurotoxin which induces vivid hallucinations. It makes it much easier to eat your prey when they think they’re chatting with their son in a tire swing.

A pretty standard sci-fi monster chase ensues: the creature kills Bob (after making him think Lee tore his arm off and ate it), and Meeks sacrifices himself so everyone else can get away. Sort of, anyway; they can’t get to the submarine because that whole area is flooded, so they have to don wetsuits and go around outside the rig to get to it. Lee explains that they have to leave immediately because she’s heard the creature’s call before, not from her mysterious previous encounter, but from recordings of the call of 52 Hertz: The Lonliest Whale in the world. 52H is a whale that “speaks” like no other whale ever recorded; he seemingly just talks to himself and roams the oceans alone. Lee’s theory is the whale is mimicking a “conversation” he heard before. The call of the creatures sounds very much like a portion of 52H’s call that is followed by a very vigorous response. Her story is told in a series of dialog boxes over a montage of people putting on wetsuits, getting into the water, and watching the sub, their lifeline, explode. Finally, we get a visual of just how vigorous a response the single call has garnered.

It really does all come back to scope, and with that scope comes a lot of isolation. Hear me out. We now know this story started farther back in time than I can really comprehend, with the destruction of an entire planet’s ecosystem. Already, that has me as the reader feeling pretty insignificant. It’s also pretty safe to say the events in this arc eventually lead to the destruction of the moon and the watery dystopian future we’ve seen; even though we don’t know what exactly is going to play out, we already know how serious the ramifications of our characters’ actions are.  The real insignificance, though, comes from the creature itself. The scariest thing about it is it’s cunning nature. It knows it’s faster and stronger than the humans in water, so it tricks Brenner into giving it the environment it needs to succeed. I highly doubt the humans were forced into the open water and the submarine explosion were nothing more than unfortunate coincidences. The people of the story have to suddenly face the realization that they are not at the top of the food chain anymore; there exists a creature who is faster, stronger, and possibly smarter than they are. Seeing a whole pod of them at the end is a sobering reminder for Lee et al how insignificant they really are.

I was really struck by Lee’s story of 52 Hertz, who is real. Not only is it kind of sad to think about a single whale, talking to himself in a language that no other whale understands, it also seems to serve as foreshadowing for what the human race will become. 52H is alone in a hostile world, completely isolated. He’s on his own, like the rag-tag group of scientists are now, and like our still unnamed friend of the dolphins is in the future. Even though the whole lonely whale story is pure exposition, delivered over the top of the action of the attempted escape, I didn’t feel the story was bogged down by it in the least. Again, Snyder is smart enough to include just enough science fact to pull us in; I already knew about good ol’ 52, and was then much more receptive to the idea that his unusual whale call is a parroted call and response from a pack of murderous, highly intelligent mer-creatures who may also be some sort of reverse missing link. Additionally, the expository story served to increase the feelings of abandonment and isolation in the plot. Plus, Murphy’s art in the panels is more than enough to tell the story on it’s own; his pencils are already moody and expressive, the story of the lonely whale is the cherry on top. One has to wonder at the broader points Snyder is making about the insignificance of human beings. Every story in this book has been about nature prevailing. The past has shown the creatures losing to nature (represented by a giant shark, as nature should always be represented) and adopting a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” attitude, eventually evolving into the creatures we see now. The future is a world where nature has won, covering the Earth in oceans. And in the present, humankind has just discovered they are far from alone and far from superior, and are probably going to need a bigger boat.

What do you think about this title so far, Spencer? Did this issue make you feel alone and very small like it did me? Are you feeling the oppressive isolation of the ocean? Of space? OF THE HUMAN CONDITION??

Spencer: If nothing else, Shelby, I feel even more afraid of the ocean than I did that time at the beach when the guy fishing next to me caught a baby hammerhead shark and I refused to go back in the water for the rest of the day. The ocean is a scary enough place as it is, filled with hideous, sometimes deadly creatures and with so much of it remaining unexplored and unexplained; it already makes me feel alone and small without even accounting for the murderous mermen that The Wake adds to the equation.

But that little monster really does up the ante; the humans of the Ghost Rig are absolutely outgunned, and considering the flashforwards we’ve seen of the Earth’s future, I don’t think the human race as a whole has much more of a chance here. That’s what makes that last page cliffhanger so effective; our heroes were helpless against one of those creatures, now they face an army?

The thing is, I’ve been raised on a steady diet of superhero comics (part of a balanced breakfast), so when I see a cliffhanger like this, I’m expecting the heroes to rally together, maybe call some friends, and come back to save the day. But this isn’t a superhero comic, and Lee Archer and her gang aren’t invincible warriors who have to be kept around for 70 more years of adventures; they’re expendable, and all signs point towards them losing. The idea of the heroes losing is still just unthinkable enough to me to make this cliffhanger hit me like a punch in the gut.

Of course, that begs the question: are Archer and her teammates even the heroes of this story at all? Shelby, you mentioned the pattern The Wake has established of nature always prevailing; if I’m to follow the pattern of logic that superhero comics have ingrained into my head, doesn’t that make nature the hero? That most certainly makes humanity nature’s archenemy; it should be obvious to all of us how much mankind has done to destroy the environment, but just in the context of The Wake, not only do the flashforwards show a world of melted icecaps, but nearly all of the action thus far has taken place on an illegal oil rig boring into the ocean floor.

Then there’s the creature itself. The thing appears to have at least some sort of sentience at this point, yet it was locked up for who knows how long; of course it’s a little cranky! The creature was captured because he was snooping around the Ghost Rig in the first place; perhaps the rig is causing some sort of damage to its ecosystem? I dunno, I’m spitballing a little and I’m probably playing Devil’s Advocate for a killer fish, but I do find it fascinating that this entire predicament might be something that both the Ghost Rig crew in particular and humanity at large might have brought on themselves. If nature is somehow taking retribution on mankind, can we really blame it?

(Of course, all of this is assuming that the creature and its brethren are of Earth at all. I mean, this issue opened with a lush, beautiful Mars being destroyed by a meteor—maybe the creatures are an alien threat of some sort?)

So yeah, there’s still a lot up in the air about this story, but if there’s one thing I’m 100% certain about, it’s that Sean Murphy is a phenomenal artist. His work is detailed, moody, and a perfect fit for this story, but there were two aspects of it in particular I wanted to point out. The first is the design of the creature itself:

Mer-people (to use the politically correct term) have never been very intimidating, but Murphy manages to take the general concept and turn it into an absolutely frightening creature. Its practically prehensile tale and the way it slithers like a snake then suddenly leaps and lashes about like an acrobat on Venom give me chills; honestly, its body language is just as effective of an ingredient in its overall terror level as its appearance, especially the way it swims.

Seriously, it swims like it’s just going to tear through anything and everything in its path. Yikes.

The other moment I loved came a few pages later:

I almost feel bad praising the art on a page that’s mostly silhouette, but I just love that a page where the only dialogue is about a lonely whale is almost entirely blank space, with the characters only showing up as tiny, insignificant specks. It’s great visual shorthand for loneliness (even if I don’t think any of the characters are lonely in the scene; that’s besides the point). More importantly, though, check out the shape of the silhouette. The rig and the ground combine to create the outline of a giant whale, making it look like Archer and her crew are emerging from the mouth of a whale. Isn’t that cool?!

There’s one more aspect of this issue I greatly appreciated, but I’m going to take my praise one step further: there’s one aspect of Scott Snyder’s writing in general that I greatly appreciate, and it’s the fact that I almost always walk away from one of his stories feeling like I’ve learned something. With some comic writers it’s obvious that almost all their influence comes from other superhero comics, but Snyder throws such a wide variety of influences and facts/science/pseudo-science into his comics (In this case the story of the 52 Hertz Whale), and I’m grateful for the variety it adds to his work. Reading a Snyder comic can so often leave me feeling both very smart and very stupid at the same time; as far as I’m concerned, that’s a sign of a very good comic book.

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?