If Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy’s The Wake #5 was a game of Three Card Monty, all of us would be staring at the red card. If it was a shell game, the lot of us would be staring at a lack of a winning ball. Snyder has baited us, then tricked us. He’s taken everything we expected about The Wake and turned it on its head. If you checked out of the story at the start because you thought it was just another deep sea adventure, think again.
The Wake #5 picks up with the appearance of a gargantuan-sized fish creature. The remaining crew, including our heroine Lee Archer, are trying to stay alive as the “Papa Creature” brings thousands of the smaller ones to bear on the underwater station. Things begin to click for Dr. Archer as she watches the creatures follow their leader. She realizes they are headed towards the mainland. War has been declared, and humanity is about to lose.
At this point, writer Snyder does not deviate from the action script. The crew use an armed sub to chase down the papa creature and blow it from the water. All is well, the world is saved. Except it isn’t. This is when the red card comes up and the shell game ends. The sub used to stop the creature is sinking, and Doctor Archer manages to get through to her beloved son for one last goodbye. That’s when she learns of the whirl pools, the signs of impending doom from the ocean floor. As her ship is consumed by the blackness of the ocean, the world falls to the power of these creatures and the ocean. Turning the page we find Leeward, the punk girl from hundreds of years in our future, introduced in the first issue. Her story begins now.
Wait. What?
Snyder has sent the heroes of the story to their deaths in the icy doom of the ocean’s bottom? The world fell to the creatures? Humanity didn’t win? That’s absurd! It’s also the essence of Snyder’s gift. To use a bad pun, it is never what’s on the surface, Snyder is all about the subtext. He sets up the real story of The Wake while telling the immediate and easy tale. Don’t get me wrong, the story of Dr. Archer and her connection with the creatures, coupled with what she saw beneath the sea as a young girl, is probably not over, but the way Snyder crafts the switch from one story to the next is wickedly clever.
Art. The art. Let’s talk about the art, shall we. Sean Murphy, a man who I have been in awe of since Punk Rock Jesus, knocks The Wake #5 right out of the park. Is it possible he’s getting better? The line work and detail on the huge papa creature is astounding, as is Murphy’s ability to show action. As complex as his work is, it never comes off as busy. Instead, it draws you into every single panel. Each small drawing has multiple things to discover. I equate Murphy’s ability to bring so much detail, expression and mood to his work with that of Chris Ware, creator of Jimmy Corrigan. It’s not the same execution, but both men communicate through the intricacy of their pencils.
Intelligent, beautiful, smart, and completely intriguing. The Wake boasts two of the best creators comics has to offer performing at the very peak of their powers.
