Brian's Reviews > We3

About ten years ago I saw Elfen Lied, a Japanimation series that features (among other ridiculosities) a first episode which is composed almost entirely of a naked woman walking (not running) to escape from a military containment facility while dispatching the armed personnel therein with an assortment of gruesome techniques based around the eight invisible arm-like appendages that can be extended from the small of her back.

Grant Morrison just can't top that.

I've seen exploitation media before, and chances are that if you're reading a comic book by a writer known for his subversive and counter-culture material, you probably have too. So as cool as kitties with pneumatic dartguns are, they really only scratch the surface of what's possible in the wicked awesome, depraved, and perverse realms of Art (the most extreme of which will undoubtedly emerge from Japan). So the question becomes: what else does We3 bring to the table? I suggest that the answer is nothing.

When I was reading We3 (while listening to the soundtrack from Homeward Bound), I was struck by how it is such a missed opportunity. This story could have really mattered, but instead it is notable mostly for the cute/violent dichotomy. And to illustrate this point to the heathens (4.09 stars, Goodreads?) let's consider a scene where we can catch a glimpse of what might have been:

An innocent father, son, and dog stumble into an encounter with We3, a trio of uplifted domestic animals armed and trained with military-grade exoskeletons. Papa gets spooked and shoots the bunnie-bot named "3". This causes the dog-borg, "1", to go into kill-mode. He slaughters the aforementioned man and the non-upgraded pooch, leaving the young boy to take to the forest and (one must guess) grapple with the new paternal void in his life. Then (and this is the good part), "1" lowers his head in remorse for the murders and says "bad dog" multiple times aloud.

Did you just see that? The descendant of a prehistoric gray wolf is reprimanding himself for harming a human being. In two words, more has been said about domestication and emerging technologies than the entire rest of these books.

Hey Mr. Morrison, look over here at this scene. See how interesting it is that a dog would care about a human who was unknown to him, especially when that human had just harmed the dog's companion? Doesn't that suggest a bizarre, one might say artificial, psychology? It's almost as if the modifications to this animal didn't begin in a military lab, but in the Pleistocene, when the great (x3000) grandfather of "1" first approached the fire-pit and the promise of food. Maybe dogs are already man-made? This is what you should have written about.

Imagine what this story would have been like if, in addition to the nifty action set-pieces, there was a critical examination of the alterations we humans make to our mammalian relatives, not just twenty minutes in the future, but over geologic time too, all the way back to the point at which we could be called Human. What I wanted from We3 was an action story that asked tough philosophical questions. How have humans shaped animals into pets and how have animals shaped humans into pet-lovers? Is the wolf still buried deep in the dog's mind or has he been jettisoned from the gene pool? Would an uplifted animal's intelligence resemble that of humans, or are we playing catch with alien minds?

I wanted to like We3. A good uplift story is a rare thing, and it would be a treat to discover a thought-filled exploration of what it means that Man domesticates. Sadly, Grant Morrison has not provided that book. Instead, he's delivered a shallow attempt to tug my heartstrings while tickling my "Cute Military Project Goes Haywire, Disembowels Everyone" Bone. I had that one removed after Elfen Lied.

One star. Far from the worst comic I've read, and We3 is mercifully short, so its worth checking out if your intrigued by the blade-throwing pussycat, but don't expect to think deep thoughts after you've put it down.

Epilogue
And woe to the poor fool who tries to tell me this comic is realistic or relevant to the times (looking at you The Washington Post). The Air Force would draft unicorns from Narnia before uplifting rabbits for combat duty.