It feels like it's been a long time since the last instalment of The Wake, but the Vertigo series from Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy finally returns this week with the first issue of "Part 2" of Snyder's epic story. I'm happy to say it is a resounding success. This issue has the daunting task of setting up not just a whole new cast of characters, but also a whole new time period and civilisation and yet somehow it pulls it off. The Wake continues to be some of Snyder's strongest work, and the beautiful art from Murphy doesn't hurt either.
As I said in the intro, The Wake #6 picks up 200 years after the events of the last issue. The savage water-dwelling creatures who terrified the crew of an underground oil rig in "Part One" of this story, have now taken the Earth for themselves with the remaining humans simply learning to live around them. Snyder introduces us to a future that it is immediately clear he has put thought into, establishing such aspects as territories made up of what land remains above sea-level and the people who rule them. As rulers so often are, these people don't seem to be particularly friendly and by the end of this issue we get a clear picture that they will cause a significant amount of bother for our main character Leeward.
Leeward was a character we saw glimpses of in previous issues, but get our first real introduction to the character here. She's your standard future bad-ass punk girl, but adapted to suit Snyder's dystopian future. This means that while she's not yet wildly different from character's we have seen before, she does have an element of uniqueness - and a super-cool dolphin who in his short panel-time has already made a lasting impression on me. Seriously, the dolphin is genuinely cool.
The artwork from Sean Murphy continues to shine in this series as well. His artwork is clear, and his character designs each very different eliminating the problem I get with some books where it is unclear who is talking or present in a scene. Additionally, the fight scenes really stand-out in this issue. It's easy for fight scenes to look disappointingly motionless and static in a comic-book, but here the scenes really flowed and I felt as if I could see the weight of Leeward's punches and kicks which made the fight scenes far more entertaining than if they were done under a less capable artist.
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