Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: The Wasps of Atlantis
Written by: Grant Morrison
Penciled by: Cameron Stewart
Inked by: Cameron Stewart
Colored by: Peter Doherty
Lettered by: Todd Klein
Editor: Karen Berger
Publisher: Vertigo
Page One:
- A bunch of statues strewn about a large field with a mountain in the background smoke some cigarettes, leaving large butts all over the grass
- A couple of helicopters, each with a large, roving eye where the cockpit should be, whirl overhead
- A bunch of security guards, wearing helpful name badges that say things like “Hi, my name is Carlos†dressed up in black leather that would make Cyclops cack himself, complete with a large eye of their own instead of a helmet
I can quite comfortably assure you that from this point on it only gets even more weird. After all, what other comic book have you read where the protagonist has to hide out from the henchmen of a large all-seeing, all-knowing corporation by giving mouth-to-beak resuscitation to an octopus named Macarena? And that’s not even getting started on the tuna…
Seaguy, as you are no doubt aware by now, is Grant Morrison’s first outing since he left the X-Men, and Marvel in general, behind. Having been cut loose from any creative shackles that may have been placed on his run by the more open-minded boys and girls at Vertigo, he has decided to go full steam ahead for the kind of over-the-top insanity that only he can pull off so well. In fact, this is concentrated Morrison at a strength many will find too acute for their liking. There is no reinventing of the superhero wheel as there was in Animal Man, while there are no overly-liberal political statements such as those found in The Invisibles. Morrison has offered up a simple tale of generic consumer madness usurping the collective intelligence of the populous, with the lone titular “superhero†trying to stem the tide of apathy. Relishing the chance to get away with whatever the hell he wants to once again, Morrison keeps the metaphors fairly simple yet piles on the madness in unprecedented high doses.
He is aided in this task by some marvelous artwork courtesy of Cameron Stewart, who has previously worked with Morrison on the final volume of The Invisibles and has been winning plaudits lately for his contributions to Catwoman. His knack for squeezing and bleeding life into each and every pulp-like panel is quite astounding. He matches the wild goose chase that is Morrison’s imagination step for step, from ice caps covered in Europe’s dark chocolate surplus (to stop them melting… yeah, I know…) to the quite stunning rendition of Atlantis, where one of our cast seemingly meets an unseemly end in a surprisingly tender moment that highlights just how talented a writer Morrison has tucked away behind the madness.
If there is one complaint that people may have it is that one issue is not going to be enough to tie up all of these loose ends satisfactorily. Those people seem to be missing the point. This title has never been a standard superhero adventure; it has been a mad scrawl of ideas coming thick and fast, each one more outrageous than the next. There seems to be a lot of pent-up creative energy Morrison needed to flush out of his system before he could move on to another mainstream title, and this is just the start of it. Whether or not his other forthcoming Vertigo titles can match Seaguy in terms of unapologetic adventurousness remains to be seen but for all our sakes I sure hope he takes it easy…
Oh, but the best part of the issue? The advert for the Wonder Woman DVD boxset… Mmm… Lasso…
