| |  | I find it easier in life to keep peoples expectations low. You can impress people much easier that way. Someone who consistently performs above average must do something quite spectacular before anyone gives a damn, whereas someone who typically performs at a below average level simply has to do something ordinary and people will praise them for it. I find it also helps to maintain this expectation of underachievement when I throw myself upon various forms of media entertainment. For instance, the movie Snakes on a Plane. I didn’t really want to see the movie because I knew it would be terrible, but when my father-in-law asked me to go with him because he had free passes to the film and no one else would join, I thought, “what the hell, free movie.” I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but only because I expected the movie to be nothing more than a lot of snakes, killing a lot of people and Samuel L. Jackson using the ‘F’ word a great deal. As you can imagine this is exactly what was delivered, but I liked the senseless entertainment value of the whole thing anyway. So, since this is a comic book site, I should probably tie that all in somehow. Well here it is; the new Wetworks series just hit stores. I had read the original series and decided to see if the new one met the same standards for mindless entertainment and senseless violence. It does. The issue is fairly vague. It doesn’t really tell much about what happened to the original team or where they’ve been. I’m going trust that the writer, Mike Carey, will try and explain these things as the story goes on. Other than that some monsters show up and kill people. Only a small handful of the original cast of characters make appearances and overall, it’s not the most intellectually stimulating comic I’ve ever read (but neither were the originals). I have never read anything by Mike Carey before, so it remains to be seen how decent a writer he is, and whether he can give these issues some depth or not. Even if he doesn’t though, my expectations remain low so there’s not much fear of disappointment. Whilce Portacio was a favorite artist of mine when I was a teenager. I enjoyed his artwork on Uncanny X-men, and I picked up the original Wetworks series because he drew it. He was one of a handful of artists I did my best to emulate when teaching myself to draw. I look at his work now though, and I’m not as impressed. He’s very talented, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all to dark for my current tastes. His style suits this book well, it’s a dark storyline. I know form seeing his work on X-men though, that his style is always full of heavy shadows regardless of story or scene lighting. It’s not bad it’s just not my thing. I consider Whilce to still be one of the pioneers of modern comic culture, which has forced its way out of comic stores and geek culture, and into more popular culture. It was talents like Whilce, Jim Lee, Todd Mcfarlane, Frank Miller, Alex Ross and quite a few others that made comics something of interest to the whole world. Not just a handful of nerds living in parents basements or hiding in the Audio Visual offices at their high-schools to avoid ritual wedgies. (Incidentally, I really enjoyed being a member of the AV club, and I think that should become popular culture too. Who’s with me?!) So I have nothing but respect for Whilce, but my tastes just don’t lie with his style anymore. Sorry Whilce, you’re still a great artist! Overall the book delivers what you should expect from it. Some gore, some monsters and a cool guy in gold symbiotic armor. If you go in looking for more, you’re going to hate it. I for one am pleased with the result and will be grabbing the next issue too. I’m sure Carey and Protacio will pull it all off very nicely. 
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Posted: Wednesday, September 20, 2006