The Wake #8 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Sean Murphy (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: There are worse things, it seems, than living in the gullet of a giant mutant fish.

The Review: Only two issues left after this, which leaves Snyder only a short time to wrap up this beautiful, desolate world that he and Murphy have crafted. I understand all the practical reasons why an ongoing Wake series wouldn’t have worked for them, but I still feel we’re all missing out on what might have been one of the great comic book stories of the decade. What we ultimately get is worthwhile and memorable, but without the epic quality it truly deserves.

And that’s all a product of not having enough time to let certain moments land, to explore certain settings, to give certain developments to make their impact. Ever since we started the second half of The Wake, the pacing has been like a tour guide on a cheap package, rushing you to one sight and whisking you away to another right after you’ve taken a picture but before you’ve really absorbed the experience. Events that should take place over a span of many issues get compacted into a few pages, making Leeward’s world-changing quest feel like a one-hour adventure.