The Wake #7

Part Seven (of 10)
written by Scott Snyder
art by Sean Murphy

"Tell me this signal they heard.  Tell me it's hollow."  (The Wake #7:11)

And with two simple sentences, one of The Wake's central villains—General Marlow of the Arm, right hand of the Governess and killer of Leeward's parents—is unexpectedly complicated.  In the wake—both literally and figuratively—of the mer-creatures' assault on mankind, opportunists thrived.  Rumors of "outliers," pirate cannibals who breed with mers spawning hybrid monsters, pepper civilization, but it is the fascist imperialism of Governess Vivienne that poses perhaps the greatest threat to Leeward and the scattered and desperate remnants of mankind.  There is some conspiracy—whether by Machiavellian pragmatism or ideological zeal—to keep the "Message" a secret, the last instructions by Lee Archer.  Though his patriotism is unbridled, Marlow, it seems, is not active in this conspiracy.  And Leeward has piqued his interest and perhaps his suspicion.

Sentenced to several months rowing aboard a converted cruise ship, Leeward has no illusions that she will ever leave alive.  It's heavy, back-breaking labor in dangerous waters.  But her tenure aboard the prison ship is far more abbreviated than even she expected, since anyone even tangentially associated with Leeward's discovery of Archer's message has been ordered to be exterminated by the Governess herself, including both the team of soldiers who arrested her and the entire row of fellow inmates aboard the ship.  Ironically, it is her execution that facilitates her escape, freeing her from the paddle-stocks before the cruise ship is brought down by a giant mer-creature.

Also ironically, the army makes her walk the plank, but she is rescued by pirates.  It seems they've made an unconventional home inside the mouth of the monstrous predator, living quite successfully as parasites, though whether or not they have any control over the mer is still unclear.  So too, the fates of Pub and Marlow, similarly cast into the mer-riddled ocean when the ship went down.

So far, the second arc of The Wake hasn't yet returned to the evolutionary scope that characterized the first five issues.  However, now that the relationship between hominid species has been complicated by these new mer-pirates, some of the more enigmatic moments from those episodes seem increasingly relevant.  Just whose tech, for instance, was it that killed the cave painter?  That facilitated the domination of the modern humans over their stouter brethren?  What is the "golden net," the promise of deliverance from the mer-creatures, and just how old might it be, since this could hardly be their first attempted attack?  The Wake now seems primed to revisit these mysteries.

[May 2014]