5. WE3
Simply put WE3 is a modern day Watership Down. A sweeping three issue tale of a trio of bionically augmented animals; redundant military experiments, who after being decommissioned and scheduled to be euthanised, escape and try to make their way back home to their original owners while on the run from the pursuing army. WE3 is violent, yet deeply emotional. The book touches on the same issues that Morrison based his definitive Animal Man run on animal experimentation and also on an issues such as the military industrial complex and its approach to modern warfare. Yet another magnificent book produced by Hope Street Studios, with Frank Quitely on art duties again. There are some pages in WE3 that totally circumvent the normal panelling methodology. Frank plays with the idea that space in comics equals time passing and in doing so redefines how comics panelling should be laid out on a page. There are things in this book that had never been seen in a comic before at the time of publication. For example at the start of the book there are six pages of 32 panels, shown as screen shots of CCTV cameras which chart the escape of our heroic trio. Not a single word is spoken by any character throughout these panels. It is almost unthinkable in comics for so many panels to pass without a single word balloon. It sums up the genius of this book succinctly. Morrison developed a language for 1 (Dog), 2 (Cat) and 3 (Rabbit), a simple yet effective text-speak that allowed him to convey the animals feelings and thoughts that was powerful enough to let us feel their emotions. A tour de force of storytelling economy, telling the story through images and action rather than dialogue (as would be expected). The story barrels along at a breakneck pace and never lets up till the bittersweet end. An uber-violent tearjerker.