It’s not often that I get a dose of the feels from a graphic novel, but then I don’t often read graphic novels about stolen pets trying to find their way home. Sure, these pets may have terrifyingly weaponised exoskeletons, heightened senses to match, and be capable of taking down large armies should they wish to, but that’s by the by.
In We3, said stolen pets – a dog, a cat, and a rabbit – have become experimental prototypes of a new kind of army that high-ranking military types are eager to deploy – each of the animals brings their own set of specialised skills to the table, and is capable of decimating the other side without losing their own side a single human life. Having been successfully showcased, they’re now about to be ‘decommissioned’, but the scientist who’s been working on them has a sudden crisis of conscience and sets them free.
Finding themselves in a terrifying world outside, pursued by men with shocking amounts of firepower intent on using it against them, We3 go on the run to the only safe place they know – a distant memory called home.
We3 is an incredibly cinematic book (my boyfriend, who loves buying me graphic novels despite never reading them himself, handed this over with a contrite ‘There doesn’t seem to be much writing in this. Sorry’), and We3 themselves an interesting creation that lends itself to some very stylish violence, with the sparse dialogue of the animals enhancing the Humans Are Bastardsness of it all.
An interesting standalone, with the unexpected side effect of making me hug the animals in my life extra tight.