Wool is a frustrating comic. Presumably to stick with the narrative structure of the source novel, Gray and Palmiotti constantly waste time and pass up opportunities for a better structure.
This issue has protagonist Jules on a mission where she’s diving (in her environment suit) to the bottom of the silo. It’s flooded. It could be a great sequence, but it’s actually a waste of time because all it does is introduce a second sidekick for her. It doesn’t need the emphasis if all it’s going to do is bring in another character.
Or they could have used it as a framing device for the issue. But no.
Then the comic cliffhangs with her previous sidekick, now working for the evil information technologies department, chatting with her on the radio. Yet another possible wonder framing device for the whole series.
It’s got its plusses, but Wool is way too loose.
B-
CREDITS
Writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray; artist, Jimmy Broxton; letterer, Bill Tortolini; editor, Matt Hoffman; publisher, Jet City Comics.
The issue starts with the protagonist narrating. The fourth issue and Gray and Palmiotti have finally settled on having the protagonist. And on having her narrate. Only she doesn’t narrate for long and the focus soon shifts back to the subplots.
It’s almost like Wool, the comic book, is meant to inspire the reader to instead go read Wool, the novel, in order to understand the character motivations. Because Gray and Palmiotti try for intense scenes, montage sequences, all sorts of things they can’t get done because they haven’t set up the characters well.
It can’t really be so obvious, can it? So much of Wool’s cast not seeming to be able to see what’s going on has to do with them being simple silo folk, used to living a certain way and absolutely unable to see the obvious. Like poisoned water.
Wool opens with one protagonist, then moves on to another, then promises a third. It’s a novel adaptation, which might have handled the transitions smoother, but writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti are a tad abrupt. They do well establishing the setting–a post-apocalyptic future where everyone lives in a huge silo underground and can’t go outside–but the characters and their relationships are confusing.
I’m a little shocked, though maybe I shouldn’t be. For their “Futures End” tie-in with G.I. Zombie, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti tell the last G.I. Zombie story. Maybe all the “Futures End” are the last issues in imaginarily long series (I don’t think I’ll find out). But what they do here works out.
G.I. Zombie likes to talk to himself. A lot. He and his partner spend the issue working on separate parts of the same mission; she gets to talk to the bad guys, he gets to kill them and talk to himself. A lot.
Star Spangled War Stories. G.I. Zombie. Neither of those titles suggest the comic is going to open in the present day, set in Louisiana, but writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray don’t do anything predictable in this first issue. Not the first twist, not G.I. Zombie, not the cliffhanger. Not the zombie scene.
Good grief–Ennis end the comic with a big Dubya is an alcoholic moron joke right before 9/11. Did they change the reveal for the trade?
Ennis has lost track of any real person–by real person, I mean the bartender from the first couple issues or maybe one of Soap’s cop antagonists–and he’s back to having a jolly old time. Lots and lots of pop culture references. Some day you’ll need footnotes to understand all the references and then further footnotes to explain why they’re funny.