Wetworks: Mutations

Writer: Kevin Grevioux & Christopher Long
Artist: Julius Gopez
Colors: Tony Avina
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn
Editors: Jim Chadwick & Shannon Eric Denton
Cover: Brandon Badeaux

(No Spoilers)

With the end of the Wildstorm Universe upon us, we get one last hurrah for one of its original teams. Ultimately, I think this was supposed to act as a lead in to a new series, but with the end of the imprint it’s turns out to be a love letter to the fans.

Of all the teams in the WSU, Wetworks was the title I followed the least. I always liked the concept of the team but never really liked the fact that they dealt with the supernatural aspect of the WSU. As time went on, I came to appreciate this fact a little more and based on the title of this one-shot, I was hoping for a major change for the team. Well, in that expectation it did deliver.

Kevin Grevioux & Christopher Long had the difficult task of getting us to understand what the Wetworks team was about and also catch us up on what’s been going on in the WSU in general. They do this by utilizing the summary page at the beginning of the issue like the other WSU titles have been doing. Since I’ve never really followed the team, I tried to come at this issue from a new reader’s perspective. They would definitely be able to tell that there has been a bigger story going on here. But I think there’s enough information here where they could enjoy the one-shot.

First thing I noticed is Julius Gopez’s art. I believe he’s a newcomer and I think his style was appropriate for this title. He drew some great battle scenes and his art is very detailed. His art combined with Tony Avina’s coloring was great. The story started off pretty strong but by the end you could tell they were trying to hurry and wrap it up. The way everything was laid out, I could easily see this going 4 issues. That was my one complaint about this is that it all seemed to be forced into this one-shot.

There were a lot of great things set up but unfortunately we’ll never see those things paid off now. Plus towards the end, I though the dialogue suddenly shifted and got really weak. I felt like I was reading something from the 90’s as because it was full of clichés and one-liners. It was a shame because I really wanted the entire comic to end strong.

All in all, it was a decent one-shot but I really wish they would’ve let this creative team know the imprint was ending. That way they could’ve made different decisions story-wise. But we as the fans asked for more Wetworks and we got it. So in that at least we can be happy.

7 out of 10 (Above Average)