Review: Low, Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope

Low, Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for sci-fi graphic novels with distinctive and beautiful art styles. The contrasting blue/green and yellow/orange palettes used here are particularly striking, illustrating the conflict between the despair and anger of those left on Earth in the undersea domes. Naturally, this conflict is not very productive; most people live hedonistic lives, having given up on ever finding a planet from which to escape the solar system whose sun has gotten too hot. Others are simply living out their last days.

Like I said, the artwork is great, and establishes both the tone and the setting of the story very well. The stylization sometimes makes it difficult to understand what's going on, or how a building is actually shaped, or what a character looks like, but while I would like those details, it's not usually a problem and the effect is generally worth it. The undersea setting allows for some creative costuming and character creation, which are both delivered in spades.

The sci-fi elements are good, too. There's just enough info through dialogue to let us know the structure of the world and to create a functional system of sci-fi elements, and the rest is delivered through the imagery. It's obviously not hard SF, but it's definitely believable and timely, given the concerns about climate change. I do think they could go a little bit wilder with the science, specifically in character creation (more weird pseudo-humans! sentient non-humans! give them gills instead of pressure suits!) and social structures - after all, I think it's like thousands of years in the future so humanity has changed, I'm sure. But that's not to say these elements are absent, and that's probably just personal taste - I like my sci-fi weird and wild.

The characters are... well, I'm conflicted. Their motivations are clear. Perhaps too clear, as I'll discuss later. The end of the first issue, though, was one of the most heart-wrenching moments I've read in a comic. The family dynamic is a favorite of mine for comic book/graphic novel stories - in a medium where so many things are larger than life and individual superheroes reign, grounding a story in the complicated interdependence of a (relatively) normal family provides a great angle of exploration (see also: Saga by Brian Vaughan). (I'd argue, though, that the main character's optimism turns into a kind of superpower, because it obviously will never fail and she will always be right, since that's the point of the story - see below.)

One of my biggest criticisms should be unsurprising, coming from me: all of the ladies are naked all the time. Not literally (but actually sometimes...), but except for the first issue where the focus is on a family, every background female is wearing either nothing or some kind of triangular nonsense that doesn't even cover their hips or shoulders, just attaches directly to the bits. The problem soon spreads to the female leads. Some may argue "but this whole world has gone to shit and everyone in the story is fucking all the time! It's just realistic!!!" but are the male characters - even the background ones - treated the same way? No. Literally every single background female and lead female, at some point, is sexy and near-nude. Like 100% as far as I can find. Male background characters are generally dirty and unkempt and doing something - anything - other than sex (outside the sex scenes)/standing and looking pretty, while the leads wear armor or fancy dress. Even through all the hedonistic group-sex scenes, there is exactly one male-on-male interaction, while the rest are male/female (or male/female/female/female etc.) or female/female. This story, I think, is trying to be progressive and making an effort to have female leads who are interesting and different, but it ultimately sabotages itself in that regard and is instead a mess of uncomfortable sexism.

My other gripe is that as Remender tells us in the introduction, he has never written an optimistic character before. He hasn't written any good ones here, either. The preachiness of the "happy thoughts make your life better" message is stale and insubstantial as cardboard - and cardboard doesn't fare well under the ocean. He gets some points for making it a religious belief, because it does remind me of very religious people I've spoken to who seem to believe that thoughts work like magic and can literally impact the physical world, but that doesn't alleviate the triteness. A lot of the potentially complex interactions between the obstinately optimistic main character and her family are simplified and cramped by the optimistic/fatalist dichotomous dialogue that is the 'point' of the story. Like, this book has a really good sci-fi story in it, but instead of using the 'character who is optimistic in the face of certain despair' as a way to explore that story, the optimism has become the story and it is not done well - there is no tension about whether hope is good or not (all the evil or temporarily-bad characters believe hope is bad, while the Good Character believes hope is good, and usually has her belief vindicated), so this 'story' is just pseudo-meaningful pontification.

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