Fresh Ink Online host Blair Butler ran into legendary comic book writer Grant Morrison at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, and talked with him about some of the highlights of his long and storied career, which includes having written Animal Man, Final Crisis, and We3. They talked about what’s next on Morrison’s docket, and where he sees the future going for the world of comics, but the best part is when they talk about the “We3″ movie.
We3 Plot (just in case you don’t already know)
The story follows the journey of We3, a squad of three prototype “animal weapons,” as they flee captivity. Following the decision to terminate them in preparation for expanding the project of which they are a part, their escape is engineered by their trainer. The group consists of a dog, “Bandit” a.k.a. “1″; a cat, “Tinker” a.k.a. “2″; and a rabbit, “Pirate” a.k.a. “3″, who were all kidnapped from a nearby city and encased in robotic armor. They were also given the ability to speak through implants in their skulls; this ability is,however, severely limited – as one scientist notes, “don’t expect the sonnets of Shakespeare.” The armor in which the animals are encased also fields numerous weapons, including mine laying devices, machine guns and razor claws.
As We3 break free and try to find their way home, the US Air Force attempts to capture them before anyone can find out about the Animal Weapons program. We3 are pursued by helicopter gunships and troops on foot, but their weaponry and fighting skill is vastly superior and they dispatch all soldiers sent against them with apparent ease. In desperation, the military and scientific personnel charged with We3’s recapture release a swarm of cybernetically enhanced rats, themselves prototypes within the Animal Weapon program. Once again the effort fails – We3 evade the verminous pursuit, destroying a railway bridge (and a train passing across it) in the process.
We3 reach a city and encounter a father and son out hunting with their pet dog. Shocked by the appearance of the cybernetic animals, the father opens fire on the rabbit with a shotgun, wounding it severely and damaging its speech implant. 1 and 2 immediately attack and kill the father and the pet dog, an act for which 1 later exhibits great remorse. Following this, We3, with their mind and body health quickly deteriorating (due to the lack of a special medicine they had to consume every day) ends up in an urban rail-yard, where they encounter a kind homeless man who feeds them and attempts to release them from their battle armors. Police and soldiers arrive and arrest the homeless man. The program directors have sent out animal weapon 4, a bull mastiff encased in similar armor to We3, which was intended to represent the next stage of the program, as a last ditch effort to stop them. Weapon 4 kills the rabbit, but not before it is grievously damaged by the latter’s mines. The scientist who engineered We3’s escape has agreed to lure 1 into the firing line of three snipers as a form of plea bargain. However, she recants at the last minute, throws herself into the sniper’s line of fire, and is killed. 1 and 2 team up to fight 4, which is subsequently blinded by the cat. The cat, dog, and mastiff break through an expressway sound barrier and land on the expressway, causing a serious car accident. The police arrive and open fire. The mastiff tries to kill the police officers, and is terminated by his handlers.
Exhausted and desperate, 1 and 2 make their way to what 1 feels to be “home” only to find an old neighborhood being demolished and reconstructed. The damage they have suffered (1 is especially hurt, but 2 manages to survive all their travails relatively unscathed) awakens them to the truth that their armor suits are not intrinsically part of themselves, and can be discarded. They rid themselves of their exo-skeletons, which are approaching a point of critical instability; an army patrol arrives in time for the suits to explode, killing all of them. Meanwhile, 1 and 2 have escaped to a tumbledown basement where 1 is at the end of its rope, while 2 tries to share a rat with him. They are encountered by the homeless man, who had been looking for them. The story’s final scene shows the dog and cat, no longer 1 and 2, sitting peacefully with the homeless man who originally found them in the rail-yard, on the steps of a courthouse. They are spotted by one of the We3 scientists, who recognizes the now normal-looking animals and asks the homeless man to take care of them, then gives the homeless man several hundred dollar bills before preparing to testify before a commission about the Animal Weapon program.
