Low, Vol. 1 The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender

I’ve read Remender’s Seven to Eternity series and wasn’t overly impressed by those either. There’s something muddled about his approach to storytelling that just didn’t work for me.
Low is an improvement, at least conceptually speaking. It features a considerably more streamlined plot that has to do with underwater survivors of solar caused catastrophe who dream of a possibility of life on a distant habitable planet. But…but it still didn’t wow me. I mean, some of the art is objectively right out of the wow territory and some of it is just orgies. Very graphic orgies. Because the underwater world is dying out and its denizens decide to go out in style. But not Low’s protagonist, Stel, no, she is determined to survive, because she’s got the power of optimism.
And that’s where the story takes a plunge…or a plunger, as in optimism is the plunger with which Stel works through the sh*t of the world around her. Stel is irrepressibly positive, the power of positive thinking is strong within her veins. Stel must have read The Secret and bought right into that crap and now she’s using all this hopefulness to (figuratively) terraform the world around her. And yes, it is as tedious as it sounds.
See, the thing is, Remender (for his foreword) went to therapy and discovered the power of positivity and now with all of the obnoxious enthusiasm of the newly converted he wants to shout it from the proverbial rooftops, which are in his case comics. The result is as preachy as you can imagine and completely overpowering what would have otherwise been a serviceable if mediocre story with above average and oversexualized art.
And it is so oversexualized…Stel, a widow with three adult children, barely wear any clothing and looks about 21. You’d think with all the action scenes she’s want some pants. But no. No pants for Stel. The underwater creatures are fun, though, and imaginative.
Overall, nothing special here, the story almost seems like an afterthought, more like a platform for the author’s message. And mind you, there’s nothing wrong with finding a line of thinking that works for you, be it optimism or nihilism or whatever works for you, but no one wants to hear about it, certainly not in these quantities. You’ve not discovered the secret to the world, The Secret did not discover the secret to the world. It’s just personal delusion (or more appropriately here, delirium) to help you get through life. Key world…personal. Don’t wave it like a flag. No matter how artistically rendered that flag may be.