This is not your internet
I picked up w0rldtr33 because of the cover, the creators behind it (Tynion is always a draw for me) and because I was in the mood for something contemporary with tech and guns and people with phones.
The story can best be introduced along the following lines: Gabriel and his friends were teenage tech geeks in the early days of the internet. As they built their own networks, hacked newly emerging systems and generally fucked around, they discovered the Undernet, a hidden architecture to the internet and possibly something more, something deeper. They charted their explorations on a message board called W0RLDTR33. Then it all went wrong. 20 years ago, Gabriel and the others sealed the Undernet away for good. Or so they thought. They were wrong.
Told both in the past and now, this is full-blown horror. This first collected volume hints at some deeply “other” stuff. This isn’t the internet of conspiracies or monsters from myth; this is something different. Tynion and Blanco are in full horror territory here and it’s of the cosmic variety. Honestly I wasn’t quite ready—the opening pages are in technothriller territory with a sense that the secret architecture could be a government agency/conspiracy theory landscape, but, a little like it does for the characters, then it all goes wrong.
I mean that in a good way and there’ll be no more about the actual story here except to say it sits comfortably in the Event Horizon/Hellblazer space (at least in vibes), is gruesome, nasty and very, very bloody.
The story is well executed, and wrong-footed me on a couple of crucial occasions in a good way. w0rldtr33 is clearly looking to do something different with its tropes and its themes, and I welcome that commitment to telling the story slightly differently.
For me horror thrives when, like any genre, it’s in conversation with themes and topics that can be hard to discuss without metaphor. w0rldtr33 is absolutely talking about the deleterious impact of algorithms on human culture and individual cognition, but if that sounds a little tiresome, I think this is a good example executed well and using the setting to great effect.
Visually this feels akin to recent horror It Follows (2014) and Dark City (1998) or Talk to Me (2022), perhaps even Unfriended (2014), although this is superior to those. This combination of visuals together with the techno-cosmic-horror theme works really well, even in this first volume where there’s only really enough space to establish the stakes and give hints at where this is going.
The sense that the internet is a bad place is nuanced here—the internet itself, especially given the initial timeframe, is seen as a place of huge potential for good, for communication and community. It’s the Undernet that is the bad place, although what it is and why it’s bad are unclear so far. It’s enough that this is a story in which communication has two sides to it, one which does untold good and one which can do untold evil.
As with any great horror like this, the evil at work is not simply immoral; it is deeply amoral in the sense that it has no morality we can recognise except that its wants and needs are cruel and destructive in execution. Why? Yet to be revealed, and given how adjacent it is to cosmic horror in this tone, it might be simply that whatever lurks in the Undernet is what it is. We’re not going to get a tragic backstory to the supernatural monster(s) waiting for the world here.
The main characters around Gabriel are strongly drawn so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go—they are scarred by their history, the world has changed since they initially locked away the Undernet, and they aren’t ready for what’s unfolding around them. Like Stephen King’s IT, this group of young friends have gone their separate ways since the original events, and that’s largely because of the trauma of what happened. As they come back together now, it is with trepidation, rancour and suspicion—these do not make for good outcomes when faced with a threat no single person can handle alone.
w0rldtr33 is great horror, and highly recommended for anyone who likes the thriller/cosmic horror genre with lashings of gore and people who aren’t ready for what they’re facing.
I do have one criticism, and it’s potentially transient. There is one character who spends all her time nude, and is drawn in a way that you’d not be surprised to see as the ideal feminine form for a particular type of cis het male. I cannot see why, at this stage in the story, she’s appearing like this, and it is uncomfortable for reasons that have nothing to do with horror. However, volume 1 is just that, the first 5 issues of the monthly comic, so it’s possible this will have a narrative reason, so I raise it, but caveat that concern with an admission that I don’t know where the story is going. Given that this is about the horror of the internet, a naked woman appearing for the sake of it isn’t really out of place. Yet.
Highlights:
- Great art and colouring
- Cosmic horror!
- Lots of blood and gore
Nerd coefficient: 6/10, a great story so far, lots of unexpected horror and plot, good characters and compelling visuals.
Reference: Tynion, James (writer) and Blanco, Fernando (artist). w0rldtr33 [Image Comics, 2024 - current].
STEWART HOTSTON is an author of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also a keen Larper (he owns the UK Fest system, Curious Pastimes). He's a sometime physicist and currently a banker in the City of London. A Subjective Chaos, BSFA and BFA finalist he's also Chair of the British Science Fiction Association and Treasurer for the British Fantasy Society. He is on bluesky at: @stewarthotston.com.
