The first panel on page 50 shows number “Two”–the orange tabby cat previously known as Tinker–mauling multiple special force soldiers that were deployed to capture and kill the animal team known as We3. Time seems to fracture, as the scene is arranged with smaller panels that mimic the properties of a three dimensional rectangle spinning in space. “Two” enters from the upper left gutter, jumping into the action, her arms and legs ready to pounce. She claws one soldier to death as she shoots a second. As “Two” leaps from frame to frame, she disembowels multiple soldiers, using their bodies as a literal springboard to reach the other. As you move left to right in the panel, “Two” no longer occupies space in the gutters, but instead dives into the fragments frames, decapitating the final soldiers. In the last fragment, we almost lose sight of her, but we see the gory disaster left in her wake. Shrapnel and blood splatter are seen throughout the gutter, painted with a gradient from a glowing red to a deep black.
Touched on earlier in the comic, the animals don’t experience time and space the same way that humans are accustomed to. Their senses are sharper, their movements quicker–both drawing on their innate animal biology. Specifically, “Two” strikes a certain fear in the doctors; she is able to carry out precise attacks even from afar with the use of her projectile claws. The animal’s mechanized suits, or “coats”, heighten their pre-existing natural abilities (99 Morrison and Quitely). These abilities surpass those of humans, making them the perfect weapons. Even with limited speech, the We3 team doesn’t fail to wreak havoc on infrastructure and violently kill a large number of humans. All this begs the question “are these lifeforms superior to humans?” or even “What can we learn from superior beings such as these?”–questions that I believe Morrison and Quitely meant to evoke in the audience.
As for my personal interpretation, I think the comic features two lenses: one of the humans and one of the We3 team. The humans’ position is one of fear and misunderstanding; the team’s is one of survival and companionship. Exploring these opposing emotions, the humans exhibit more primal feelings. They are depicted as fearful, angry, anxious–all emotions guided by our brain’s Limbic system (colloquially known as “the lizard brain”). The animals, however, exhibit higher emotions ruled by the brain’s multiple cortices, such as support and grief. In short, the We3 team is more “human” than their fully human counterparts.
