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Backlash

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Team 7: Objective: Hell (1995) #1-3

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]This month of reading WildStorm from the beginning has frequently defied my expectations, with my enjoyment of the contents nearly reversed from what I expected.

team-7-v2-03-pinupTeam 7: Objective hell tops that list of unexpected outcomes. It’s a riveting, gorgeous, well-written book that merges military themes with superhero powers. There are a few tiny nods to the future of these characters, particularly for Slayton/Backlash, but otherwise this series hardly acknowledges the wider WildStorm Universe and the future it holds in store.

Chuck Dixon shines here even more than on the original limited series. Past needing to introduce his massive cast and take them through multiple missions, this series has both more action and better character moments. No one gets the sort of monologue or grandstanding they did in the first series. It’s all tiny beats that tell us more about the team – particularly Slayton’s temper and the babyfaced Cash’s rise to leadership before an eventual fall from their graces.

Every page of this book looks damned great. The covers truly don’t do justice to the interior pages.

Chris Warner spares no detail in illustrating the jungle environs of Nicaragua and Cambodia. A gang of multiple inkers introduce some variation but fill every page with plenty of contrast for colorist Monica Bennett to make pop with rich greens, golden flesh tones, and Team 7’s red war paint.

The long-haired, well-muscled men of Team 7 have a certain mercurial hint of motion that’s reminiscent of issue #1’s cover artist, the legendary Barry Windsor Smith. The members who we don’t know in the present day stand out the most, with Caitlin Fairchild’s father clearly modeled on Iggy Pop and Grunge’s father Chang drawn more distinctly as an Asian than on the prior outing.

The inspiration for this story seems near to that of The Divine, an OGN I reviewed last year. The difference is that while The Divine was about child soldiers in an eternal war, Oteam-7-v2-01-19bjective Hell is about a small bubble of peace that Team 7 is forced to disrupt for the greater good.

Was a greater good achieved? There’s no question that removing low-yield nukes from the grasping Khmer Rouge is a positive, but the open psychic warfare between US and Russian forces signaled a new front of the Cold War that Team 7 found themselves alone to defend. While they escape with only one serious casualty this time, it helps to frame their later choice to splinter and become mercenaries. As long as the specter of their reassembling as a team exists in the world, the US Government will find some threat that demands their intervention … but does their existence also escalate the seriousness of the threats?

Team 7: Objective Hell doesn’t hold those answers or very many keys to the big questions we’ve been asking about Backlash, Grifter, Dane, Lynch, and Cray, but it is a superior WildStorm offering that makes me wish we had an ongoing comic to add more past missions to Team 7’s published history.

Want a recap? Keep reading for a summary of how these soldiers became super. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow is the main event! WildStorm Rising! Let’s get ready to cross over, baby!

Need the issues?  This series has not been collected, so you’ll need to grab the singles – try eBay or Amazon. Since further series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the cover images in this post. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Team 7: Objective: Hell (1995) #1-3

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Backlash #6-7

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]When we last saw our heroes this book was a chauvinist wreck being scripted by man-children. I wonder what will happen next!

backlash_v1_06No matter what I say about the lumpy scripting on this book, it’s definitely in the upper half of good looking WildStorm ongoings as Stormwatch wobbles through multiple artists and Deathblow switches away from Tim Sale.

While Brett Booth is a large part of that, so is a set of DC-esque vibrant colors from Martin Jimenez. Together, they make what could be a spy book feel like a superhero adventure. That lends a lot of implied joy to the proceedings that the script isn’t bringing to the table. Even spitting the three chapters of issue #7 between Melvin Rubi, Booth, and Dan Norton doesn’t change that – each of them delivers, especially Rubi on the intro.

Plotwise, the trio of scripters continue to be hapless. Issue #6 neatly ties up the book’s raison d’être in a neat little bow, with the VR device leading Backlash right to S’Ryn and having him neatly resolve her broken psyche with the help of Voodoo. That story probably deserved more than just one issue.

I’m not sure what the point of the title will be after WildStorm Rising, but luckily that’s not my problem this month!

Then, issue #7 finds the quickest possible route to dispose of that new status quo, while pitting a still unsympathetic Taboo against a term of mercs who I was rooting for 100%.

(The letters columns in #7 include a cascade of praise for the one-note evil sexbot Taboo. I’d ask what book they were reading, but then I remembered some stuff about teenage boys and just shook my head.)

Also, there are some intractable continuity problems here – Backlash visits the WildCATs headquarters with a recovered Voodoo in Backlash #6, placing it after WildCATs #18. Then Backlash #7 begins with two weeks elapsing. The trouble is that WildCATs #19 happens just seconds after #18 and immediate moves into the start of WildStorm Rising, which puts Backlash #8 way into the crossover (but not really, since Backlash’s #8 is one of the chapters).

These issues needed some kind of reshuffling to extend the story in #7 – perhaps by inserting the disconnected Australian Outback in #8 to displace the big finalé with S’Ryn into #8, leaving Slayton and Diane’s sudden breakup to end this pair of books.

Want the recap? Keep reading for the details of this pair of issues. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow brings us a new arc sans Tim Sale on Deathblow #13-15, followed by the start of new Union and Gen13 ongoings on Monday.

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#6-7) or Amazon (#6, 7). [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Backlash #6-7

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Team 7 (1994) #1-4

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]In 1994 there were just a handful of comics writers you would pursue if you wanted to read a terrific war comic. Chuck Dixon was likely at the top of that list (along with Larry Hama).

Thus, after two years of WildStorm when it was finally time to expose the Team 7 connective tissue shared by almost all of WildStorm’s books, it was Chuck Dixon who Jim Lee and Brandon Choi tapped to pen it.

team-7-v1-01-pinupThe original Team 7 operated in the 70s consisted of this list of eleven largely familiar names:

  • Team Leader John “Topkick” Lynch
  • Berckmann
  • Stephen “Wraparound” Callahan (whose death we saw on the first pages of Gen13)
  • Cole “Dead Eye” Cash (AKA Grifter)
  • Phillip “Bulleteer” Chang (father of Gen13’s Grunge)
  • Michael “Deathblow” Cray
  • Jackson “Arclight” Dane (of Wetworks)
  • Alexander “Slaphammer” Fairchild (father of Gen13’s Caitlin Fairchild)
  • Andrew Johnson
  • Richard “Boloround” MacNamara
  • Marc “Backlash” Slayton

Team 7 was a vastly different comic book from WildStorm’s norm up to this point. No heroes, no brightly-colored spandex, no supernatural threats.The mini-series is part war story, part psychological thriller as the elite team is subject to experiments against their will, pushed to the very limits of survival, and pitted against each other in a series of psychological tortures. In fact, though it includes super-powers, they ease their way into the story and are treated as an extension of interpersonal conflicts rather than weapons to be casually wielded.

Penciler Aaron Wiesenfeld starts off with the gritty realism that marked Dixon’s run on Marvel’s ‘Nam, but by the final issue he is channeling Barry Windsor-Smith in a series of dynamic full-pages and broad faces. Seriously, issue #4 is so darn pretty that my review could just be posting its pages in their entirety. Check out this marvelous opening sequence of Deathblow’s mutiny told in four full-page splashes:

team-7-v1-04-02team-7-v1-04-03team-7-v1-04-04team-7-v1-04-05


Aside from Deathblow’s familiar wide face, it’s nearly impossible to tell apart the team of white men (even the one Chinese man is drawn Caucasian) until you’ve committed their various facial hair and face paint symbols to memory. That’s not a weakness, but a subtlety – just as is Craven being drawn to resemble our modern day John Lynch while Lynch’s own face gradually morphs into that shape.

As a standalone story, Team 7 would be marginal – a bunch of stooge soldiers get set up again and again as their team shrinks from attrition. In the scope of what we already know about so much of the cast, it’s fascinating – explaining relationships and filling in detail that had only been implied. For me, this is the reason to read this (and other) Team 7 miniseries in order of its release rather than in order of continuity.

Without knowing the future story of these characters, all you’d get is that Cash is the golden boy and Lynch is under Craven’s thumb, while missing Dane’s early killthrill that must eventually transform into the cool-headed company man, Slayton’s deadly quiet under pressure (his best characterization yet), and Chang’s easy-going nature (presaging his way chill son).

Dixon and Wiesenfeld perfectly shoulder that burden, aside from the team stumbling headfirst into four traps will stretch your disbelief to the max, burden. They keep the book readable while only deepening the mysteries of Craven’s intent and how the team eventually splinters into the heroes we know and the dead men we don’t.

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for a summary of how these soldiers became super. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow I’ll get my first taste of WildCATs without Jim Lee, and it’ll be a big bite – issues #15-19. After that, the second arc of Wetworks, Warblade’s miniseries and a Grifter one-shot!), and then finally back to Stormwatch!

Need the issues? This series was collected in a 1994 TPB (eBay), or you can grab the singles – try eBay or Amazon. Since further series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the images in this post.

And now, onto the story! [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Team 7 (1994) #1-4

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Backlash #1-5

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Backlash leaps to his own series after a brief supporting turn in Stormwatch and co-starring with Grifter in The Kindred.

(This clearly comes after WildCats #14 since Marlowe and Savage Dragon are on a first-name basis. It’s also after Wetworks #5, as we’ll see in Backlash #4. A brief scene with Diva seems as though it could fit between Stormwatch #11-12.)

backlash_v1_01I’m not convinced anyone liked Backlash enough for him to merit his own series, but at this early stage in WildStorm’s life it seems they’re intent on playing out a certain set of plots and Backlash’s Daemonite hunt is one of them.

My main beef with Backlash to this point has been that his fearsome reputation doesn’t line up with what’s on the page. He’s supposed to be tough, but all we see is him getting the tar beat out of him. He’s supposed to be heartless and arrogant, and while he’s got the latter down to a tee he’s more tactical than he is cold-hearted.

This betrays a weak spot in WildStorm’s early scripting. Even when characters aren’t stereotypes, they’re a flat package of clearly labelled traits without much humanity. Backlash is a potentially rich enough character that he can actually portray these seemingly opposed traits, but no one with enough skill to balance it has written him yet – he slipped out of Stormwatch just before Ron Marz could get his hands on him.

Unfortunately, the writing that finally shows Backlash as the dynamic, serious threat he is rife with toxic masculinity that goes beyond any aspect of chauvinism in Backlash himself. In his five issue run, guards whine about their women and try to score with their female compatriots, Diva cries on Backlash’s shoulder, Backlash narrates about guarding his lover Diane even if she doesn’t want that from him (while calling her “kiddo” – super gross), a cop hopes to run into “a drunk starlet,” and Taboo is suddenly sex-crazed for Backlash.

Each taken on their own most of these would slip by me aside from the cop who wants to commit sexual assault, but they’re compounded by a particularly ugly one – Pike threatening Zealot with sexual violence. I think that’s a first so far in WildStorm.

Not only is the Zealot comment disgusting, but it’s the laziest of writing to take the toughest, most-dynamic character in your entire universe and decide the only way to weaken her is to threaten her sexual agency. It rings completely false on the panel, even if Pike is exactly that nasty of a guy.

This marks the first time a WildStorm title has kicked off without Brandon Choi having a hand in the proceedings. While Choi hasn’t exactly been the paragon of writing female characters not named Zealot, he’s been surprisingly even-handed when it comes to women as objects and women in peril. Not these writers – each issue is attributed to the crowd of artist Brett Booth, Jeff Mariotte, and Sean Ruffner. They’re giggling like maniacal pimpled teenage boys every time they can suggest one of their male characters might be able to seduce or assault a woman, and their version of agency for Taboo is her coercing Backlash into having sex.

Is Backlash any good if you can look past its misogyny? It might not be as weak as The Kindred, but it’s still just average tough guy fare, despite a killer first issue. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Backlash #1-5

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – The Kindred #1-4

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today we’re tackling the first WildStorm book to deliberately connect their various franchises – The Kindred mini-series.

We’ve seen many hints dropped throughout WildStorm’s books about International Operations and Team 7. It’s obvious that it has some resemblance to the retconned Weapon X program, which turned out many more characters than just Wolverine.

the-kindred-4-promoThe Kindred capitalizes on these dropped hints to tell a new story that isn’t just expositional history, but that ties several pieces of information together along the way.

The book is more memorable for those revelations than for its plot. For a title starring the electric Grifter, the badass Backlash, and the mysterious Lynch, it seems like it could have escalated to a considerably higher-intensity.

Maybe the simmering intensity level is a good thing – it corrects the pacing issues that hurt the opening arcs of both WildCATs and Deathblow, presenting easy-to-follow rising action with a definitive end-point.

There’s no single credit for scripting on this book. At points it shows in the torrent of gently conflicting information. Also, while Grifter and Backlash bumping heads ought to be a teeth-gritting delight, somehow their combined prickliness slightly waters them both down.

Backlash is a character whose coolness isn’t fully justified by what we’ve seen from him so far on the page. He’s lithe, gray-haired, wields a whip, wears a slick black suit, and can dematerialize into fog. It’s all dangerous, but altogether it doesn’t suggest a terrifyingly deadly character we ought to be scared of. He definitely qualifies as “the most arrogant man alive” for all his bragging and complaining,  but not the deadliest. Kindred doesn’t really do him any favors – he gets beat up more often than not, here, and he’s a lot of bark with relatively little bite.

(Grifter, on the other hand, just keeps getting cooler now that we know he went AWOL from Team 7 thanks to his unrequited love, is hated equally by Backlash and Lynch, and was the softy who tried to save his teammates who got left behind. Also? Still no hint of his powers.)

The villainous elements of the mini-series are needlessly complex. The Kindred’s leader Bloodmoon isn’t even a Kindred and the result of a totally separate Team 7 caper, which leaves a lot of questions and ultimately makes The Kindred sort of window dressing in their own story. It also leaves a lot of open questions about Bloodmoon that a little dose of simplicity could have solved better than more explanations.

Art from Brett Booth is solid and enjoyable. All of the characters are recognizable and Booth draws clear action that’s easy to track. His characters can have a slight Spider-Man rubbery-ness to them that calls back to earlier Eric Larsen or even Todd McFarlane. That this would become somewhat of a trademark of Backlash rather than a more muscular stance is definitely down to Booth’s early influence on the character.

The biggest reason to include this in your WildStorm read? Context, glorious context. We finally understand Director Lynch’s place in the WildStorm Universe, and how Team 7 and IO are linked with the history of Stormwatch.

Want the full details? Read on to learn more about the connective tissue of the WildStorm Universe. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we head back to WildCATs to see Jim Lee reunited with his X-Men co-conspirator Chris Claremont on WildCATs #10-13!

Need the issues? This is a rare early WildStorm title with a TPB collection! Look for it on Amazon and eBay. Also, the single issues to this series tend to be pretty cheap – try eBay (#1-4) or Amazon (#1, 2, 3, 4). Since a second Kindred mini-series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the cover images in this post. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – The Kindred #1-4