From The Beginning

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

November 26, 2016 by krisis

[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_06 No 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 – Stormwatch #17-21 & Special #2 (plus, stories from WildStorm Rarities)

November 25, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Finally, we’re back to Stormwatch! This is the last batch of issues prior to WildStorm Rising – Stormwatch (1993) #17-21 & Special 02, plus a pair of stories in WildStorm Rarities I missed earlier in the month.

stormwatch_v1_021 This run finds Stormwatch disintegrating without Battalion as the glue to hold it together. No one seems especially interested in obeying Synergy unless it suits them, and Diva has only marginally better luck. That lends an extra layer to Timespan’s egging Battalion on to his death – maybe the real goal was to destroy Stormwatch, and the only way to do it was to convince Battalion that he was fated to die?

Writer Ron Marz is still ably steering this ship towards certain doom and he’s now managed to differentiate the voices of the entire cast. Despite that, this run lacks the urgency of any prior portion of Stormwatch. It feels like a mismash of loose ends being tied up and chess pieces being maneuvered.

It’s hard to put a finger on why. Is it the lack of Battalion as our main point-of-view character leaving the book to feel adrift? Or, is it that with the future already glimpsed in #25 that the motion of the pieces to their appointed destinations feels too slow, and the side stories feel too unimportant? Diva’s encounter with Argos especially feels pointless, and Winter’s Russian adventure is a complete redux with little to improve upon the prior version. I suppose all will be revealed soon enough.

On the art side, this is also the weakest portion of the book so far. An amalgam of pencillers on Stormwatch #17 makes for the weakest art on the book to date, though they could afford the soft spot on an all-talking issue. #19 is back to all Mat Broome and looks strong.

Issue #21 is from fill-in from Terry Shoemaker, a Marvel fill-in artist, and it’s great! I always expect fill-in artists to leave us with an issue of big muscles and gawky faces, but he does a terrific job on keeping Winter, Cannon, and Bendix distinct in the midst of a lot of action. (I checked ahead, and he’s the artist of Zealot’s mini-series – I’m psyched!)

Stormwatch Special #2 plays out effectively as #20.5, showing what Stormwatch Prime is up to after their side mission in #20 – and addressing the subplot of their manipulation by Defile via their captor, Deathtrap. Of course, we all understood that was happening already, so this issue brings nothing new to the table with some wildly inconsistent art that’s far outside of the WildStorm house style. All you need to know is that Flashpoint may have finally shaken loose the subliminal programming that made him an effective mole (but it hasn’t stopped him from being an asshole), but Sunburst and Nautika are as deep as ever!

Also, in reading WildStorm Rarities yesterday, I realized it contained a pair of Stormwatch stories drawn by Jim Lee that I should have read earlier in the month! (Sadly, we never get more than a tiny glimpse of Lee’s Diva, but his Battalion is massive.)

Want the recap? Keep reading for the details of how our team is inching ever closer to their doom. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. I’m not looking forward to the next two days – another mercifully short trip through Backlash for #6-7 a new arc on Deathblow #13-15. Then we’re so close to WildStorm Rising!

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#17-20 & Special #2) or Amazon (#17, 18, 19, 20, 21, Special #2). Since further series reached these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the cover images in this post (and, note that #21 was misnumbered simple as “1” on the cover). The two older stories were only ever reprinted in WildStorm Rarities (Amazon / eBay), a perfect-bound book with a spine.

And now, onto the story! [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Stormwatch #17-21 & Special #2 (plus, stories from WildStorm Rarities)

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Warblade: Endangered Species #1-4, Grifter: One Shot (1995), and Maul in “Thinking Big”

November 24, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today I’ll tackle the three WildCAT spinoffs published to date – Warblade’s mini-series, a Grifter One-Shot, and a Maul solo story in Image Rarities.

warblade-endangered-species-0001 While Grifter eventually getting his own title was fait accompli, at this point it feels like Warblade is the least deserving of all the WildCATs who merited their own sideline series. At least Maul has the dichotomy of being a modern art loving nerd by day and a massive purple hulk on the battlefield. Maybe that’s why Warblade needed his own series so badly – because his narrative arc had been treading water ever since Killer Instinct.

Hearing Warblade’s internal monologue across four issues helps to solidify his character. He isn’t ruled by rage at all times as we’ve seen in the heat of so many battles. He can be cool and analytical, but he’s also not the best tactician, which leads him into unfortunate situations when his rage takes over and he prepares to strike.

Steven Seagle delivers solid workmanship and well-structured issues, which is exactly what WildStorm needs in growing out its cast of characters. Scott Clark’s name is welcome sight on pencils, having disappeared for several months after his stellar work launching Stormwatch. His output isn’t quite up to that par, with his figures getting increasingly gawky starting in issue #3.

By contrast, Grifter has been the breakout star of WildCATs from their first issue, which makes his flaccid one-shot a puzzler. Steven Seagle spends as much time having Grifter think about women as objects as he does having him show any kind of charm or expertise. The story adds a useless layer of backstory in addition to Zealot’s training and Team 7. It feels like the worst sort of Marvel book, that adds in layers of complicated history just because it can and then is quickly ignored (usually because, like this one, it kills all of its interesting new characters).

Finally, we come to Maul, the art-loving romantic who is also the WildCATs’ biggest bruiser. He was highlighted in an original story by Mark Waid called “Thinking Big” in Wildstorm Rarities. It’s a quick tossaway tale about Maul catching a runaway jet in his hands, but it makes clear that even in his smaller iterations as Maul the intelligence he has as Jeremy is inaccessible. It’s these little human moments that WildCATs had been missing – but, it also didn’t have a master like Mark Waid writing it.

Want the full details? Keep reading for a deeper breakdown of the plot. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow, finally, it’s back to Stormwatch with#17-21 & Special 02! Plus, while I’ve got a copy of WildStorm Rarities handy, I’ll cover the other stories from that issue – which occurred quite some time ago in continuity.

Need the issues? None of these issues have been collected, so you’ll need to hunt them down as singles (though Grifter and Rarities are actually both perfect-bound books): Warblade: Endangered Species (Amazon / eBay), Grifter: One Shot (Amazon / eBay), and WildStorm Rarities (Amazon / eBay), which is a perfect-bound book with a spine.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Wetworks #4-7

November 23, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]The opening arc of Wetworks masqueraded as a modern Team 7 with a supernatural bent, but this run of issues locks in the vampire underworld drama as the central plot of the book.

wetworks_v1_04 It feels like the team takes a backseat in these issues, although they do finally get some character development off the battle field. While I’ve finally got all of their names straight (Dane, Grail, Claymore, Jester, Pilgrim, and Dozer back at base), it’s hard to care about any of them aside from the team’s advance scout, Pilgrim. Coincidentally (or not?), Pilgrim gets two of the biggest scenes in the run that generate more questions than answers.

There’s also a lot of focus on the mystery of Mother One – who, let’s not forget, murdered two of the team in #3 just to gather telemetry. That was meant to be a surprise, but here she’s dropped all pretenses of being anything other eeky cyborg lady who freely reads everyone’s minds and is only 20% human to begin with. The team quickly grows as suspicious of her as we are as readers.

If it was hard to trust Mother One as a reader, it’s impossible to root for either side of the vampire conflict. Drakken is definitely written as more “evil,” but we’re talking about vampires here – they’re all evil. By contrast, his cousin the queen seems bored by her entire existence, barely deigning to make a semi-century appearance in front of her subjects and bristling at her inability to join in the fray of battle. Would it be so bad to depose her?

We learn that Wetworks is less an interloper and more a third wheel in the internecine vampire wars, thanks to their creepy benefactor Waering being a werewolf himself. Or, at least, the letters columns told me that – I had to go back to #5 and squint pretty hard to figure he was the human identity of the werewolf we meet.

Whilce Portacio isn’t delivering the same A-Game we saw in the first few issues. As with all of the Image founders within their first years, not being reigned in by editorial brings out both his best and his worst tendencies. The other founders had moved past that phase at this point (and, in Jim Lee’s case, off of his book) while Portacio is still figuring things out.

His panels are overly busy and too dark. It results in a lot of muddled, making characters hard to recognize (on top of them all being identical and gold). Plus, some key actions are indecipherable, as with a pivotal scene with Claymore and Jester that I can’t make heads or tails of. He seems to really cut loose when the WildCATs are briefly on panel (or maybe that’s Joe Chiodo enjoying their brighter palette) in a way that we don’t see again in this run. Francis Takenaga scripts Portacio’s plot with way too many words and far too little clarity; these issues are his first comic credits.

This run gives us a lot of information about the timing of other titles. Lynch is out at IO and Santini is reporting directly to Craven in #4, which places this after Gen13. Then, WildCATs appear in #4-5 sometime around WildCATs #14 (it’s prior to Voodoo’s injury in WildCATs #15) except they’re missing Warblade – so maybe that is after #19? Anyhow, it gives Grifter and Dane their first meeting. That throws a bit of a wrench into Deathblow #9-12 (where Lynch is with IO and Grifter and Dane work together), except maybe none of that actually happened, so we’re not going to get too worried about it.

Want the full details? Keep reading for a deeper breakdown of the plot. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. tomorrow we’ll work on three WildCATs tie-ins: Warblade: Endangered Species (1995) #1-4, Grifter: One Shot (1995), and a WildStorm Rarities Maul story. Then, it’s back to Stormwatch (1993) #17-21 & Special 02!!!

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#4-7) or Amazon (#4, 5, 6, 7). Since further Wetworks series hit these same issue numbers, be careful to pick up issues from the 1994 series – an easy way to tell the difference is that Mike Carey is the writer on the later relaunch. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Wetworks #4-7

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – Horton Hatches the Egg (Book #4)

November 23, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]It’s the fourth installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I covered the surprisingly awesome The King’s Stilts.

After that lengthy prose story with a clear message, Dr. Seuss returned with the a rhyming book that both looks and feels like the Seuss we all know and love – Horton Hatches the Egg. Yes, it’s the same Horton who would later hear a whoo. Between the meter and the silly animals, it was liked well enough by the toddler but we were quickly back to The King’s Stilts afterwards … and I think I know why.

Horton Hatches the Egg (1940) – Dr. Seuss

CK Says: – Consider it

Reading Time: 8-12 minutes

Gender Diversity: Horton and the hunters are male; the lazy, shrill bird, Mayzie, is female. Animals are otherwise agender; there are women in a circus crowd.

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: kinks, fluttered, tenderly, lightninged, anew

Themes to Discuss: parental responsibility, keeping your word, teasing and being different, hunting and animals used for entertainment, genetics, nature vs. nurture

You probably know Horton the elephant because he heard a Who fourteen years after this book was published, but this was his first appearance – and also Seuss’s first time anthropomorphizing an animal as a main character in one of his books.

Horton Hatches the Egg is a frivolous tale about responsibility and keeping your word that’s a fun read with little ones but lacks some of the narrative hooks that make other Seuss books great.

Horton isn’t the first animal we meet in this story. Instead, it’s Mayzie, a feckless bird who is bored with incubating her egg. While she isn’t quite ready to let it die of exposure, she’ll accept any substitute for her own tail feathers to keep it warm – including the massive hindquarters of Horton the Elephant. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – Horton Hatches the Egg (Book #4)