Crushing Krisis

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From The Beginning

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – WildCATs #15-19, written by James Robinson

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wildcats-v01-015[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]WildCATs hasn’t been my favorite title to cycle through in this marathon of reading, but I’ll read just about anything to enjoy Jim Lee art.

So, you’ll understand my trepidation about today’s read when I remind you that of WildCATs #15-19, Jim Lee contributes only to #19, and then only the layouts with Richard Bennett on finishes. What I had forgotten about these issues was who took over for Lee and his BFF Brandon Choi on scripts – Travis Charest on art, with James Robinson scripting.

Robinson is the obvious good sign. While we didn’t know it at the time, he had begun something truly historic the month WildCATs #15 was released … and it wasn’t WildCATs! Robinson also began his legendary, Eisner-nominated, 80-issue run on DC’s Starman the same month. Since then he’s become well-known as a sort of historian archeological scripter, a writer who will dig through all the layers of a character’s lengthy history to find the bones that fit together best into a new story.

wildcats-v01-016We last saw Charest on WildCATs #0, Special, and back-ups on #8-9, where he was a reliable Lee clone. In the year that elapsed he must have been pricked with a radioactive pencil or something, because his artwork here is something else entirely. It’s the first time so far I’ve opened up a WildStorm book and felt it was not just exciting or dynamic or challenging, but beautiful.

Charest’s pencils with inker Troy Hubbs are so far ahead of their time for 1994, made all the more remarkable by what colorist Joe Chiodo was achieving with 90s technology. I’d hold up the quality of the art in these issues to peak John Cassaday or Travel Foreman. They’re that good. There’s a certain stained glass quality to his figures work, where it feels like he’s defined each distinct plain of their features while still keeping them round and dynamic.

(Since then, he’s become even more remarkable – check out his website!)

The combined powers of Robinson, Charest, Hubbs, and Chiodo pull WildCATs out of the middle of the pack of Image books and makes it a proper must-read. Part of Robinson’s method of doing that is zooming out from the team for his first arc (and also taking Voodoo off the table until he has the chance to do some repairs). His first arc is told from the point of view of a random Black Razor who had his knee shot out by Jacob Marlowe back in issue #2. Now he’s leading the Razors in lieu of Lynch (which places this just after Gen13) and his first mission is to protect the man who nearly crippled him.

wildcats-v01-018-13Seeing Marlowe and his team of lethal, unleashed warriors through the eyes of the humans who have to keep them contained completely changes the nature of this book. Finally, Warblade and Maul seem powerful and fantastical. Zealot, despite being a whirlwind of blades and death, seems more human and fallible when we’re not relying on her to save the day as a necessary function of the plot.

Then, Charest takes center stage with a puzzle of a structure from Robinson on issue #17, expanding three branching stories symmetrically first in vertical slices on the same page, then in single page splashes, and finally in full page spreads.

Finally, Robinson gets out his archeologist tools and goes to work on Voodoo – and, to an extent, Void. Much as WildCATs Trilogy made Zealot a dynamic character through defining her history, Robinson makes Voodoo’s sudden dedication to being a fighter real and grounded in a psychic dream sequence that explains that she is not only part Kherubim, but also part Daemonite – maybe the only person on Earth who can claim such a lineage!

It’s phenomenal stuff, especially since Robinson plays to Charest’s best strengths and uses issue #18 (and parts of #17) as a series of pinups. It’s unfortunate to see the legs get swept out from under it so soon with the end of #19 leading directly into the WildStorm Rising crossover. I know all good fiction is about interrupting the “Status Quo,” but when it comes to comic books it’s disappointing to get only five or six great issues before an event shakes things up.

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 nip over to Wetworks #4-7 (which occur before this arc!) before a second dose of WildCATs with Warblade: Endangered Species (1995) #1-4 & Grifter: One Shot (1995) (plus the WildStorm Rarities Maul story I originally planned to cover today).

Need the issues? These issues were collected in 2009’s James Robinson’s The Complete WildC.A.T.s, ISBN 978-1401222048 (Amazon / eBay). For single issues – try eBay (#15-19) or Amazon (#15, 16, 17, 18, 19). Since other WildCATS 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 – WildCATs #15-19, written by James Robinson

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 – Deathblow #10-12

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deathblow_010_17[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today’s scheduled reading was Deathblow #10-12, the end of the initial mega-arc of the title.

The first twelve issues of Deathblow are about how anyone can decide to be a hero but no one gets to choose the kind of hero they get to be.

Michael Cray is a mercenary – maybe the most-efficient and cold-blooded mercenary of all of Team 7. He just wants to be dropped into places where he can remove bad men from the world until he, too, shuffles off of this mortal coil.

Fate has something different in store for Cray and for his ex-wife Gaby, Sister Mary, Faisal, Grifter, Backlash, and Dane. They all get to be heroes in this story, but none get to walk the straight path they intended.

I should mention that this story “doesn’t count,” in that all but one or two of its bloody outcomes are reversed by the final page of Deathblow #12. I really hate stories that don’t count, no matter how cool they are (which is why I have so much trouble with DC Comics … but that’s another post entirely).

I didn’t really hate Deathblow. It’s disappointing that Jim Lee and Brandon Choi couldn’t conceive of a story with stakes this high that could stick, but Deathblow himself is changed by it and maybe that’s all that matters.

At times I thought I was bored with the tale, but each time I was almost lost Choi and Sale brought me back with an awesome moment. Travis strips Sister Mary of her plethora of weapons. Gaby melting from angelic host to human right before Michael Cray’s eyes. Famine and War casually striding across New York City landmarks.

deathblow_012_17Despite Deathblow being rooted in Team 7 machismo and Jim Lee’s awesome specimens of human biology, at points Sale and colorist Linda Medley are pushing its visual identity into territory like Sin City, Hellboy, or even Sandman purely through the power of their bold, minimal artwork – which allows them to shock us with panels like the colorful entry of the Team 7 calvary at the end of issue #10.

Then, Sale performs his best magic trick, turning Grifter, Backlash, and Cray into beautiful modern art on the page in issue #11 as they square off against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and then with the Black Angel himself, until Michael Cray is the only thing left between this world and the apocalypse.

deathblow_010Before we can get there, Cray needs to have his reckoning with Travis in Deathblow #10, his former operator who was secretly a serial killer.

This is the one facet of the plot that I couldn’t get behind. The idea of Herod, a methodical killer only after the special children who might make a difference in this world, is the sort of hook you could hang an entire title on.

To see him get tossed away as a mini-boss in this saga while the issue reached a crescendo with the introduction of the Horsement felt like it wasted all of the subtle build-up to his reveal as a villain, even if he proved to be the climax of Gaby’s plot. Choi had the perfect chance to reset his capture with the big rewind at the end of the story but left his plot neatly resolved for the moment. We’ll see if there’s anything as good in store with the next arc.

Tdeathblow_011hen, in Deathblow #11, the core surviving foursome of Team 7 spread out across the city to try to intercept the Horsemen.

This is not your typical good vs. evil, love vs. hate sort of fight (not that anything in Deathblow has been that). Grifter, Backlash, and Dane aren’t good men who fight for right. They’re also not exactly the four most-powerful characters we’ve met so far in WildStorm. Yet, they share Cray’s theme of trying to
find a way to remain heroes no matter how twisted their lives become. They each get their trademark moment of cool, but seem to be no match for their supernatural foes.

However, Deathblow manages to overcome Death himself by simply shattering his Seal of the Apocalypse. Of course, he uses his special Sword of Heaven to do it, but maybe the other members might have a shot using their Genesis powers?

deathblow_012Everything goes to hell in Deathblow #12. The Team 7 men each eliminate their Horsemen but each pay an awful price for it. Deathblow and his rag tag team of cops and holy men storm the top of the World Trade Center only to be methodically cut down by the horse of demons there (even after Faisal turns out to be the Archangel Raphael, who does a doozy on the Black Angel).

Then, just as Deathblow is about to succumb, the ragged remains of Team 7 storm the roof only to be disintegrated by the Antichrist … but, it’s just the opportunity and inspiration that Deathblow needs to make his, erm, well, his deathblow, if we’re being honest.

 Cue the massive rewind using the energies the Black Angel siphoned off of Christopher. The boy funnels them back into the very fabric of reality, ironing out the tens of thousands of ripples caused by the Black Angel’s machinations going all the way back to the Baghdad plot in the initial four issues.

One thing he cannot correct is Gaby’s death, as really she had been dead for two years now while acting as the host of an angel. Christopher just doesn’t have the juice to iron out the kinks that far back. It sucks to see the one real female character in the series triple-fridged (her original death, he death in #11, and then her death sticking in #12) to literally absolve Michael Cray and give him some closure. As with Herod, it seems like we could have a more interesting series with her alive.

Despite my frustration about taking my favorite two supporting characters out of the story, therein lies the answer to why this isn’t a typical “it doesn’t count” story. Sure, all the world-shattering consequences were reversed, but all that things that broke Michael Cray remain in place. All of the personal consequences of his journey from dying mercenary to an absolved man remained consequential – maybe even moreso considering how the rest of the world around him and Sister Mary stayed relatively the same.

I just hope that an amazing story comes from it, because in giving away their rewind button Jim Lee, Brandon Choi, and the departing Tim Sale made sure that Deathblow can’t ever go back to being another book about a merc. Now Deathblow’s mission comes with a capital “M,” and it has to move on after this spectacular mic drop of evocative, challenging, actual art from Sale and Linda Medley.

Need the issues? Deathblow #0-12 were collected in a 1999 TPB titled “Sinners and Saints.” DC issued a revised, expanded, and re-ordered HC and TPB of #0-12 that both are still readily available. For single issues try eBay (#10-12) or Amazon (#10, 11, 12) – and note that Amazon offers these issues digitally(!) through Comixology.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we’ll finally learn the mysteries of Team 7 with their first eponymous miniseries (and then on to post-Lee WildCATs, the 2nd arc of Wetworks, and Warblade miniseries plus a Grifter one-shot!)

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 – Stormwatch #14-16

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today we’re back to Stormwatch, and if I wasn’t adhering to a reading schedule this month you better believe I would be holed up in a corner reading nothing but Stormwatch because the suspense of reaching #25 is killing me.

Thanks to a brief tag with the time-traveling Timespan on issue #16 that loops back to his prologue in issue #9, it seems we’re meant to read this post’s issues and the prior one’s in a single self-affirming swath of doom.

Ron Marz spends this trio of issues delivering two of the kind of globe-trotting adventures we expect from the team, but the international action will be the farthest thing from your mind. That’s because he not only turns up the pressure on Battalion’s impending doom, but takes the time to finally make the equally doomed Diva a more round character (albiet with a lame “I’ll make you a better person” romance with Cannon).

stormwatch_v1_014Penciller Mat Broome is joined by Joe Phillips on Stormwatch #14, and combined with a totally new crew on colors it has some awkward moments. It’s a fine issue to work out those kinks, since despite containing some action Ron Marz’s script mostly focused on relationships and mercy.

We quickly learn why Battalion was so eager to take a leave of absence in the last arc. It wasn’t for peace and quiet – it was so he could infiltrate Skywatch and murder his father in his cryo-sleep! As he lurks in the so-called “Ice Box,” we get a glimpse of past foes like Talos, future ones like Stricture, and even some non-threatening figures who must be more than meets the eye. However, he can’t bring himself to kill his father.

We also learn more about the Diva and Cannon romance that has apparently been bubbling under ever since Ron Marz first hinted at it in Stormwatch Special. Their private moment is interrupted when Synergy as Weatherman inserts Stormwatch One into Northern Rwanda to protect refugees from the country’s civil war with strict instructions to engage the enemy only in self defense.stormwatch_v1_014_23When the team (Cannon, leading Diva, the reconstituted Hellstrike, Fahrenheit, and Strafe) finds that all but one of the refugees have already been slaughtered, Cannon takes it upon himself to hunt down the perpetrators and only Diva can stop him (both with reason and ass-kicking) from killing them in revenge.

The issue ends with a brief stinger in Defiles sanctum, where he’s seemingly threatened by Warblade only to discover it’s a shapeshifter named White. Curiously, he plans to deploy White to disrupt the WildCATs, not Stormwatch.

stormwatch_v1_15Stormwatch #15 opens with us still in Defile’s lair, and here we learn what he has in store for Stormwatch – a massive genetically engineered creature incubating in a tank.

Synergy the Weatherman (whose hair is already grown out since last issue) has met with all of Stormwatch One to reprimand them for their actions in the last issue – they’re more of the sort of rogue decisions that got her an unwanted promotion. When she gets to Diva, she has only thanks for her leadership, which leads Diva to confront Cannon about his behavior.

Battalion is starting to lose his cool (and his mind?) about his impending death, but his quiet tinkering time in the workshop is interrupted by the always awful Flashpoint. The brash Stormwatch Prime member goals Battalion into a fight and gets thoroughly whupped.

Their confrontation is interrupted by an all-hands on deck notice from Weatherman. A massive humanoid bearing a device that looks like a bomb is in the process of King Kong-ing its way up Mauna Loa in Hawaii – the largest active volcano in the world. Stormwatch One heads in, lead by Battalion and comprised of everyone except the unstable trio of Stormwatch Prime.

stormwatch_v1_16Mat Broome and colorist Steve Firchow have settled in on Stormwatch #16, which makes for a crackling climactic issue. (Weirdly, there is a single page colored flatly without digital gradients, and it looks amazing. It goes to show that Broome’s talent isn’t all in the digital trickery of the coloring.)
The assembled Stormwatch One is unable to dent the massive purple creature sent by Defile despite multiple attacks. Battalion distracts it long enough to get in close and rip the bomb away from where it’s grafted on the creature’s back.

We’ve seen both Hellstrike and Winter contend with massive explosions in recent issues, but Battalion takes it upon himself to absorb this detonation within a bubble of psychic power. Timespan drops by to witness him doing the deed just long enough to stop Diva from interfering. Battalion contains the blast, but his body is left limp and lifeless in its wake.

Artist Trevor Scott stops by to render an epilogue in the past, as Timespan returns to to the unlikely 12th century Normandy for a breather. Despite his seemingly random choice, the fellow traveller we glimpsed back in Gen13 #1/2 catches up to him and says she’ll end his “tampering.”

Ah, is Timestream not as benevolent as he lead us to believe? He slips away after a punishing blast from Nadia to return to his Prologue scene from Stormwatch #9 – which means he whisked Battalion to the future straight from overseeing his death!

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. It’s going to be another tortuous week before we’re back to Stormwatch to see what happens in the wake of Battalion’s death. Tomorrow we break ground on a new series, Backlash #1-4!

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#14-16) or Amazon (#14, 15, 16). Since further series reached these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the cover images in this post.