Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

John Lynch

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 – Gen13 (1995) #0-1

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]After the amazing Gen13 mini-series I (and many other comic fans!) were rabid for more, which arrived in the form of the team’s first ongoing series in March 1995.

gen13-1994-000The series would go on to be WildStorm’s longest-running book, and it debuted in memorable fashion with thirteen variant covers, which might not sound impressive today in the world of 50-states covers from both Marvel and DC but at the time was unheard of. (Here’s the best recap of the covers I’ve ever seen!)

Gen13 #1 lacks the special magic that imbued each issue of the team’s mini-series – even the gratuitous cameo from Pitt. Yet, despite not enjoying it in 1995 or 21 years later in 2016, I can appreciate that Brandon Choi and J. Scott Campbell made a wise move in their pivot away from the tone of the mini-series.

There are a few key differences between this relaunch and the team’s mini-series., other than the obvious one of the team not being under pressure in life-or-death circumstances the entire time.

First, Fairchild is relegated to the background in favor of breakout stars Roxy and Grunge, with Burnout barely appearing and Rainmaker purely used for titilation. It’s nearly the reverse of the line-up of the mini-series, where Roxy and Grunge broke up the drama with occasional comic relief while the remaining trio handled all the heavy lifting.

Second, the plot. There’s no IO or government intrigue about the team’s origins in sight. Instead, we get a mismatched pair of interdimension assassins hunting down a ridiclous green alien rodent.

Less tangible than those developments is that newcomer J. Scott Campbell’s art has already begun to tip from comic book exaggeration to ridiculous deformity. His long-legged women are nothing different from his prior five issues, but his proportions here are not as consistent, as on Grunge’s once-massive chest. Faces suffer, in particular. This is exacerbated by a lack of backgrounds and a bright, almost-neon color pallette from Wendy Stouts, which strips characters of the muscular heft they had in the miniseries.

Also, what was a depiction of playful teen sexuality in the mini-series is now deliberate pandering, as with the nude Rainmaker (suddenly a sexbomb with long hair) and upskirt shots of Roxy’s underwear.

Those details quickly drove me away from the book back in the 90s, but in retrospect I can see the reason for all of them.

gen13-1995-001Fairchild was intentionally the most generic character in the original series – a bookworm turned she-hulk – but fans responded more to the other four characters, each a familiar archetype. To force the young team’s new life to be seen exclusively through the eyes of Caitlin the all-night studier would stunt the growth of the book and the cast.

Every character needs her or his spotlight issues, and this is Roxy’s. We still get signs hints that Fairchild’s journey will be as a tactician and leader, and that’s not going to happen overnight.

To make Gen13 all about bashing heads with IO from the first issue would have been foolish. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi had already learned their lesson on WildCATs and Stormwatch, which were each so thick with continuity that they hardly seemed to be about anything other than re-connecting with long-lost enemies.

Also, without a youthful book in the mix at WildStorm they line was missing the chance to do these sorts of stories – stories with cartoonish extra-dimension villains and the annoying green space rats they’re hunting. Gen13 mining this territory is no different than Chris Claremont inserting Kitty Pryde into the X-Men and giving her a pet purple dragon.

As for Campbell? This is only his sixth full-length issue, and he was under enormous pressure. On the whole it has the same high-gloss look of his pencils on the mini-series, just with slightly more room for error in the looser constraints of real world California rather than the tech-festooned hallways of IO’s Death Valley base.

(I have no rationale to offer for the amped up sexuality of the art. I have a lot of affection for this cast based almost exlusively on the mini-series, and I’d hate to see them quickly devolve into a group of sex mannequins. I’ll have to read more to see what fate holds for them.)

Brandon Choi and company also broke up the wait for the big debut with a #0 issue (technically part of the 1994 mini-series) to explain the team’s separate road trips after Wizard #1/2. This issue hits all the great notes of Choi’s mini-series script, comprised of four stories, each with a different artist – Jim Lee on Caitlin Fairchild, Richard Johnson on Burnout and Rainmaker, J. Scott Campbell, and Travis Charest on Lynch. (It’s telling that of the four vignettes Campbell’s with Roxy and Grunge that is the weakest spot.)

Want a recap? Keep reading for a recap of both #0 and #1 Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we go back in time again with Team 7: Objective Hell #1-3, which act as a prologue to Wednesday’s WildStorm Rising – the line’s first multi-book crossover!

Need the issues? Early Gen13 is some of the most reprinted of WildStorm’s first three years of comics.

  • The 1998 Gen13 Archives (ISBN 978-1887279918) is a comprehensive collection that includes all of debut mini-series and pushes through #13 of their ongoing series; it isn’t too hard to track down (Amazon / eBay).
  • A Gen13: Complete Collection is due in spring of 2017 that covers both the mini-series and through #7 of this ongoing, plus the special Gen13: Rave issue not in Archives (Amazon pre-order).

Alternately, you can purchase single issues – try eBay (#0 & 1) or Amazon (#0 & 1 and alt search #0 & 1) [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 (1995) #0-1

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 (1993) #5-9

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today we’re back to Deathblow, which I found to be wildly uneven on our last go-round. Now, Tim Sale has taken control of the artwork with Brandon Choi still scripting. Is the change enough to flip my opinion on the book?

Before we begin, a quick mea culpa: Lynch is still with IO in this arc, so this should’ve been read before Gen13. Oops! In fact, it might occur entirely between Gen13 #1 and #3 given the time that elapses and based on Lynch departing #9 directly for Gen13 #3. This arc also happens after Stormwatch #9, which means the arrival of the time traveller in Gen13 #1/2 misses Stormwatch #9 by at least a week.

deathblow_007Deathblow is different than all of the other WildStorm books. It’s not just the desaturated colors or the religious overtones, but the small cast combined with sense that the plot is paramount. It feels as though the story might keep heaving onward even if Deathblow decided not to show up. At points in this arc it feels like he’s an anchor dragging behind the good versus evil aspects of the story, until the final pages of issue #9 manage to reel him in.

All of the plot points teased in issues #1-4 collapse into a single story here – Deathblow’s faith and his cancer, Travis’s untrustworthiness, the miracle boy in Philadelphia, the Black Angel, the Order of the Cross, and more. They felt like a lot of random information, but it turns out they’re all part of the same plot.

There’s an inherent tension between the scenes with Deathblow, terse and rippling with muscle, and the supernatural plot, which could be ripped straight from… well, Supernatural, to use a modern example. The sense that Deathblow himself isn’t of this paranormal world is tangible, even as we learn those closest to him have already been inducted.

Add to that the constant suspense of how Deathblow’s Gen-Active powers will present themselves (aside from being impervious to gun shots and stab wounds, that is), and this mystery has suddenly become almost as much as a page-turner as Stormwatch.

This leads me to marvel at the incredible powers of Brandon Choi, perhaps for the 15th day in a row. This man was plotting the entire WildStorm Universe, with each book wildly different in style than the last. Choi really settles in to the terse vibe of Deathblow here. It feels like it has its own voice moreso than the initial run.

Now the permanent artist (save for covers), Tim Sale imbues the book the sort of stark, crime noir look it’s needed all along. He deploys Lee’s style of fine detail only when warranted. While you’ll immediately be yearning for Jim Lee’s over-the-top version of Deathblow himself just because it looked so damned good, everything else about the book is a better fit for the story. Seen through a noir lens, it all makes more sense.

New with issue #6, colorist Linda Medley keeps the desaturated color palette but loses the sickly photo-negative greenish cast. This could be hindsight talking, but digital colors pull attention away from Tim Sale’s stately art. What I wouldn’t give to see a modern colorist like Matt Hollingsworth apply a vintage palette and lack of gradients to these issues. They deserve even plainer colors and starker contrast.

By the end of the arc, all of our characters (including a nun cop, the angel of death, and Director Lynch!) converge on a convent outside of Philadelphia for a bloody battle that entirely alters the course of Deathblow’s life – and definitely his comic book!

I’m not sure if I should recommend this book to you or not! Choi and Sale have made a remarkable turnaround with this arc, but I won’t be sure it was worth the ride until we see how it begins to be resolved.

Need the issues? Deathblow #5-9 (and on through #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 (#5-9) or Amazon (#5, 6, 7, 8, 9) – 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’re back to Stormwatch (already!) with #11-13.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 #1-5 & 1/2

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Gen13 was a massive bombshell when it struck in 1994, a comic about college-aged kids that actually looked and felt like it was about real college-aged kids because it was being drawn by one while also revealing a ton of backstory and connective tissue about the two-year-old WildStorm Universe.

And you know what? It’s still every bit as great today – even moreso after spending the past two weeks reading all of the comics that lead up to it.

gen13-1994-001The cast of Gen13 were some of Jim Lee’s final creations in the early years of WildStorm. In an interview in Gen13 #1/2, he discusses being motivated to move away from the gear-laden extreme look (and the violence that accompanies it) that many classic characters at Marvel and DC were moving towards. (The irony of the entire team wielding guns on the cover from Lee is not lost on me). He also intentionally created Caitlin Fairchild as a literal strong female who was also super-smart – an obvious choice to lead the team.

It’s Lee’s focus on creating a different book rather than an imitation of something familiar that makes Gen13 so memorable. Caitlin Fairchild may not yet be a Tony Stark level genius, but her hairpin turn from ingénue to terrorist and leader never seems rushed given the breadth of her intellect and depth of her drive. It’s the same way almost all of Marvel’s original generation of male heroes are depicted as super-brains of some sort to explain their mastery of all things. Marvel has scant women who fit the same mold (at the time, just Mockingbird and Kitty Pryde), and none who also lead a team.

(Lee also included a buff, masculine, hyper-sexual Asian male with Grunge (a rarity even today) and an indigenous woman with Rainmaker who… well, we’ll get to that later.)

If we’re going to talk about the unique touches that make this book stand out, we have to discuss artist J. Scott Campbell. Campbell was discovered at age 19 in the talent search advertised in WildC.A.T.s #2! Prior to Gen13, his only published comics work was portions of Stormwatch #0, Deathmate Black, and pin-ups.

That’s it!

To go from obscurity to co-creating one of the most popular mini-series of the 90s is unbelievable. His achievement is made more incredible by the fact that he’s not specifically aping any single Image founder. Campbell draws distended, hyper-tall figures like Liefeld, he details muscles and clothes like Lee, and he has the fussy sketch lines of Silvestri. Campbell’s characters are all visually distinct and exciting as regular people wearing clothes, and his backgrounds and buildings are bristling with detail.

To have a 19-year-old designing 19-year-olds is part of the kinetic magic of Gen13. In fact, Lee reveals that Campbell designed Roxy AKA Freefall, who is by far the most visually distinct of all the Gen13 kids. Yes, Campbell errs on the side of some egregious T&A at points, but he’s seemingly just as eager to show nearly-nude men as he is women – he’s a kid who just wants to draw hot kids being hot. Also, the present-day fashion aspect of his pencils is powerful – Roxy the club kid, Caitlin’s mousy Princeton get-up, Bliss’s S&M dresses, Grunge’s early-90s flannels.

Yet, great art alone does not make for a good Image title – or else I’d be head over heels in love with WildCATs instead of constantly dissing it. The script here is wonderful. Brandon Choi was great on Stormwatch, but he was never better on early Image than on this initial run of Gen13 collaborating with Campbell (who picks up a story credit by the third issue). Characters all have distinct voices, details make sense, and each issue has its own rising and falling action. Caitlin Fairchild as our point-of-view character is so analytical that it makes perfect sense for her to issue a recap via narration at the beginning of each issue.

gen13-1994-005It’s not just the Gen13 kids who make this story interesting, but I.O director John Lynch finally being fleshed out into a dynamic character instead of just a conniving government villain. If you’ve read any WildStorm up to this point, he hasn’t exactly been a sympathetic character (except for maybe in WildCATs #2 when he doesn’t arrest the team). That’s especially true coming from reading Kindred, where he seemed as hugely unsympathetic as ever!

Here we see another side of him. It’s not a sudden turn, but a transformation that makes sense for his character. For all of his heartless decisions over the years, he does have regrets – chief amongst them the raw deal many of his Team 7 teammates got if they didn’t go underground or let I.O. control their lives. That guilt means he cannot in good conscience support a renewed Genesis program – especially one that preys on the children of his teammates!

As I re-read this mini-series, I repeatedly asked myself: Are you seeing this through rose-colored glasses? Is this the joy of nostalgia talking?

I’ll admit a little buzz of returning to these characters, but given the sheer volume of comics I read, I don’t think my delight in Gen13 can be purely attributed to huffing the fumes of the 90s.

This is a good comic book that’s a perfect artifact of the times – even the gratuitous mid-mini-series guest appearance by Pitt.

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for an extensive summary of this book, a major influence on me and an early inspiration to my 8th Grade version of Krisis. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we’ll finally make it back around to Deathblow, now with Tim Sale in control of art duties. Will I like it better this time around?

Need the issues? Gen13 was such a massive, game-changing hit that it’s the rare WildStorm book that’s been through several reprints. Here are the three you should focus on:

  • The 1998 Gen13 Archives (ISBN 978-1887279918) is a great, comprehensive collection that includes all of these issues and pushes through #13 of their ongoing series and isn’t too hard to track down all these years later (Amazon / eBay).
  • Gen13: Who They Are and How They Came to Be (978-1401211493) is a 1996 collection of just this mini-series (not including #1/2) (Amazon / eBay). If you go that route, also pick up Gen13 Backlist (ISBN 1-887279-41-5), which includes #1/2 and some other one-shots (Amazon / eBay).
  • A Gen13: Complete Collection is due in spring of 2017 that covers through #7 of the ongoing, but includes the special Gen13: Rave issue not in Archives (Amazon pre-order).

Alternately, you can purchase single issues – try eBay (#1-5 & 1/2, AKA #-1) or Amazon (#1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1/2 AKA #-1 and alternative search #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1/2 AKA #-1) – and note that Amazon offers these issues digitally(!) through Comixology.

Keep in mind that as a key issue #1 can be pricey on its own but there were plenty of these printed, so you’ll probably be better served buying a lot of the entire mini-series. Since several future Gen13 series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the images in this post (note that #5 has two different covers). The Gen13 #1 with 13 different covers is not this #1 – it’s the first issue of their subsequent ongoing. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 #1-5 & 1/2