Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Stormwatch

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

by

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 – Stormwatch #14-16

by

[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.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Stormwatch (1993) #11-13

by

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Stormwatch’s grim countdown to issue #25 is underway, with 14 issues, a special, and a .5 issue between here and calamity.

stormwatch_v1_011That’s the maximum lifespan of Battalion and Diva. While there is always the chance for a late-stage bait and switch in comic books, seeing them both dead in #25 seems to drive home that the fate will be inescapable for at least one of them. Every moment is filled with danger – you half-expect everyone to explode into a million pieces just for talking.

This trio of issues is about politcal intrigue, both within Stormwatch and from outside of it via the UN Executive council. They’realso our first stories focused on the taciturn Winter and the underused Hellstrike. We begin on Stormwatch One (Battalion, Diva, Fuji, Winter, and Strafe) mopping up Russian rebels in Siberia, which the council seems to take extra glee in interrupting to call a spur-of-the-moment meeting on sanctions for Battalion’s actions in Gamorra in issues #6-7 and in Japan in #10.

In the wake of the meeting (and Weatherman’s dismissal), Winter will have to return to quell the remainder of the conflict while others work desperately to prevent Hellstrike from blowing up all of SkyWatch!

Ron Marz has a firm grasp of the team and their personalities. He intercuts more nimbly between stories that Choi, which puts almost the entire Stormwatch cast into play in these issues. Finally, all of the various energy-projecting dudes are starting to feel distinct from each other!

Specifically, Cannon settles into being a decent guy with a hot-tempered streak, whereas Flashpoint is full-on awful (though, that could simply be Defile’s torture via Deathtrap working as planned). Sunburst is mostly silent until a final scene of him transmitting details of the WildCats to Defile. However, the women are given short shrift – Diva remains a cardboard cutout of a reliable #2, and Fahrenheit and Nautika are complete cyphers.

Fuji has been the source of so many low-key laughs along the way so far that he’s the perfect character to deploy to lend depth to the shallow Hellstrike’s medical challenges, which I had honestly forgotten about since #7. Things really do grind to a halt in #12 for a deep dive into Hellstrike’s psyche – not only because he’s a fringe character in this drama, but because #25 gave us no hints of his relevance to the longer plot line. It’ll be interesting to see how his transformation into a being of pure energy like his colleague Fuji will affect Stormwatch in the long run.

Winter proves to be a more satisfying point-of-view character, as he’s come through for the team so many times in the series so far. While his Cold War enemy is straight from a standard-issue Iron Man plot, seeing Winter pushed to his limits both as a super-human and as a leader is satisfiying.

stormwatch_v1_013_08Meanwhile, the twist of letting go our bald-headed Weatherman, named Henry Bendix, is a shocker … but not as much of a shocker as Synergy taking up the mantle, complete with the shaved head! Even with the preparation of knowing she was Weatherman in #25 doesn’t prepare you for the abruptness of the change.

New artist Mat Broome takes only a few pages to settle into his take on the team. He draws a ridiculous, hulking Battalion. seriously, he is almost as big as Hulk!

On the whole, his pencils are satisfying and still of the caliber you expect from Image. All of his faces have a slightly pinched quality, but he’s good at expressions that sell the dialog – a pretty rare delight from a 90s superhero artist. Also, the digital coloring makes a leap forward here, with some complex shading and gradient skin tones.

Taken on their own, this trio of issues could fairly be called Stormwatch’s weakest arc so far. However, in the context of the grander story being told, these stories provide some essential context and humanity for characters beyond just Battalion – suddenly necessary, with his death looming over the book. Marz and Broome successfully maintain the tone established by Choi and Clark as our countdown to doom ticks inexorably forward.

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#11-13) or Amazon (#11, 12, 13). Since further Stormwatch series hit these same issue numbers, be careful to pick up issues from the 1993 series.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow we add a new title to the mix Whilce Portacio’s Wetwork’s #1-3!

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Stormwatch #9, 25, & 10

by

We’re finally here! It’s the issue of Stormwatch that inspired this month of blogging even though I had never read it before.

With “Images of Tomorrow,” Stormwatch #25 leapt one year into the future to show the dark timeline that awaited the team …but I’m already getting ahead of myself. First, we have to read issue #9, with H. K. Proger on script and Ryan Benjamin penciling.

The issue makes the unusual move of giving us a second story in a row with a point-of-view character outside of our main cast. This time it is Sunburst, one of the members of Stormwatch Prime rescued from Gamorra in #6-7.

stormwatch_v1_025_coverThe story is a “race to defuse the bomb” tale that gives us some backstory on Sunburst as well as context for his relationships with his teammates Nautika and Flashpoint. However, that was just a red herring (both for Sunburst and for us as readers), as at the end we learn the point of the story was for Defile to finally crack Sunburst’s psyche after he proved unbreakable during his captivity.

This would seem like a minor fill-in issue on its own, but paired with the portents of #25 it takes on considerably more foreboding.

Steven T. Seagle randomly steps in on scripting duties on #25, but he’s abetted by Scott Clark on his Stormwatch swan song after penciling six of the first eight issues. Between Seagle’s script, Clark’s slightly perverted character designs, and the darkness of the tale, the book is fantastic.

Every page carries a chilling new reveal that you’d typically expect from a “What If?” tale, except this one professes that it’s really going to happen! If I had sat down to read it at the time I would have never dropped this book.

Silver Surfer scripter Ron Marz takes the title over with #10 for a run through #24. While I was a little peeved to lose Brandon Choi on his best title, Marz quickly made me forget my annoyance. You can feel his expertise lock in immediately with the dreadful pall that hangs over Battalion’s narration, and the nuanced descriptions of his teammates doubling as introductions we’re getting for the first time.

Marz is re-teamed with his Stormwatch Special collaborator Dwayne Turner, who does a much better job drawing a solid, dour version team of the team this time around. Maybe that’s because Marz gives him so much more room to breath than in the rushed pace of the Special. Each member gets their own spread to show off their abilities as he explains their histories.

It was a brilliant move to turn this Avengers-style procedural drama about policing the globe into a towering tragedy via glimpsing the horror of a future that cannot be prevented it. It elevates Battalion – already a great character – to the position of being WildStorm’s own tragic Hamlet. And, we the reader are left dreading every page turn for what it might reveal about Battalion and Diva’s fate.

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for a summary of these two teams going head to head. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we get to one of my favorite runs of this entire era – Gen 13’s original mini-series! Will it hold up to re-read 20 years after my last time paging through? I can’t wait to find out.

Need the issues? You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#9-10 & 25) or Amazon (#9, 25, 10). Since further Stormwatch series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the images in this post. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Stormwatch #9, 25, & 10

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Union #1-4 & 0

by

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug] In June of 1993, a fourth title joined WildStorm’s fold, and it was the first whose heroes seemingly didn’t have an explicit connection to the shared backstory of Kherubim, Daemonites, IO, and Stormwatch.

union_v1_001That hero was Union, co-created by Jim Lee and Mike Heisler – a longtime letterer and only occasional writer. (He’d later write a long run of the Gen13 spin-off DV8).

Union has a rich origin that nods to Superman’s, though his Krypton is not an exploding planet but a sister reality to our own that is in a constant state of civil war. When Ohmen, a warrior Relayer of the Protectorate, is shunted through an explosion of energy from his world to ours he crash lands on the Maine coastline.

Union’s mini-series is a pair of parenthesis, two stories opened in the first two issues without the full information we need as readers to understand them, and then two issues that resolve their mysteries in reverse order.

That makes for what is undoubtably the best first issue yet from WildStorm, and even the exposition-heavy final issues is a thrill since they answer so many questions. Union #0 provides a thick spreading of glorious connection-making context to fill in Union’s past and tie him to more closely to another Wildstorm title. It’s a bit leaden told all in one shot, but it makes re-reading the series even more fun.

The real draw here wasn’t the mysterious superhero from another dimension, but the artwork. Mark Texeira was mostly known as a Marvel utility player who launched Ghost Rider and drew Punisher and Sabretooth. His wild, untamed pencil-work and inky blacks were nothing like the high-gloss figure-work of the other Image founders and their proteges, but a near neighbor to Sam Keith and Jae Lee.

Maybe that’s why it seems like the early digital colors are fighting against Texeira’s linework in the first two issues of Union. While some of the gradients help enhance the inherent dimensionality of his characters, too often the colors are garish or overwhelm his rough lines. Despite the struggle, Texiera delivers wild, beautiful work – especially in the domestic scenes that could easily be just talking heads. The colors settle down by #3, and by the end of #4 it’s the best Texiera’s work had looked to date.

Despite the unevenness of the pace and the colors, Union feels like a title that’s truly grounded in a universe that’s already-formed. It’s filled with references to Supreme, Youngblood, and Cyberforce, and it opens by featuring Stormwatch so prominently that the first issue could have easily been Stormwatch #5.5.

That’s a tribute to Mike Heisler, who bucks the WildStorm trend of super-cool action to unfurl an exceedingly human mystery of how much we can trust Union as a reliable narrator. We see him deliberately withhold things from us and from his human companion Jill, and that makes it hard to completely trust him as our protagonist even when he professes to be doing good.

Jill is the most well-rounded character we’ve had yet in a WildStorm book. She’s an actual human being who loves art and sometimes does stupid things in the name of romance. She makes gallows-humor jokes to herself and absent-mindedly explaining why she switched to painting abstracts when she was in a world of beautiful landscapes. Even if her budding romance with Union is rushed, this book is grounded in human emotion more than any of the other Wildstorm material to date. Together, she and Union give off major Lois & Clark vibes from the classic Reeves Superman films.

If Union had pushed forward from this mini-series to continue the story with Heisler and Texiera still at the helm it would have catapulted into must-read territory for me along with Stormwatch! Instead, it was the first WildStorm book to take a brief hiatus and return as an ongoing series (a pattern Gen13 would follow). However, Heisler does stick around for every issue of Union ever published, so maybe I’m in for a treat when I get back to the title’s ongoing relaunch later this month.

Want the full details? Read on to unravel the mystery that begins in Union #1. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we find out what Backlash and Grifter have been up to in Kindred #1-4.

Need the issues? These issues have never before been collected! For single issues – try eBay (#0-4) or Amazon (#0, 1, 2, 3, 4). Since the ongoing Union 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 – Union #1-4 & 0