Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Team 7

Every Missing WildStorm Omnibus, Mapped | 2025 Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Poll

by

Most Wanted DC Omnibus - WildCATs WildStorm Omnibus MappingIt’s time to map the DC Universe! In June, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll! This post explains every WildStorm omnibus that does NOT exist – all of which will appear as options on the 2025 poll.

Through the end of May I’ll be covering DC entire publishing history by mapping missing omnibus volumes to fill in every gap in your DC oversize shelf! That’s all leading to the kickoff of the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll on Near Mint Condition the first week of June.

In the past year DC has finally acknowledged that they have more WildStorm material to print beyond Jim Lee’s run on WildCATs, the first volume of The Authority, and Planetary. We got a second Authority omnibus, a WildCATs compendium that significantly expanded on the material in the Jim Lee Absolute Edition, and a Compendium of pre-Authority Stormwatch material!

That’s all great progress, but it still mostly collects material that has been collected before. There’s 30 potential omnibus volumes worth of WildStorm material that DC could still collect! While sales on the three recent books might be a good indicator of demand, it would be huge for a WildStorm book to make it into the on-air results of the Tigereyes poll this year.

[Read more…] about Every Missing WildStorm Omnibus, Mapped | 2025 Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Poll

Wildstorm Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Poll

by

Most Wanted DC Omnibus - WildStorm Omnibus MappingIt’s time to dive into the WildStorm Universe – perhaps my favorite shared universe in all of comics! I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted DC omnibus volumes every day until May 19th! Then, on the 19th, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the first annual Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Annual Poll! This post covers omnibuses missing from DC’s WildStorm imprint, including WildCATs, Stormwatch, Gen13, Deathblow, Wetworks, and more!

This post explains potential WildStorm Omnibus Mapping for votes on the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Secret Ballot. I’m posting all of these maps before the poll begins to give people the time to consider their favorites, correct our mapping mistakes, and catch books I might have missed.

There are three comic properties where I own every issue from their inception through 2012. One is X-Men, obviously. Another is Wonder Woman, covered earlier this week. The third is WildStorm. I own every floppy comic book ever published by WildStorm and I have them all packaged for binding – basically, I have this entire omnibus mapping already-collected in shortboxes in my garage!

I have to give a special shoutout to two amazing fellow WildStorm fans: WildStorm4Life, who runs the main WildStorm Universe group on Facebook, and Bryan Jose, who runs the Weathering WildStorm reading order blog. WildStorm4Life was instrumental in aiding my collecting every WildStorm issue by sharing his own binding maps with me over a decade ago!

If you don’t know DC well enough to know what to vote for, stick around for my explanations! Learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including giving us feedback if we missed the mark.

If voting is now open, you can use this as your crib sheet! Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how DC could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of DC creating a book with that title or covering that period.

High-effort, heavily-researched, over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics.

[Read more…] about Wildstorm Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Poll

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

by

[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

by

[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 – The Kindred #1-4

by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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