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Zealot

Comic Book Review: The Wild Storm #1 by Ellis, Davis-Hunt, Plascencia, & Bowland

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I place all remixed songs into one of two categories: enhancing or reimagining.

Some remixes enhance the original. Add more rhythms, speed things up, restructure the song. Other remixes reimagine the original, taking just one or two elements like a vocal or a prominent riff and build a whole new song from scratch – often sans the identifying bass line or chord changes of the original.

I’ve liked both kinds of remixes over the years, but sometimes when I hear a reimagination I think, “Why didn’t they just write their own song?” Aside from a copped vocal hook, sometimes they can be an entirely other creature than the original. Why call it “Song X (remix)” rather than “Song Y (featuring samples from Song X)”?

It’s all a study in taxonomy, I suppose – calling things by a name that will generate the most interest and success for them.

Which brings me to The Wild Storm.

WildStorm was one of the original Image Comics studios and the one with the richest expanded universe of characters. That’s what made it attractive for DC Comics to purchase from original studio head Jim Lee when he wanted to ditch administration to return to illustration, and why the WildStorm characters have continued to appear in DC-published comics for over a decade.

DC has done a lot of different remixes on the WildStorm characters and concepts since they first acquired the publisher in 1999. They’ve published straight-up continuances of the original continuity. They’ve done a trademark soft reset of continuity. They’ve mashed WildStorm into DC’s own history, putting characters like Grifter and Deathblow in league with DC stalwarts like Deathstroke and Amanda Waller.The_Wild_Storm_2017_001

The Wild Storm is something different entirely – a reimagination rather than an enhancement. Warren Ellis, one of the most famous and famously-reliable writers in comics today, has been handed the WildStorm intellectual property as a whole by DC Comics and instructed to create his own reimagination of the original with no strings attached.

Is it recognizable as WildStorm? Is it another great Warren Ellis book? Is it any good.

The Wild Storm #1 (digital)

The Wild Storm (2017) #1, written by Warren Ellis with artist Jon Davis-Hunt, colorist Ivan Plascenia, and lettered Simon Bowland. This issue will be collected in The Wild Storm, Vol. 1.

Warren Ellis has the entire palette of classic WildStorm players to work with to launch his reimagined WildStorm Universe. He selected some of the best characters of the bunch for this first issue, but the story relies on a lot of nostalgic expectations of what WildStorm consists of in order to click.

This is not the unrelenting debut issue you’ve come to expect from Ellis after reading books like Injection, Trees, Karnak, Moon Knight, and even as far back as Planetary. Even on the Astonishing X-Men, a run that left fans lukewarm, Ellis’s first issue was a bomb disguised as a puzzle box.

Compared to all of those, The Wild Storm #1 comes off a bit flat. Maybe it’s because we get to see every side of the main mystery, meaning we know more than the characters (not generally an Ellis hallmark). Or, perhaps it’s that half the issue is spent telling and even repeating rather than showing. [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: The Wild Storm #1 by Ellis, Davis-Hunt, Plascencia, & Bowland

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade

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It’s back, girls and boys!

I had so much fun reading and writing about the WildStorm Universe in November that I’m not quite ready to go back to just reading it, so I’m going to file the occasional continuing readalong post on a much lesser intensity and frequency because I so do not have the time or stamina to write about 126 WildStorm comics every month.

While I’m very eager to pick up all of the books exiting WildStorm Rising to check out their new status quo, I’m going to use the next few installments to review later WildCATs solo outings that fit into pre-crossover continuity – Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade One-Shot, the Spartan: Warrior Spirit mini-series by Kurt Busiek, Zealot’s three-issue mini-series, and some WildCATs anthology stories.

This makes for a fantastic moment to pause and call out a really phenomenal blog: Weathering WildStorm. The author is undertaking this endeavor slightly more slowly than I have been, but he is doing it with the benefit of having read almost all of these books before. As a result, he’s got a fairly well-reasoned reading order that explains how these various side-stories fit. It’s by far the best one I’ve seen on the web in the four years I’ve been getting books together for this read!

Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade was published in August 1995, a hair later than WildStorm Rising, but per Weathering WildStorm’s guidance it directly follows either issue #13 or 14 (and maybe explains why the team was so ready for a break in #14-15). It follows up on Steve Gerber’s strong story in WildCATs Special #1.

The issue begins with an intriguing (and beautiful!) opening scene of all women, including Providence and Destine from Special #1 facing each other down in the remains of Yurgovia.

The next page is an ass-shot of Zealot followed by she and Voodoo fighting while dressed in their best Vampirella outfits. Those art choices are not just for the benefit of one splash page – this issue takes its “Skin Trade” name literally and gives a heavy dose of T&A whenever possible courtesy of artist Michael Lopez.

I’m tempted to write this one off as pure wish fulfillment, but there is considerable plot content tangled up with all the skin. Skin Trade turns Voodoo into a bit of a Mary Sue murder doll at points, but it gives context to her more active role in her own psyche in #18 and then on the battlefield in #19 and WildStorm Rising. It also greatly deepens Zealot’s history, if not her character, and creates a (largely unfulfilled) plot hook.

And, if you can tolerate a heaping of cheesecake, Lopez’s art is truly remarkable throughout the book save for a few pages with one bad inker on a solid team effort.

Final verdict? If you’re going all in on a sequential WildCATs read you ought to include this, but if you’re simply revisiting the high points of WildStorm you can skip it.

Continue reading for a recap of Skin Trade‘s plot. Need a copy? Check Amazon and eBay. As for what’s next, I still need a bit more of a breather to work out a schedule for my my leisurely readalong. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade

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 – WildCATs #10-13 (Lee & Claremont Reunited!)

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]What happens when you take Jim Lee’s high-gloss WildCATs and mash them up with storied X-Men author Chris Claremont?

That’s what we learn in WildCATs #10-13, where Claremont takes over scripting duties from Brandon Choi for Lee’s swan song on his own title.

wildcats-v01-010Claremont seems to agree with my assessment of the title – that Zealot is the interesting part, and everyone else should be jettisoned. He spends barely a combined two pages writing Marlowe, Spartan, Maul, and Warblade and the book is better for it.

Instead, he recruits a new primary team composed of Zealot’s smarter little sister Savant, generic gun-guy Soldier who is redundant to Grifter (since he’s stuck in Kindred for the first half of this story), Superman analog Majestic, and his own Huntsman.

It makes sense that Lee would recruit Claremont for a story that opens the door to so much of the history of Kherubim without ever saying it out loud. Lee seems to be in a rush to get all of these elements out onto the table before he departs the book, and it shows in his art. It’s still Jim Lee, but there are few of the magnificent, splashy panels he’s most known for. It’s his most utilitarian work on the series to date.

Even Claremont can’t seem to make sense of Lee and Choi’s WildCATs, their allies, or their villains. Tapestry is a visual stunner, but her power to weave souls isn’t too different than Misery’s psychic push from Killer Instinct. Her motivations are even less clear – does she want Marlowe, the mysterious Alabastar Wu, or Zealot?

Who knows. What becomes rapidly apparent is just how much Lee and Choi’s stories really have adhered to the Claremontian model. Is this truly so different than WildCATs #1-4? Is Voodoo’s ruse any different that Misery’s in Killer Instinct? Is Voodoo’s distribution of power any different than the Void/Marlowe team-up from the last story? Is it partially resolved by women repeatedly wielding the totality of their psychic powers?

This confusing yarn is an enjoyable read because the real Chris Claremont knows how to leverage these wordy tools like no other. Also, his stoic Huntsman is more charismatic than the entire male cast of the book save for Grifter – who mercifully returns to the action for the final issue.

The real delight here are the back-up features, which hint at a world beyond the WildCATs team we’ve been reading so far. Solider’s story is generic, but opens a new window on Zealot’s immortal history. Majestic’s interlude makes him out to be a Superman who decided to abandon humanity. And, Zealot’s first encounter with Tapestry shows she hasn’t always had a will made of steel – and some of that might even be Tapestry’s doing!

Want the full details? Read on to watch me try to make sense of my first Claremontian recap – may the goddess save our souls.. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we head back to Stormwatch for this month’s main inspiration, the fast-forward from Stormwatch #9 to #25 and then back to #10!

Need the issues? This is another rare WildStorm title with a TPB collection, called WildC.A.T.s: A Gathering of Eagles (ISBN 978-1887279451)! Here it is on Amazon and eBay. Note that I’m unsure if it includes the backup features. For single issues, try eBay (#10-13) or Amazon (#10, 11, 12, 13 or #10, 11, 12, 13 (try both sets)). Since future 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 #10-13 (Lee & Claremont Reunited!)

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – WildCATs Special & WildCATs Trilogy #1-3

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]After WildC.A.T.s managed to wrap up its intended three-issue mini-series in four issues and 10 months it was unclear what the more permanent version of the title would be.

wildcats-v01-special-01In the gap, WildStorm quickly thrust WildCATs Trilogy, a three-issue mini-series from newly-poached Marvel young gun Jae Lee. It took just six months to complete (that’s sarcasm, by the way), and was accompanied by a single-issue Special #1 from Lee’s remarkable feel-alike protegé Travis Charest (which explicitly states that it fits prior to Trilogy).

Both arrived in time to promote the continuation of the WildCATs mini-series to a full-time ongoing with #5 in fall of 1993. Both also wisely put a heavy focus on Grifter, Voodoo, and Zealot, quickly realizing that the rest of the team is a snoozefest.

The Special issue is an outstanding adventure that proves that the book, its concept, and its cast will have many stories to tell thanks to Voodoo’s status as the only proven Daemonite detector on Earth. Marvel vet Steve Gerber – the co-creator of Howard the Duck! – shows a deftness with set-up scenes that makes the long, slow build-up of this issue as interesting as the brief burst of action that ends it.

On art, Charest does Jim Lee as well (maybe sometimes better?) than Lee, especially with an assist from Lee’s habitual inker Scott Williams.

Trilogy has its gawky moments of art from Jae Lee, who was still a teenager without much experience. Its strength is as an early shot of origin for the magnetic Zealot. Serving that here was a wise choice, as her popularity and narrative power would go on to threaten the team balance of the main book. Spending so much time explaining the Coda in the ongoing title would tip the scales a bit too far away from the rest of the team, but it feels just right in a mini-series.

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for a summary of this introductory story. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow I tackle Stormwatch #4-5 & Special #1.

Need the issues? WildCATs Trilogy #1-3 was collected in a 1999 TPB as The Way of the Coda, but Special #1 has never been collected. For single issues try eBay or Amazon (Trilogy, Trilogy Alternative Search, & Special) [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – WildCATs Special & WildCATs Trilogy #1-3