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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 16, 2017 3:54:36 GMT -5
Disclaimer: I'm making this thread mostly for my own entertainment and as a resource, but I hope some others get some use out of it.
Introduction: What is Wildstorm and the history of Wildstorm
Wildstorm was one of the founding Image studios, the one headed by Jim Lee. Its starting titles were WildC.A.T.S. and Stormwatch. Like most early Image series, the main draw were the artists and writing came a distant second. This was the source of a lot of criticism and Lee solved this by hiring various writers for their main titles (Ron Marz for Stormwatch, Chris Claremont, James Robinson and for a longer period Alan Moore for WildC.A.T.S.).
In 1998, Lee decided that he rather drew comics again than ran a company and sold Wildstorm to DC, leaving Image. For most of the time Wildstorm remained an independent imprint and became an imprint focused on superheroics dipped in politics, modern technology and conspiracies. Writers became the driving force like Warren Ellis (DV8, Stormwatch, The Authority, Planetary), Joe Casey (Wildcats, Automatic Kafka, Mr. Majestic), Adam Warren (Gen13) and Ed Brubaker (Point Blank, Sleeper). This is one of my favourite periods in comics and the reason I'm making this thread.
Critical success didn't mean financial success though and as the great writers left, many titles were left floundering or were wrapped up by the original writer. DC tried several attempts to revive Wildstorm: a revival headed by Grant Morrison was stillborn as Morrison left his titles after 1 or 2 issues (Gail Simone's Gen13 survived a little longer, but overal this attempt was not very successful). Another revival decided that the way forward to make civilization collapse and have the series take place in a post-apocalyptic world.
When DC did a linewide reboot, switching to The New52 tag-line, several parts of the Wildstorm universe were incorporated into main DC continuity with limited success. (I quite liked Orlando's Midnighter and Cornell's Stormwatch had potential.)
So we end up with the Wildstorm revival: Warren Ellis, one of the writers responsible for Wildstorm's initial success, was offered a chance to do a reboot of the Wildstorm series. Together with artist Jon Davis-Hunt, Warren planned out a 24 issue series, 4 story arcs of 6 issues each. There might also be tie-ins by other writers. It might also be cancelled 6 issues in, cause Comic book Industry, everybody!
What is this thread:
I'll go through the individual issues (4 released so far) and point out characters (and compare them to their original Wildstorm incarnations), references and plot-lines.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 16, 2017 5:14:29 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #1 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Ivan Plascencia (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: (I have the cover by Davis-Hunt, I haven't seen the variants. Anybody who has them, feel free to add to this)
The main cover shows 3 of the Wildstorm characters in this issue: Zealot/Lucy Blaze, Deathblow/Michael Cray and Voodoo/Priscilla Kitaen. All three are leaving Central Park South Subway Station. More on them next. If the Subway Station has any special meaning it's lost on me.
Page 1: The blood on Zealot's face is a reference to the facial markings she had during the original WildC.A.T.S. volume 1. She stopped putting on the warpaint a bit later. In this version Zealot is a codename given to her by the agency she is working for, in the original Wildstorm comics, Zealot was a name given to her by her enemies (she founded a group of female warriors named the Coda, but turned on them when they turned into mercenaries and assassins, while she intended for them to be warriors against the threat of the alien Daemonites).
Page 2: Bravo, the clean-up crew, calls Zealot "Lucy Blaze". This was an alias Zealot used in the original universe during the 1950s when she was part of the superhero/military team Team One. In the original universe Zealot's real name is Zannah and she is a member of the alien race called the Kherubim or Kherans. Kherans look like humans, but are immortal and usually have special powers. In this revival, Zealot hasn't given any evidence that she is not human.
Page 3 Priscilla Kitaen aka Voodoo appears. The background shows a lot of posters and advertisements for Halo. Priscilla is quite different from her original version: she was mixed race (in more ways than one, she was the descendant of human, Daemonite and Kheran ancestors), but seems to be a black woman in this. She was a stripper in WildC.A.T.S. #1, but is a hiphop star in this version.
Halo was the company of Jacob Marlowe, founder of the WildC.A.T.S. and also the focus of Wildcats volume 3.
Page 4: Voodoo seems fascinated with urban legends and stories of alien abduction. She refers to a man turning into a bat in 1939 (obviously not a Wildstorm, but a DC reference).
Halo founder Jacob Marlowe is seen on a screen and he seems very similar to his original incarnation, just he has a beard now. More on him later as he actually appears.
Voodoo is seen by Miles Craven and his husband, Julian. Miles Craven is more sociable here than he was in the original universe. Craven was head of I.O. and mostly shown manipulating heroes and villains to gain more power for himself. Craven's personal life was never touched upon in the original comics, so it's very possible that he was in a relationship back then as well and now is just more sociable, because he's together with his husband.
Page 5/6 More banter between Miles and Julian as they are approached by Angela Spica. Angela/Angie was known as the Engineer in the original universe and a member of the Authority. Angie is rambling here and is starting to bleed, the process that turned her into the Engineer is apparently a lot more uncomfortable in this universe than before.
Angie mentions that Marlowe is "making phones and reducing utility bills", in Wildcats 3.0 Jacob Marlowe's successor, Jack Marlowe, uses alien technology to create batteries that last forever. Everlasting batteries immediately start to have far reaching consequences when they discover the batteries are powerful enough to power cars and whole foreign policies are suddenly becoming irrelevant.
Page 7: As Angie leaves, we see Zealot standing near with a coffee. As we see in a later issue, her presence here is no coincidence.
Page 8 Angie confirms that she's working for IO. IO, short for International Operations (occasionally Internal Operations) was basically a darker version of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the original universe, an offshoot of the C.I.A., I.O. got jurisdiction over all metahuman related activity. Usually IO was used as villains, but it depends on who the director is at the time. John Lynch, for instance, was no saint, but the goals of IO were protecting civilization even if he had to sacrifice agents or heroes to do so.
Page 9-12: Angie transforms into her Engineer form, powered by nano-machines in her blood. The transformation is far more painful and the Engineer form is large and bulky unlike the original universe form, which was basically a naked metal woman.
Page 13-14: Angie has saved Jacob Marlowe. In the original universe, Jacob's real name is Emp, he is a nobleman of the alien Kheran race and has powers over space and energy, making him one of the more powerful Kherans.
When Angie leaves, Jacob contacts Adrianna. In the original universe, Adrianna Tereshkova is a Russian cosmonaut that encountered an alien entity that possessed her. As the clairvoyant teleporter Void, she was the one that inspired Marlowe to found the WildC.A.T.S.
Jacob mentions that a Michael Cray, an IO agent, tried to kill him. In the original universe Michael Cray was known as Deathblow, a soldier working, reluctantly, for IO. More on him as he actually appears.
Jacob tells Adrianna to wake up the CAT. CAT is short for Covert Action Team, a type of Black Ops unit. (A wild CAT is a Black Ops team that is not allied to any government)
Page 16: Michael Cray gets debriefed by Miles Craven.
In the original universe, Michael Cray was one of the members of Team 7, a military unit of the best of the best. CIA Director Miles Craven used an experimental genetic weapon on them to get himself an army of superpowered soldiers. Results were mixed, but the surviving IO members were the backbone of most Wildstorm superhero teams and solo-heroes. Cray initially didn't seem to be affected by the weapon and remained powerless as his teammates gained powerful psychic powers.
Cray says he's part of IO Wetworks, probably just a reference to the regular term Wetworks, but Wetworks was the codename of Team 8, the successors of Team 7. Cray was not a member of that team though, his Team 7 colleague Jackson Dane was.
Craven asks Cray, flippantly, if he has some type of brain tumor (as explanation for the messed-up assassination attempt). In the original universe, Michael Cray was dying of a brain tumor when he left IO.
page 17-20 Both Cray and Marlowe go over the assassination attempt, Cray to Craven, Marlowe to Adrianna.
Marlowe has a "spur", a bit of Kheran biotechnology that is basically a lasergun in his wrist. In the original universe, his powers were more standard superhero energy powers.
Marlowe confirms that he is very old, he hasn't used his spur in a hundred years. The Kherans in the original universe were all more than 3000 year old, so 100 years is nothing to a Kheran.
Cray unconsciously disables the the spur by touching it and he also sets off the xenobiological sensors in Marlowe's lab; this also is a new take on the character. The Gen-Factor experiment in the original universe did not make the characters non-human (though we don't know how the sensors exactly works) and Cray's powers in the end were more telepathy and regeneration.
We get to see Adrianna, who is looking more normal than her original version, which looked like (another) naked woman covered in metal, leaving only her face visible. In this she is wearing an cosmonaut outfit and only her eyes indicate that she isn't human. She also is more human in behaviour, the original Void being rather formal and cryptic.
Marlowe finally mentions Cole. Cole Cash, aka Grifter, was a member of Team 7 who joined the WildC.A.T.S. together with his lover Zealot.
Page 21: Cray mentions that the mysterious rocket-powered woman (Angie) might be related to Skywatch. Skywatch was the orbital headquarters of Stormwatch, an U.N. superhuman organisation. Skywatch seems to be an organisation here.
Cray starts to bleed from his nose and passes out, suggesting that Craven's jab earlier was actually foreshadowing.
Page 22: The woman who leads Analytics is unnamed (I don't think she's named in any of the other issues so far either). I originally thought she was a version of Ivana Baiul, but she shows up in issue #2, so if anybody has an idea? She can of course be an original character.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 16, 2017 9:33:42 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #2 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Full body shot of Grifter, who looks pretty much the same way he always looked.
Page 1-5: Angie flies to an abandoned military installation, powers down and hides. The military installation has no specific history in the original Wildstorm Universe as far as I know.
Page 6: Miles Craven and the head of Analysis (who is still unnamed) analyse Angela Spica's armour and flightpath. They are joined by Ivana Baiul. Ivana Baiul was a character in Gen13 and DV8, head of IO's science division who cybernetically enhanced herself.
Page 7: References to Skywatch vehicle, the Breslau II. I don't think I've seen the name mentioned before (apart from the city in Poland).
Page 9: Cole Cash first appearance on page. He's a bit thinner than before, but that seems to be Davis-Hunt style, for the rest he seems to be the same person: irreverant, but with military experience.
Page 10: Marlowe and Cash are joined by Kenesha. In the original universe Kenesha was the sister of Zealot (later retconned into daughter), who was a member of the WildC.A.T.s under the name Savant. She is a bit different here, dark hair instead of blond. In the original she was conceived as a female Doc Savage character: superhumanly strong, very intelligent adventurer who gathered a lot of mystical and technological artifacts over her adventures. Kenesha is still very intelligent here, tracking the Engineer and able to draw a map she saw once 18 years ago.
Page 11: Marlowe tells Cole to gather Adri and John. Adri we met last issue. John is presumably John Colt, a character who was tied to the android Spartan, the WildC.A.T.S. teamleader (think of it a Vision/Wonderman relationship and you're pretty close).
Page 12-15: Zealot is working at Skywatch. We meet Christine Trelane and Henry Bendix. Unlike Zealot, those two characters have always been connected to the Stormwatch series: Bendix was a scientist and the mission control of Stormwatch under the codename Weatherman. He also turns into one of their major villains and appeared recently in DC's Midnighter and Apollo series. Christine Trelane usually functioned as Stormwatch 2nd in command, occasionally as Weatherman herself. She had the power to activate and deactivate the powers of other superhumans. In this Bendix seems to be similar to his original universe self, but not quite as unhinged as during his villain days. Trelane seems pretty much the same she always as, a bit more depressed perhaps, but she just talked to an angry Henry Bendix, so that could just be circumstances.
Page 16: Stills from a video clip by Voodoo. Her label is Lady Backlash Records: in the original universe Backlash was a name used by superhero, Marc Slayton, another member of Team7 and Stormwatch and also an alien of the Kherubim race. His half-Japanese daughter also took the name Backlash, after Slayton retired. The flying saucers she is sitting on will come back later (issue #4).
Page 17-18: Michael Cray talks to Dr. Mary Cross, his therapist. He explains his reasons for trying to kill Marlowe (fearing that the rich would capitalize on Halo's advancements, leaving the poor behind while power plants shut down because there are not enough customers). He also confirms that he has a brain tumor.
Page 19: IO Analyst (still unnamed, grrr...) refers to Angie's hideout as "Majestic-level". Mr. Majestic, another Kheribum, was a Superman-level and type of hero in the original Wildstorm Universe.
Craven sends a group of Razors after Angie. The Black Razors were IO's elite forces, normal humans, but well-trained with protective armour.
Page 20-22: Cash takes guns even though it's a rescue operation. That is because Cash is a cynic who knows better. Cash is pretty much the same he always was. Kenesha now favours guns, or more specifically 1 gun: a large revolver. Adrianna teleports them away and as they teleport, we see them travel through the Bleed.
The Bleed was one of Ellis' often-used concepts in his original run, a concept that DC incorporated into their New52 universe. The Bleed is the space between universes, if you travel from one universe to another you must cross the Bleed.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 16, 2017 10:13:49 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #3 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Jenny Sparks, another of Ellis' creations, sitting on a burning crate, with a gun and smoking a cigarette. Jenny looks different, she never needed a gun before (having some impressive superhuman powers: control over electricity and turning herself into electricity), she has black hair while she used to be blonde (joining Savant, 2 for 2 on blondes turning dark-haired. And Grifter used to be blond and is now a redhead, but it's a less noticeable change.) The Union Flag on her shirt is black/yellow/white instead of the red/white/blue. The reason for this escapes me at the moment. The cigarette is 100% Jenny though.
Page 1: Ivana Baiul is talking to an unknown person. She seems to think that the upcoming conflict between IO and Skywatch might not be so bad, because it would mean that Craven would be forced out (leaving the space open for Ivana obviously). On a monitor in the back we see Jenny Sparks turning towards the screen and looking inside the room.
Page 2-5:Jenny travels, unseen through TV screens, tablets, advertisement boards and phones (even taking objects on a monitor into the real world as she takes a can of soda from an advertisement.) It's an interesting take on her powers.
The first 3 pages contain few Wildstorm references, but a lot of DC references:
- Commander Steel is shown as a digital comic on a tablet one fof the IO researchers is reading.
- The Crime Doctor, seen behind a door in the same digital comic. (Note: only the names are the same, the actual characters shown, assuming they are Commander Steel and the Crime Doctor, are completely different characters. Commander Steel seems to be an old soldier in a steel lung, the Crime Doctor a CSI type crime fighter. Their DC counterparts are a superhero with superhuman strength and a Batman villain that provides medical services to Gotham's Underworld respectively).
- A scrawling text below mentions the Doom Patrol.
- Jenny travels through a mobile phone showing the Kord network (Kord referencing Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle)
- A program on the Kord network stars the Martian Manhunter, a buglike green woman that seems to be hunting on Tinder.
- Jenny's brand of cigarettes is Dr. Mid-nite.
Jenny's cigarette lighter has "Mars Expedition 1955", a reference I can't directly place (A Planetary reference possibly).
And then we get to Jenny's map of the strange which is full of Wildstorm references:
- John Colt is now fully named, but just a name, no picture yet.
- Kenesha gets the name "Savant" added, unclear if its meant as a lastname or codename. Jenny misspells her name though as Keneshay.
- The Cherubim are mentioned, the race Marlowe, Zealot and Savant belonged to in the original universe.
- Lamplighter: a minor character who was a member of Stormwatch Black, a JLA homage. Only Apollo and Midnighter survived of that team. Lamplighter was based on Green Lantern.
- I can't read the names in the top left. Anybody else?
All the others are things we've already seen or mentioned, or too vague to mean anything at this point.
Page 17: Not much references in the last few pages: the three members of the wild CAT fight the 3 Black Razors. Kenesha's exploding bullet shocks Cole (she is definitely different from her original, Savant was one of the Wildstorm superheroes who never went for lethal force in fights.)
Page 18: Adrianna looks more human than before, but she isn't: a glass shard to the brain didn't kill her, just knocked her out. She does bleed, but her blood is light blue.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 16, 2017 10:35:10 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #4 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: The Engineer escaping from the bunker she was hiding in, flying through the large radio antenna on top of it.
Page 2: Like I said, Adrianna looks more human, but isn't. Removing the glass shard from her head (and it's several inches long), immediately wakes her up.
Page 5: Miles calls for Ben Santini. In the original universe Santini was a high-ranking officer in IO, head of the Black Razors and the one tasked with investigating the WildC.A.T.S. in issue #1 of that series. Santini later became the main character in Stormwatch: Team Achilles.
Page 9: We see the aforementioned Breslau II, the stealth spaceship Skywatch uses. It looks exactly like the flying saucers in Voodoo's video clip, suggesting that she knows a lot more about what's going on.
Page 10: Skywatch has teleportation technology. They don't activate it by asking for a "Door" like the original though.
Page 11: Bendix' assistant, Miss Pennington is Lauren Pennington, in the original universe known as Stormwatch member Fahrenheit (flight and fire powers). She seems to be getting along with Henry rather well, who is verbally abusive and says that he wants to murder everybody, but overall seems more bark than bite compared to his original.
Page 18-19: We see Skywatch from the Outside, the main shape is the same (a large X), but this one looks like it was built out of dozens of smaller spacestations.
Page 20: Michael Cray's powers accidentally activate, disintegrating part of the coffee cup in front of him. Definitely not his previous powers.
Page 21: Miles Craven, despite ordering the death of Angela Spica and various strangers before, is now acting like an actual human being! His conversation with Michael Cray shows him concerned. A big step up from the charicature of evil government spook he used to be.(though Miles, you are working for the Intelligence Community, telling your husband all about your day at work probably is a big No-no).
Page 22: Angie is walking to Tiverton. This means nothing to me, anybody get a reference?
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 28, 2017 12:51:47 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #5 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Zealot aiming a gun while a Daemonite sneaks up behind her. Daemonites were the ancient enemy of Zealot's race, the Kherans, but the design looks quite different from both their Wildstorm form and their New52 appearance. More on that later.
Page 2: Michael's sentence "Strange damn world. I love it." looks like a callback to Ellis' previous Wildstorm work, Planetary: "Strange world. Let's keep it that way." Not an exact quote, but the same sentiment.
Page 5-7: Zealot meets the Daemonite, so let's sum up the differences:
The original Wildstorm Daemonites were rather reptilian in appearance and heavily inspired by Giger's Alien design, but with an extra set of smaller vestigal arms. The new 52 Daemonites were taller and transparent blue with a diamond-shaped head with facial tentacles. We don't get to see the full Daemonite here, but it seems to have spider- or crablike legs, the vestigal arms are gone, but it has small wings. The snout is probably the most notable change to their heads. The whole design looks more like a medieval demonic creature than an alien, which kinda fits with the concept.
Zealot calls the creature Daemon instead of Daemonite, could be that she's just shortening it or a conscious decision to keep them close to their concept: aliens that inspired tales of demons and monsters.
The Daemon pretty much confirms that Zealot/Lucy here is also an alien like in the original universe. We have seen no connection yet between Zealot and Jacob Marlowe's group in this version though.
Zealot and the Daemon are quite polite too each other compared to their previous incarnations. There is still animosity, but they are actually holding a conversation and are not immediately trying to kill each other. The Daemon doesn't appear to be evil, it has its own goals, but seems quite reasonable.
Page 8: More of Voodoo's stills from her music video. The first is Voodoo dressed as Adrianna of the CAT, standing in space (or possible the Bleed, seeing the red colour, but there are planets around and the Bleed itself did not have planets).
The second image is of Voodoo with a Daemonite arm. In the original Wildstorm universe and in the New52 revival, Voodoo had an Daemonite ancestor and could change herself into a Daemonite shape. She is standing in front of an I.O. sign and wearing the same clothes as Michael Cray does.
The third image is Voodoo, dressed as Jenny Sparks, except with an American Flag instead of a British one.
All three images, like images in previous issues, hint that Voodoo knows more about the Wildstorm universe than a regular person would. A possible explanation could be Voodoo's original powers: her original power in the Wildstorm Universe was "The Sight", the unique ability to see the otherwise invisible Daemonites inside their human or alien hosts. A variation on the Sight could have given her visions which she channels into her work. Pure speculation though.
Page 9: Michael Cray is smart enough to figure out that Angie is not an enemy, but a victim.
Page 12-16: Adrianna tells Angie that she used to be part of Skywatch, in the original she was an U.S.S.R. cosmonaut. In the original, her body became host to the Void, a small part of a Goddess of Light, whose being was shattered into many different parts and possessed at least 2 persons and some artifacts. Here her powers came from the Bleed; Skywatch managed to enter the Bleed, but crashed, a giant, alien hand saved and transformed her (I've been checking if the hand looks like the hand of the Galactus-homage from Planetary, but it looks to be more gaseous than solid in its short appearance). She tells Angie that she was found by Jacob Marlowe, in the original it was the other way around; Adrianna finds and inspires Jacob Marlowe, forcing him to remember the alien warrior he once was.
Page 17-21: I take back everything I said about Craven last time, once Michael sees through his lies, the polite veneer immediately disappears. We also get some flashbacks from Michael. In the original, Michael was the son of a long line of military men, his father a Navy admiral. His father here wears a Black Panther medallion, who tells his son on the phone that joining the Navy is a crazy idea, so quite a different attitude to the U.S. and the Navy.
page 22 Christine Trelane introduces herself to Cray as a member of the Executive Protection Services. That name doesn't ring a bell and we know she's Skywatch.
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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2017 12:17:31 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #6 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato and John Kalisz (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
A short one this time, as this issue is pretty straightforward
The Cover: Michael Cray is fighting two IO agents who came to kill him. This happens in the first few pages and no references to old Wildstorm here.
Page 1-8: Michael Cray fights two I.O. Agents out to liquidate him. Christine Trelane, who is also present (and also armed), stays conspicuously passive during the fight (She might not want any investigators to later find bullets from her gun, is my guess, only interfering should Michael turn out to be outmatched?). Michael does note that she is not very useful, but accepts her job offer. The two agents sent to kill Cray are Casson and Destry, which Cray calls a Warblade unit. Warblade was one of the original WildC.A.T.S., a T-1000-like shape-shifter, but these killers just seem regular humans, though the larger one takes quite a few bullets to put down.
Page 11: After leaving Angie with Jacob Marlowe, Adri returns to her own room, where she takes off her face, wig and clothes, leaving a featureless metal humanoid and starts meditating. This is pretty much what Void was in the original WildC.A.T.s., where she was also once seen removing her face, leaving an empty metal shell behind.
Page 12-16: Jacob Marlowe explains pretty much everything that has been going on so far and we get a timeline:
1986: Jacob saves Skywatch operative Adrianna when she gets turned into Void.
2007 (assuming the title takes place in the current year): Jacob saves Cole Cash.
He also adds that Kenesha and he have been working together "forever".
Jacob founded Halo to bring about the future faster, pretty much the plot of Wildcats 3.0.
He also explains that Skywatch and I.O. are the two de-facto rulers of Earth, two rival organisations (though for a short while Skywatch was part of I.O., even though Skywatch is the older organisation of the two) that have a ceasefire going on: I.O. gets everything on Earth, Skywatch gets everything in space. Both think they have the better deal: I.O. thinks space is empty and dangerous, Skywatch (in the form of Bendix) hates Earth and wants to expand into outer space. We get a few shots of IO (Craven, Cray, Baiul, the unnamed analyst and two Black Razors), Skywatch, Bendix/Lauren and when Jacob mentions that Mars (as an example of the hostility of outer space) is the most habitable place in the Solar System outside Earth and it's still a terrible place to be, we get a shot of Jenny Spark's "Mars Expedition 1955"-lighter. We also get a shot of Voodoo, but she is not mentioned in Jacob's speech and her role is still unknown. Jacob also explains that while Skywatch does not want to rule the Earth, it would like to have its resources, while I.O. doesn't want to have outer space, they still would like to have Skywatch technology. So tensions are running high, even though outright war is still off the table.
Page 17-19: Jacob changes the subject: he asks why Angie fled from the bunker, even though it should be clear that the CAT would be able to protect her. Angie lies at first that she was afraid of the gunfire, but Jacob does not believe her. She then reveals that she scanned the CAT (her suit is a medical tool first and foremost): she saw that Cole was normal, Adrianna's scan "didn't make sense" (and from what we saw a few pages ago, we can understand that), but the one that scared her was Kenesha: she looked human, but internally was anything but. Jacob asks Angie to scan him and she does: we see the scan and Jacob's skeleton and internal organs are completely alien (a little resemblance to how Jacob looked at the beginning of Wildcats volume 2.) Most of his bones resemble fishbones. Jacob tells her that he is an alien and the CAT is fighting both Skywatch and I.O. (and several smaller operations) to fix a world they are no part of. He asks Angie if she wants to help.
Pages 20-22: Lauren shows Bendix images of Angie's suit and its transformation and Bendix recognises the shape, just as Lauren did. Bendix realises the suit is based on their Breslau II type spaceships and that somebody stolen their technology. He sends out 3 fighter jets/spaceships and with that the war starts.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 25, 2017 13:56:53 GMT -5
It's that time of the month again!
The Wildstorm #7 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer). (And I got the variant cover by Bryan Hitch).
The Cover: The Hitch-cover displays the Engineer in mid-transformation, looking a lot more like his version did, except she now has wings as well. I googled for the Jon Davis-Hunt cover, and it's the WildC.A.T.s.: John Colt, Cole Cash, Kenesha and Adrianna.
Page 1: A 3x3 grid, showing (from left to right and top to bottom): Lucy Blaze with the red bloodsmear on her forehead from issue #1. The second I assume is Angela Spica, even though she is also in the fifth picture. 3rd is Priscilla Kitaen aka Voodoo. 4th is Cole Cash, 5th is the Engineer escaping from the bunker from issue #4. The sixth image is Adrianna. The seventh is Henry Bendix, the eight Jacob Marlowe and the final one is Michael Cray and Christine Trelane waiting for the I.O. assassins from last issue.
I was looking for a theme in these images, but I can't find any. They are not the main players, because we're missing Miles Craven and Kenesha. They are not the characters from the previous covers (even if we subtract a few because we have more images than covers), because we don't have Jenny or a Daemonite. I find it curious that we have the Engineer twice. In the end, I assume they are just nine pictures with no theme here.
Page 2-6:Finally the unnamed woman that was working with Miles Craven and Ivana Baiul is named in this issue: it's Jacklyn King. She obviously is this world's version of Jackson King, but, including her gender, many things are different, so it's understandable I didn't make the link before: Jacklyn is I.O.'s Chief of Analysis. Jackson was primarily associated with Stormwatch (he was basically the main character of early Stormwatch volume 1 and always one of the main characters in the series. He was romantically linked to Christine Trelane, but the two don't seem to have a link in this world. Jacklyn also seems to lack Jackson's psionic powers so far.
Her assistant is Mitchell Saunders, another character that was a Stormwatch member in the original universe. Mitchell Saunders was known as Canon and had energy blasts as his power, but he was not a very important character and generally a bit of a joke. Mitchell here is an analyst, a lot less muscled than his counterpart. The rest of the team doesn't ring any bells yet, but we lack names and appearances can be pretty different between universes.
(Finally, Jacklyn's cat is named Streaky, an obvious reference to Streaky the Supercat.)
Page 7-14: We get introduced to John Colt, the final member of the WildC.A.T.s. He looks quite different too. John Colt in the original was a red-haired white male, here he is a black male. The suit he's wearing has an I.O. logo (specifically an I.O. Hightower logo) with the phrase "Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis", which basically means "Light of the Mind, Light of the World." (Orbis actually means circle or disc, but I feel safe with this translation). John has infiltrated an I.O. installation, but is made. When he's engaging the enemy, Cole tells him not to use his strength, but use a gun instead. John turns out to be quite capable with the gun, easily defeating multiple opponents (and appearing to be incredibly agile and coordinated). Entering a supply closet, Adrianna teleports him out, leaving their cover intact.
Page 15 Angela wakes up and she is bleeding heavily again from her side.
Page 16-17: John, now a smoker and a drinker, explains what the point was of I.O.'s Hightower installation: they are researching machine telepathy (preparing myself for an appearance of Planetary's Drummer in a later issue). Angela scans John and while she not directly says it, it's clear that John is not human.
Page 18: Jacob Marlowe dreams of alien vistas. They are not named, the first one is a building, appearing to be ruined, on a planet with 2 suns. The second shows a ringworld, heavily damaged, in outer space.
Page 19-20: Kenesha gives John the short version of what happened and assumes that I.O. know that Jacob Marlowe is alien. John dismisses this idea (he also quickly sums up everybody's function in the CAT: Cole is the gunfighter, Adrianna is transport, Kenesha is the tinkerer and he is the "systems guy.") He claims that if I.O. knew that Jacob was an alien, they wouldn't have tried to poison him, because poison means autopsy and an alien body turning op for the world to see would not benefit them. If they were trying to kill him, they would do so in a way where they could take the body with them. But Michael saw Jacob use his "spur" (the alien weapon implanted within him) and survived that, so if he reports that to I.O. they have a problem. John has to think on the information that Cray set of the xenobiological scanners and had superhuman powers himself (and most interestingly wasn't aware he had them).
Page 21-22: Cole sends Jacob to talk to Angela. The things that interests me the most is that Angela mentions that she sees that Kenesha, John and Jacob are all alien, but that they are all different from each other. Jacob flashbacks to two other alien vistas: an alien species surrounding craters that expulse blue gas. These aliens look rather like a combination of the original Wildstorm Daemonites and the new52 Daemonites, but not like the Daemonite seen in this series. The second image is that of a spaceship approaching a nebula.
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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 22, 2017 14:21:16 GMT -5
First draft of this lost, second attempt:
First an announcement: I'm also reading Michael Cray, another series taking place in this universe, but so far it doesn't have a lot of references to the old Wildstorm Universe (and a rather big reference to the main DC universe), so I'm waiting to see how the series developed before discussing it here further.
The Wildstorm #8 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: A desert with many Kheran Spaceships that have landed on it. The significance is unclear so far, but it may be a future reference to the old Wildstorm Universe: the Ancient Kherans seeded the universe with Creation Engines that terraformed suitable planets to be capable of sustaining Kheran life and changing any native species to be subservient to the Kherans.
Page 1: Marlowe explains his species backstory to Angie: the Kherans are a cooperative clade. A clade is a common ancestor and several of its linear subspecies (for instance if you had a society where Homo Sapiens, Homo Neanderthalis, Homo Floresiensis etc. lived together, that would be a cooperative clade). He explains that there are 5 types of Kherans (the original universe had a similar thought, mostly because Brandon and Jim created a group of superheroes with such different powers and abilities and claimed that they were descendent of the same species: Maul was a giant purple being, Warblade a being of liquid metal, the other basically looked like humans but had powers ranging from a bit stronger and faster than a normal human (Zealot) to manipulating time and space (Emp) to basically Superman (Majestros). Alan Moore then changed this so that Maul's species were a different species that lived on a planet that was colonized by Ancient Kherans). So far in the new series we have seen 4 confirmed Kherans and we know 3 of them are different clade-species (Zealot's clade is unknown, but if she and Kenesha are still sisters, she will belong to the same clade). So far we haven't seen Titans (Maul) or Shifters (Warblade) yet. It's also unclear how the 3 clade species we have seen so far differ from each other; Angie said that she could see that their internal organs and skeletal structure are different, but so far they have not shown any real difference in superhuman powers.
Marlowe explains that the spaceship he came on had members of all 5 clades, so we can expect other clade members to show up sooner or later. They came to study the Gaian Bottleneck: few planets can sustain life and it's very hard for species to survive.
Page 2: We see the Kheran spaceship pass other planets: An ocean filled with broken towers. A burning desert with a single alien on stilts, looking like scavenger, dressed in rags. What looks like a mechanical planet or spaceship with a large section of it destroyed.
Page 3: The Kherans land on Earth. Marlowe explains that they came here because intelligent species are rare, they came to study. Their ship was scuttled though and interstellar flight is expensive and communication is difficult. Khera assumed they were death and no rescue operation was sent. We see the Kheran Spaceship landing in an ancient city. I'm not an expert at ancient architecture, but I'd say it's Mesopotamia? The ziggurat looks exactly like the ones I've seen pictures of, so I feel relatively sure that it's that one.
Page 4-5: Marlowe says that some of the survivors decided to help humanity past the Gaian Bottleneck. He offers Angie a lab and their assistance in return for data-readings from her suit. When leaving the room, Kenesha confront Marlowe to find out what he told her. It's clear that Marlowe didn't tell her everything, especially the reason the Kherans had to come to Earth (and the implication is that that reason was not benevolent). Marlowe claims that he fears Angie's powers and that she might be powerful enough to kill them all. He also says that he likes her.
Page 6-8 Jackie has some unusual ways to run her research division (including posting that the confirmative phrase of the week will be "Yo ho!". More to the point, analyzing pictures from the Black Razors, they identified Cole Cash as member of the Wild CAT. Cash is former I.O. (as he was in the original universe) and he was considered dead. They can't identify the other two members and the fact that one of them is wearing an astronaut flight suit, points to Skywatch. Miles is disturbed by that thought: Skywatch is allowed a ground division according to their treaties with IO, but a Black ops unit is something else. Also the wild CAT can teleport and they know that Bendix has teleportation rooms. Jackie leaves the meeting with Craven and tells Mitchell, her second-in-command that his new assignment is to gather a group and investigate if it's possible to hack Skywatch's database. This is illegal and they will be doing it behind Craven and Baiul's backs.
Page 9-11: New scene, new characters. We're in Amsterdam (and as a native dutchman I want to say it's either the Keizersgracht or the Prinsengracht. The colouring on the traffic sign and the mailbox is wrong. This is your dutch nitpick of the week.) Evi (no idea if she had a counterpart in original Wildstorm, I don't think so) meets with her friend Bram. She has been visiting a session by Shen Li-Min. Shen was the superhero Swift in the original universe, a member of Stormwatch with wings, talons and enhanced vision. Her role in this new universe is combined with that of the Doctor, a magician. Shen's powers still manifest with bird-like symbols (the drugs she gives to her followers are shaped like an egg and when she manifests her powers wings of energy manifest behind her). The most reknown Doctor in the Wildstorm Universe was a dutch former drug-addict.
Page 12-14: From Evi's point of view we see her experience when she takes the drug. It looks exactly like visiting the Bleed. Inside the Bleed a huge ship passes (a reference to the Authority's Carrier? Even if it doesn't look like the Carrier). On board are wraithlike aliens or ghosts, then the visits end.
Page 15: Shen confirms that she's the Doctor of this world. The Doctor has incredible magical powers and acts like the protective shaman of the planet, there is always a Doctor to protect the planet. Shen then states that her function in this world is to heal people. She does this one person at a time. Evi mentions that it was amazing, but that one girl didn't wake up.
Page 16: Shen tries to wake up the girl that is still asleep (worried how she's going to get rid of the body, but it might just be a sarcastic remark.) We recognise the girl as Jenny Sparks from previous issues. Shen enters Jenny's head: literally, she opens a hatch inide Jenny's head.
Page 17-18: A walk through Jenny's head, Shen walks through a British town (the sign says Hampton, so Southhampton?) Then she walks through a town with a faceless woman dressed in the style of the 1920s. Followed by western town in the last century with another faceless woman dressed in the style of the period. A field of wheat with another faceless woman (style of dress a little harder to pin down, because it can be anything from the past centuries). A forest with a faceless woman dressed like a medieval archer. A cave with a cavewoman. Presumably we are visiting previous Jenny's.
Page 19: Shen reaches the center of Jenny's mind/soul: a gigantic mechanical heart, with a baby inside and a string of DNA coming out of it. Two Daemons are standing around it and greet the Doctor, recognising her.
Page 20-21: Jenny wakes up, Shen wants answers. Jenny tells Shen to find a livestream video from London on her phone. Shen does not understand, but complies, but sees Jenny appearing in the livestream. She's gone. Shen calls for the previous Doctors.
Page 22: A garden with a giant stone structure with the words Hospital written on it. This place also appeared in previous Wildstorm universes: Doctors can call upon their predecessors and use their knowledge and their advise. We see three doctors: a blond woman, an elderly man and a man dressed in traditional Peruvian clothing. The elderly man identifies the two Daemons, claiming that he thought they were all death. Shen is more interested in the woman. The Peruvian male tells her that she is like the Doctors, but they only show up once things are about to go bad. So the idea of the Century babies is out, Jenny's appear when they are needed instead of being born at the beginning of each century and dying at the end. The blond woman explain that she is a Techne, a spirit of mechanical arts and crafts. Like the Century Babies before they are a planetary defense mechanism. The elderly man explains that these type of beings are very focused on their goals, even if they can get distracted. If this woman visited her, she must have had a good reason to do so. The blond woman says that the one she met centuries ago was Joan Silver, an alchemist. Shen says that this one is called Jenny Mei Sparks. This is a nod to Jenny Quantum in the previous Wildstorm universe: Jenny Sparks was the spirit of the 20th Century and died in the Authority when the 20th century ended, her successor, Jenny Quantum was born in China at the start of the 21st Century. Interestingly nobody seems worried that two Daemons were involved with Jenny Sparks; so we can be pretty sure that the Daemons are more like the later Wildstorm universe Daemons were it was revealed that they are not an evil species and most of them are quite peaceful, the ones on Earth were just survivors from a military ship at war with a very fanatic crew (and even there there were pacifists that just lived a peaceful life in the shadows after the crash).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2017 3:24:02 GMT -5
Dizzy DRead your write-ups for issues 1-6 since I just read the first volume of the trade. Great stuff. I am holding off reading the rest of your write-ups until I read the actual issues to avoid spoilers. I didn't read much of the old Wildstorm stuff, only the Ellis Stormwatch/Authority stuff and Planetary of course, and the Brubaker Point Blank and Sleeper trades, so a lot of the background you give is helpful and informative as it's all new to me. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 17, 2017 3:12:05 GMT -5
After a quick image search, I think the artwork on this new Wildstorm revival looks much better than on the old ones, which I found basically unreadable - or unviewable, I suppose, since it was the artwork that I had a problem with. So I might give this a try at some point.
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 18, 2017 11:29:35 GMT -5
I'll think I'll be adding the Michael Cray issues as well here, because Cray's team he assembles in issue #2 are all Wildstorm characters. The art on the series is pretty bad though.
Re art on old Wildstorm: It really depends what issues you were looking at. The early issues with Jim Lee and his clones are pretty bad (not a fan of Lee's art myself). But later on we have Charest, Dustin Nguyen on Wildcats, Sean Philips on Wildcats and Sleeper. Colin Wilson on Point Blank. Ashley Wood on Automatic Kafka and many more.
Back to the current Wildstorm series with the good art:
The Wildstorm #9 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Angela Spica, unarmoured surrounded by pieces of technology coming from behind her.
Page 1-3: Emp shows Angie her new lab, a hidden wirehouse full of alien technology. There is a large robot/powered armour with the number 52 on it (a reference to DC's new 52?) The lab/warehouse is very large and can only be reached with Adrianna's teleportation. Angela stays behind, starting to study what that looks like a Flash Gordon raygun.
Page 4-6: Mitchell updates King on John Colt's mission last issue. John used the codename Wilson Flowers and all further data on him, including camera images were erased. King goes to Craven with an update on Cole Cash. Cash was involved with "Project Thunderbook". (The name of an anthology series in the old Wildstorm universe). Craven tells King that Thunderbook was a project of the previous IO Director: John Lynch. This is the first John Lynch is name-dropped and he was one of the major characters in the old Wildstorm universe. Mostly appearing in Gen13, where he was the team's mentor and Sleeper, where he was the director of IO. Lynch in turn is based on Marvel's Nick Fury (with a bit of Clint Eastwood thrown in). When Lynch (who is described as paranoid, which fits his previous incarnation as well) left IO, he destroyed all files on Thunderbook and members involved with the project committed suicide. During this conversation Craven is reading a book "Against the Day". (I assume it's the novel based by Thomas Pynchon). At the end Craven makes King confess what her team is doing (figuring out how to hack Skywatch) and tells her not to take action before talking to him first.
Page 7-17: John Colt reminisces a mission in the past. It looks like Japan in 17th or 18th Century. Colt, dressed as a Ronin, stops a cart and several guards attack him. In the fight, John does not hide his superhuman abilities this time and displays acts of superhuman strength, speed and agility. At the end of the fight, he takes from the cart what he came for: a cocoon-like piece of technology.
Page 18: Kenesha interrupts John. She comments on his taste for expensive alcohol and food and John reveals a bit more on Kheran culture: on Khera a person's name denotes his or her caste; the more syllabels, the lower the caste. Emp with 1 syllable is the highest caste. Kenesha with 3 syllables was a high-ranking class. John's Kheran name contained 8 syllables with a specific syllable (U) to denote that he was the lowest class. John's role is to carry out orders of the higher casts with no expectation of any rewards for himself. So John takes his time on Earth to enjoy all the luxuries he was not allowed on Khera. Kenesha reminds him that there was a high-ranking member of the expedition he did not mention: Zannah (with 2 syllables higher ranked that Savant and lower than Emp), somebody John has no fond memories off to see his reactions.
So all of this, with the names and syllables defining rank is new: John Colt's Kheran name in the old Wildstorm was Yohn Kohl (so with 2 syllables he should have been a high ranking Kheran in this system). High-ranking Kherans on Earth where Emp, his brother Entropy, Majestros, S'ylton and Mythos.
Zannah was Zealot's Kheran name. The fact that Zannah and Kenesha are of different caste seems to imply that they are no longer sisters, but that could be a wrong assumption on my part. The reaction of John and the way Kenesha talks about her, also seems to imply that Zannah and the other Kherans are not on good terms with each other.
Page 19 Zealot, replacing Christine Trelane, who is busy (presumably with her action in Michael Cray's solo-series) receives her orders from Lauren Pennington to keep an eye on IO's Analysis division, suspecting that they are on the exosuit (Angie) investigation just like Zealot is and that IO possesses stolen Skywatch hardware.
Page 20-21: King finds Mitchell outside the IO building and lectures him on the use of an app on his phone to call a cab. She refers to Paul Kirk, a fictional spy that Mitchell is a fan off. In the DC universe Paul Kirk is known as Manhunter. A bus arrives that has an add for Paul Kirk: Manhunter on it. So so far most of DC references are kinda weird so far: some refer to fiction within the universe (but changed from the fictional characters as we know them, some of them are actual people/organisations within the Wildstorm Universe (like Oliver Queen or Kord Industries, but again different from the versions that we know.)
Page 22: Angie uses some medical equipment to bandage the wound in her stomach and then grabs the ray-gun, telling herself that she needs to learn to shoot.
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 19, 2017 8:04:14 GMT -5
So as said yesterday:
Michael Cray #1 by Bryan Hill (writer) and N. Steven Harris (artist), Dexter Vines (Inker), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (Letterer). Warren Ellis is credited as "based on a story by".
The Cover: I have the cover by Denys Cowyn, Bill Sienkiewicz (thank you internet for letting me spell Sienkiewicz correctly after years of practice) and Steve Buccellatto. We have a full body shot of adult Michael Cray holding a handgun with in the forefront child Michael Cray dressed in Superman pajamas reading comics. An American Flag and Black Panther poster are seen behind Cray. To the left we have a bridge (I believe the Golden Gate bridge (seeing the shape and the red colour). To the top right we have symbols that I don't recognise. Anybody else?
Page 1: We see images from Michael's past. Like I said in the regular Wildstorm reviews, Michael's background and race has changed from his previous incarnation. Where the old Michael Cray was a member of the Navy, following in the footsteps of his father, his father here is far more sceptical of the US and disagrees with his son's decision to join the Army. (The pictures of Cray in his time in the Army pre-IO, make me suspect that he's Army rather than Navy.
Page 4: Cray has joined the Executive Protection Services, seeing the tasks he will get in this and the next issue, it's obviously a cover for Skywatch, because his missions are a violation of the treaties between Skywatch and IO as explained by Marlowe in Wildstorm. A short recap for those only reading this series: Skywatch controls space and is allowed a presence on Earth, but has no say on Earth's politics. IO gets to rule the Earth, but is allowed only limited resources in space (some spy satellites and that's it). At this point, Christine Trelane, Skywatch's representative on Earth thinks that these treaties are still active, not knowing that Bendix, her superior, has discovered that IO has broken the treaties by stealing Skywatch technology and IO believes that Skywatch has broken these treaties by having a rogue BlackOps unit on Earth (which is interesting, because they are correct that Skywatch has an illegal Black Ops unit, the unit IO thinks is Skywatch (the wildCAT), is not allied to Skywatch at all.)
Page 5: Not much Wildstorm references this time, Cray is told by Trelane to pick 3 team members, but the list she gives him, is not shown. Cray's target is Oliver Queen (I guess everybody who comes to this board know who he is, but nevertheless). Oliver Queen is of course better known in the DC universe as the superhero Green Arrow. More on similarities/difference between his incarnation here and there later.
Page 7: Oliver Queen lives in San Francisco in this universe instead of his usual home of Star City (or New York when you go way back to the Golden Age version). He has a dream of being stranded on a deserted island. That part lines up with the DC version.
Page 11-12: And here's where the differences start: Queen deals drugs and guns to neighborhoods, then funds police efforts to strike hard at these neighborhoods.
Page 13-15: Queen buys off a woman he just slept with. DC Oliver Queen has a pretty bad history with women (in most of his incarnations), but this is far beyond that. In his closet he keeps his Arrow costume including bows, arrows and various other weaponry.
Page 16-22: The gentrification efforts are not enough for Cray to decide that Queen needs to be killed, so Trelane reveals something else: Queen has a private facility where he hunts people. Trelane may be lying, but we do see Queen hunting and killing an unarmed man in his private facility.
In short: no Wildstorm references here beyond the one we already had in the Wildstorm-series itself (Cray, Trelane, Skywatch, IO). The choice to use Oliver Queen as a villain is interesting (and as we'll see in issue #2 part of a theme), but the point is for the moment still unclear to me. Hope that they go somewhere with this. Not a fan of the artwork for this series.
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 19, 2017 8:35:02 GMT -5
Michael Cray #2 by Bryan Hill (writer) and N. Steven Harris (artist), Dexter Vines (Inker), Dearbhla Kelly (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (Letterer). Warren Ellis is credited as "based on a story by".
The Cover: I have the cover by Denys Cowyn, Bill Sienkiewicz and Steve Buccellatto. Cray is shooting with 2 handguns at an unseen attacker as two green arrows hit the wall behind him (so 3 guesses who the unseen attacker is)
Page 1-5: In a steampunk-world simulation, Cray fights with 3 people. It turns out to be test to see if they are on his team. Cray defeats them and points out their flaws, but still wants them for his team. The three members are all Wildstorm characters:
Hector Morales: In the old Wildstorm universe, one of the members of DV8, codename Powerhaus. Hector's skin is darker here and he doesn't have his beard. Presumably he also lacks his superhuman powers (that goes for the other 2 as well).
Leon Carver: Another former DV8 member, known as Frostbite. He used to be a black kid with blond hair (a side-effect of his powers, not a fashion decision), but he has normal black hair here. Frostbite could absorb and release heat.
Victoria: No last name given, but Victoria Ngengi was a member of Stormwatch under the name Flint, so I make the assumption that this is her. Flint was superhumanly strong and durable and built like it, she is smaller and not as muscled here.
Page 6-7 Meeting with his doctor, she reveals that Cray's brain tumor is not a tumor, but his brain changing, presumably connected to his new powers. This also a callback to the original Wildstorm series, Cray's tumor there was a side-effect from the experiment that gave Team 7 their powers and his powers were triggered by it. I don't think his doctor, Shahi, is somebody we've seen before.
Page 8-10: Interestingly, Cray is captured and brought to the closed facility. Queen gives Cray a handgun to make the fight fair (the last time we saw Queen hunting somebody they were unarmed. Possible they had a weapon from the beginning though and lost it in an earlier encounter with Queen as by the time we see the hunt, the victim is already wounded.)
Page 17-19: During the fight, Cray touches Queen's arm, disintegrating it. A reference to Oliver Queen in the Dark Knight Returns (though it's a different arm this time)? It doesn't really matter, because Victoria takes Queen out with a sniper gun. Victoria now knows about Cray's powers.
Page 22: Trelane gives Cray a new target: a corrupt police officer named Barry Allen.
In short: Nice to see some DV8 characters again, even if they are different from their originals. So first Green Arrow, now Barry Allen. This series is intended to be 12 issues long, so I assume we're going through the whole Justice League? Like I said the last time, I hope there is a point to be made there.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 3, 2018 2:07:18 GMT -5
I think for now I'll leave the Michael Cray series out of this thread, I'm still buying the series, but it's not very good and the old Wildstorm connections are sparse. Now back to a whole lot of catching up:
The Wildstorm #10 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Zealot standing on a roof, surrounded by flying crows.
Page 1-6: Like I noticed before, Kenesha is a lot more violent/murderous in this world, this time she's obsessed with explosions. Grifter notes that she has "Mad Savant" episodes (but in the end his plan does include bombs to Kenesha's joy). They convince Angie to assist them by using her nanotech to deliver the bomb. A potential old Wildstorm reference/link: Kenesha is searching the I.O. database for the keyphrase "Machine Telepathy". An old Wildstorm character that had those powers was the Drummer from Planetary, another Warren Ellis' creation. We might be seeing him.(But it can also just be research into Angie's powers).
Page 7-11: Bendix recaps the first issue of Michael Cray for us. He also thinks that Space Reptilians are the source of Michael's powers. Lauren is sceptical, but knowing the Daemonites are still around and who knows what the Kherans are below their human disguises, Bendix may very well have a point. Also Bendix orders the death of an IO Analysis agent.
Page 12-17: Jenny Sparks and the Doctor discuss Jenny's backstory. Jenny is older than a 100 years this time, so "Century Babies" is no longer a good description for her. Looking at Jenny's map, the Doctor does not think any of it is true, so she is not aware of I.O. or Skywatch. Jenny tells her that she was once part of it (presumably Skywatch, knowing old Jenny's links to Stormwatch, but characters have been moved around her; Jackie King for instance). In return Jenny does not seem to know about the Daemonites (apart from some rumours). The Doctor tells Jenny that she was created by the Daemonites in a device that looks like a large mechanical heart.
Page 18-21: We are introduced to the Mayor. People around him think that he's a crazy homeless guy, but the Mayor is this world's version of Jack Hawksmoor, another Ellis creation. Hawksmoor got his powers from alien experimentation (though one issue by another writer had the idea that the aliens were actual future humans). He has a link to human cities and can teleport between them, talk to them and influence them. The Mayor pretty much has the same powers so far in his short scene, including the rubber souls grown on his bare feet.
Page 22: Priscilla Kitaen witnesses the Mayor teleporting out and confirms that she has been having visions. She just thought they were weird ideas and used them in her music and art, but now realizes that they are real. (We also get a reference to another DJ called Beast Boy, an obvious reference to the DC character from Doom Patrol and Titans).
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