“Soldier’s Story”

this entry covers “Soldier’s Story” introducing Solider and was a back-up in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 10.

At long last, I’ve returned to this blog. I hope I can keep it up! There’s a ton of both personal reasons and pure laziness why I let this site languish, but I’m going to try and pull it together. And confession time, over the last week I’ve gotten some crazy traffic, as well as e-mails from fellow fans to get back to it. Also, yeah Warren Ellis, rebooting some of my favorite characters in all of comics? Yeah, I’m excited, others are excited, it’s time to get back to the WildStorm U!

This is the earliest story in WildStorm history, that is not a flash-back. Well, actually it IS a flash-back, but it only flashes-back to, at most, a few days. The scene is October, 1950, Korea and we find a young American man fighting in the Korean War. He’s kicking ass and taking names. Speaking of names, we never even learn his. Sad but true fact, the man we know as Soldier was defined by his job.

Soldier is fighting not only the War, specifically Chinese army scouts, but also his own lieutenant, slugging the dude when he tells Soldier the grim truth. Turns out things aren’t looking good, even though Soldier the soldier is fighting a brave fight, he’s been told there’s no way that his unit is going to survive. They’ll all just be causalities of war. Is Soldier gonna go out like that? HELL NO! He takes the fight right to the Chinese and then figures that he can create a rock slide to stop the Chinese army with a few well placed bombs. Only problems is is that he’s gotten a little too much damage for him to get away once everything goes kaboolee. As he passes out he witnesses his guardian angel…

Well the Angel is Zealot. Turns out he’s telling this story in a military stockade to Zealot, he’s there for decking his lieutenant. Zealot responds that she’s going to free him, it’d be a shame for such a great and noble warrior to languish in prison. Soldier digs it and is ready for what ever the future holds.

Continuity Corner:

• This is a perfect beginning point for the WSU, we have the military underpinnings, a mysterious female warrior and hints at crazy future adventures. A good “prelude” if you will.
• Zealot appearing here w/ white hair makes me wonder what her alias was to get into the stockade to spring Soldier. We know later she dies her hair black and goes by “Lucy Blaze” in the ’60s, but nothing of her ’50s alias. Maybe it is simply “Angel” as Soldier calls her.
• Soldier seems like such a cool and interesting character, I would’ve loved to learn more about him, but he’s rarely seen outside of the few “WildC.A.T.s” comics that Chris Claremont wrote. It’s a real shame we don’t seem more of his and Zealot’s adventures over the years and get a real feel for their shared history.

Next : “WildStorm Halloween : Trilogy of Terror” short story : “Team 7 : Blood and Faith” by Christopher Golden, Ed Benes and Toby Hubbs