WSU vs. The Wild Storm 6

I know, the main point of this blog is to talk about the continuity of WildStorm Universe as it was from ’92 – ’11… but I really like doing this compare and contrast thing! Admittedly, I have no idea where Ellis is going with this new series, and honestly, I couldn’t be more on board for what he and his team are bringing. I just thought I’d have some fun, point out some of the references/differences from the old WSU to the new book “the Wild Storm” that came earlier this week.

Here we are at the end of the first big story arc! If I wasn’t already loving what was being laid out here early, I’d be fully on board after this issue! It’s a doozy of a story and does manage to pack in a few references and a lot of explanations. I’m not going to deep dive into those explanations, as really, you should be reading the book!

New vs. Old 

Warblade & Wetworks
We have two references for the price of a single panel. Let’s start with Warblade. For “the Wild Storm” this refers to a two person team, where as a CAT (covert action team) usually consists of three or four members. This just seems to be a reference to the old WSU character Warblade who was a member of the WildC.A.T.s. I have a feeling that means we’re not going to be seeing Reno Bryce anytime soon as his code name is now a term for something completely different.

Also, I’m not sure if the bearded guy was supposed to remind me of Reno, but he did. We’ve seen Reno grow a beard before, and we know that brown is his natural hair color.

Now on to the second part. So, Wetworks is a team in the old WSU but is also is a term for a military action that is going to involve some spilled blood. While there’s is no direct reference to the WSU team there is no way that Ellis just dropped this word into the script without being a sly winking son of a bitch. At most, it’s a half reference, and it made me laugh more than anything.

Answers

Adrianna
We can never get away from new answers on Adrianna, can we? We now see that she, much like the previous WSU version of the character is in fact, silver. The former Adrianna would also take off her face, leaving just her silver body as a hollow shell of her form, and you’d see into her “face hole.” This new Adrianna can take off her face, as well as her hair and outfit because it is all just covering her liquid silver body. We also see that she has some kind of short form weather based powers along with her teleportation. I vaguely recall at one time seeing the WSU Adrianna become more of a liquid-like version of herself, but I’m having trouble finding the visual reference.

IO & Skywatch
Jacob pretty much just spelled out how IO and Skywatch each run the Earth and outer space and it is pretty interesting. I love his explanation as to why they are at odds.

Jacob & Kenesha
We’ve got confirmation that neither of these two is human. We can guess as to whether these two are going to be the race from the WSU, Kheribum or Kheran, or something completely new. I personally like how they are described as “human-shaped” and not actually human, with everything inside looking wrong. This is a point that rarely comes up in comics. Superman is an alien, but he looks human. It’s always struck me as odd that he still looks human on the inside as well, that seems like a bigger coincidence than him just looking human.

One Last Thing
Fire from heaven? Ellis, you hilarious bastard! Did not expect to see a reference to the name of that WSU crossover event at all. I know it was an important and serious moment in the comic, but it did make me smile.

 

Also, new blog alert! DeFaultlines is detailing the real world conspiracy’s that Warren Ellis is pulling from in building the world of “the Wild Storm.” Check it out, bunch of stuff that I’d never heard of, or hadn’t quite put together yet! Fascinating!