Don’t Call it a Relaunch

Okay, yes, I know, I’ve been missing for… nearly a year? Umm… well damn! That’s not good, as I’ve never lost my love of Wildstorm, or my love of reading it, dissecting it and then writing about it. Things just get busy for me and projects fall on the back-burner for a bit and this was my project that suffered. So if you’re still here, thanks! And if you’re new to it all, also thanks for checking it out now!

So is this a full-fledged relaunch of the site? I’d love to not only say “yes” but “hell yes!” But also, I don’t want to lie. I do have a few things that’ll post up over the next few weeks, and hopefully, I can find a way to fit doing this on a regular basis into my life. I’m not going to make a promise that I’m not sure I can keep, but I will say that April should see a weekly post each Tuesday of some sort. Baby steps here, getting me back into the swing of it all.

Now onto the portion of this entry where I cover criticisms of Weathering WildStorm!

I’ve been told that my order here is “chaotic and weird” at times. Sometimes because I include every relevant story I can find or breaking up issues or storylines. Honestly, the breaking up of issues and story arcs is something I absolutely hate to do. I only go for it when I feel it is necessary for a bit of story clarity. Usually, I’ll leave things as they are if there isn’t a ton of information to catch up on, but sometimes I just gotta get in there and tweak a bit. Addressing including the magazine stories and other odd shorts, eh, I kinda wanted to be as thorough as possible. If you don’t want to read them, that’s cool, they’re fully unneeded, but finding places for them was fun.

This blog and reading order has also been bomb-barded with requests to find a place for every WildStorm cross-over. Honestly, to me, a lot of them seem inessential, or they contribute conflicting information. At worst they introduce some big continuity questions, despite being good books with great WildStorm relevant content. Off the top of my head are “Backlash / Spider-Man” and “Gen13 / Superman.” We have seen New York so many times, yet never Spider-Man, and we won’t again so that raises more questions than it may be worth for me… but we have Taboo at the sight of her father’s grave and that’s a hard scene for me to not want to include for a reader. In regards to the “Gen13 / Superman” book… well damn, they all know Superman and he’s so famous… yet we’ve never heard from him or seen him before and we won’t after. It is a bigger disconnect for me than the issue of Spider-Man meeting Backlash. It’s like a plot hole that can be completely paved over if we skip books like that. I’m still of two minds on some of them and I’ll talk about that a bit later.

Another criticism I take to heart (there a lot of criticism that I don’t take to heart and that I, in fact, laugh off) is what seems to be non-sensical order choices. I’ll admit that yeah, I don’t like to read the Team One books until after Jacob gets his memories back in “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 9, that’s just a personal preference that makes more sense in storytelling and reading for me. I’ll even admit that kicking off my reading order with the back-up story from “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 10 is very inelegant though. I never said this was the ironclad/only way to read these comics, but just my personal preference, rearrange as you see fit. On that “WildC.A.T.s” 10 story… maybe I’ll need a slight revise.

On the topic of revising: I only revise when I find I’ve made some kind of terrible error that inhibits the reading experience. This list is not concrete, it is evolving as it needs, to be as accurate as possible. As always, I welcome fellow fans to point out any errors they may see so that I can double-check, or keep them in mind when I get there. For reals, this blog has been made so much better because of suggestions from others.

Future ideas for this blog!

Currently, my biggest plan for the future is to get back to it. I think I may’ve carved out enough time to get several entries a month out of me to make this worthwhile. Not only for you but for me as well. One of the best parts of this blog is I never felt like I was typing into the void and being unseen, WildStorm fans are always up for some debate and supporting their fellow fans.

Secondly, regarding crossovers that may or may not work, but also including stories never intended to work. Sometimes WildStorm did stories they never intended to be part of continuity, and I’d still like to cover those as they’re usually fun. To that end, the idea is a reoccurring article called “Tales from the Bleed” to take on stories like these. Possibly every other month, or whenever I find something timely to talk about. This is kind of a gamble. It doesn’t fit the theme of the blog, but it also addresses stories folks have asked for me to cover. Is this a good idea?

Third, if you’ve gone back through older entries you may see that I updated entries with where to find these stories. It may be in trades or digitally, but I wanted to make it easier to find and read these issues even if you weren’t raiding the back issue bins of your local shop. I hope it helps to spread the love of WildStorm and help others get caught up!

There’s a part of me wants to do more articles about topics in the WildStorm Universe. In fact, originally this entry was going to lean much more into that after an introductory paragraph. I was going to talk about the main WSU, the post-2006 WSU, the sub-universes within them, a bit about WildStorm in the New 52 and “The Wild Storm” but as I typed it became, well, what you’ve read. I still plan on writing all that up, but it’s something that I’d like to do a bit more often.

Finally, I’ve also been toying with doing reading lists of certain titles. You know like all the books you’d want to read to, and in what order, for just “Gen13” or “WildC.A.T.s” stories, or something like that. Not sure the best way to make those engaging, but I’m sure you all will let me know if you support the idea!

Ok… with that out of the way, I’d also invite you all to ask me questions! Maybe set up a regular “Ask a WildStorm Continuity Geek” kind of thing. I dunno. Could be fun. Hell, it could be about anything tangentially related to WSU. Not sure, but I’d be game for that!

But for reals, you all are great! Thanks so much for reading! I’ll be back next week covering “Gen12” issues 1 and 2, can’t wait for you all to finally read it!