“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 23 – 24

this entry covers “StormWatch” Volume one issues 23, 23 1/2 and 24, as well as the short story “Defile & Strafe : Homecoming” from “Overstreet Fan” issue 2 which occurs between pages 10 and 11 in issue 24.

We kick off this storyline with Spartan joining the team. While a few have some misgivings about it, he eventually becomes an accepted member of the team. And what a time too, as the team is getting ready to head off to StormWatch’s moon base (MoonWatch? LunaWatch?) to find out where Despot and friends are doing over there. They have pretty much been killing… oh, everybody! Just because StormWatch has shown up these bastards aren’t about to stop that killing either! Look out StormWatch!

Speaking of killing, we all know that it’s coming, that is, of course, Diva biting it. We also see Despot hit Malcolm with the psychic whammy causing Malcolm to turn on StormWatch, probably faster than he would have. Let’s face it, Malcolm has always been bad at running with the right crowd, in and out of StormWatch. But yeah, Diva she is trying to sacrifice herself to give the team the time to get away from the moon base, but that doesn’t happen. With her down Despot threatens the entire team and who steps up to challenge him? Lil Mr. Spartan of course!

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the UN council begs Henry Bendix to come back to StormWatch. He relents before agreeing, but this time it’ll be on his terms. Those terms being that there is no more UN council telling him how to run his team! It’s a big ask, but due to the circumstances, they agree. He’ll answer to the UN but not a bunch of bureaucrats. He has a plan, but it’s a doozy!

With the team all back on board StormWatch, Bendix gives Christine a little ringy ring to tell her what’s up. It goes something like this, “You’re a good Weatherman. Hey, I’m your boss again! And oh yeah, I gotta plan to finish off Despot! Whee! Get everyone off of SkyWatch.” That’s right, the plan is to stick around on SkyWatch just long enough to lure Despot and the WarGaurd (with Doreen & Stricture featuring Malcolm King) and then crash the whole thing into Death Valley because Henry is nothing but poetic in his large scale murder.

It’s a crazy plan… but it works… it actually works! Hellstrike stays behind to be the one that goes down with the ship. Actually, he volunteers for the job remember that he’s survived out in space before and heck, this is already his second lease on life, might as well use it to take out the worst villain he’s ever known. And like I said, it works! Despot and his cronies board, notice Hellstrike is the only one around, they go to rough him up and he sets SkyWatch on its way down! They seemingly kill Hellstrike and then start to panic like little babies.

Meanwhile, back on Earth (hey I got to say that twice in this write-up, rad!) Battalion shows up with Timespan. Time for issue 25 of “StormWatch” volume one to happen… again…

Continuity Corner:

• Spartan expected his consciousness to get uploaded to another body after his current one got destroyed during “WildStorm Rising.” We all know Marlowe has a back-up with him on board the Kheran spaceship and the only other reason I can think that Spartan didn’t upload to any others was that he was out of them. I mean he did burn off 3 back-up bodies during “Spartan : Warrior Spirit” so maybe he was in his last official body and didn’t know it at the time. Luckily Link had his back to fix him up!
• I’d always had the “Homecoming” short story falling in between issues 23 1/2 and 24 until I noticed what Despot told Malcolm on page 7 of issue 24 to remove his StormWatch uniform and find some other attire as he sees the uniform as offensive. Later when the two of them show up again Malcolm is wearing a dark navy blue jump suit. When we look at “Homecoming” we see that’s exactly what Malcolm is wearing. So, while “Homecoming” can narrative fit earlier (like I thought) the art in questions means it has to occur after page 7 of issue 24 and before they reappear on page 16.
• Why exactly should “Homecoming” be read between pages 10 and 11 of issue 24? Well, pages 7 through 10 are detailing Christine’s report to Henry about the team’s escape from the Moon base. Pages 11 – 16 are all part of a scene that narratively would be hard to break up. It’s pretty much the only place to squeeze it in at all!
• Oh, what is “Despot & Strafe: Homecoming” about? It’s a little two-page story of Despot trying to bond a bit with his son, Malcolm. They fly to Earth and go back to Despot’s hometown. Despot monologues and then kills two kids. It’s not much, but it does bring up the question of why didn’t Despot fly off of SkyWatch once it was in crash mode.
• While this all leads to “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 25, I’ve always found it best not to re-read it again. Or if you do, put plenty of time between it and reading issue 26. For real, the recap on page 1 of issue 26 makes you feel foolish for spending time re-reading 25.

NEXT: “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 26 & 27 by H.K. Proger, Jeff Mariotte, Renato Arlem, Ron Lim, Keith Champagne, Rich Faber, Robert Jones, Dan Panosian and John Tighe

“WildStorm Rising” Chapters 8 – 10

this entry covers “WildStorm Rising” Chapters 8 through 10, which includes “Backlash” issue 8, “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 22 and “WildStorm Rising” issue 2

Alright, let’s wrap this crossover up! Slayton gets a call from Diva at StormWatch. He gets into his Backlash gear and meets up with her at Jackson King’s grave. She catches him up on the plot of “WildStorm Rising” and states that someone needs to take down Helspont. So off Slayton goes, solo even, without even thinking much about it. Turns out, it’s trick! A tricky trick! That was actually Mr. White posing as Diva and it’s all part of a plan from Defile to keep Helspont too busy to be nosing around for that Daemonite ship in Nicaragua.

So Slayton is fighting Helspont. Turns out, he’s not as easy to beat the hell out of, like every other weak ass Daemonite that Slayton’s fought. Slayton’s no slouch either, but despite surprising Helspont a few times, Slayton basically gets his ass kicked on Helspont’s submarine and gets left in the drink. Lucky for Slayton he gets saved by StormWatch, who is consisting of StormWatch teams 1 and 2 as well as members of StormWatch Prime. StormWatch just got permission from the U.N. council to try and stop Helspont so they’re going after that jerk as well. Even though Diva is confused at first when Slayton tells her that she asked him to fight Helspont the first time, she takes him along to go and kick Helspont’s booty as part of a team. StormWatch loses that fight. Helspont’s tough, yo!

In the midst of the ill-fated fight against Helspont, Christine is trying to justify going after him to the StormWatch UN Council. None of Council think that the team can take down a mean bastard like Helspont. I mean, they’re not wrong… The Council, in their infinite wisdom, decide to release WarGuard and Despot to deal with Helspont. Because having the WarGuard run free has always worked so well in the past. Despot and the WarGuard immediately fuck right off of SkyWatch saying “Ain’t my fight, bro, laters. Hey, formally frosted fiendish friends, let’s go hang out on the dark side of the moon for a bit. From there we will plot the future demise of StormWatch!”

The StormWatch team isn’t done licking their wounds before they decide they still need to pursue Helspont. Helspont’s in his submarine headed toward Nicaragua, as soon as he gets out to get the lay of the land StormWatch is getting ready to pounce. But what’s that? On the horizon? Is it? Could it be? Yes, it is! The WildC.A.T.s and WetWorks teams along with Cole and Cray! And in the middle of them all, is Savant, Majestic, and Union unearthing the spacecraft. Only, uh-oh, it’s not the Daemonite ship, it’s the Kherubim ship! Whomp whomp.

So now, everybody fights. Well, to be fair, the good guys aren’t fighting each other this time. They’re just taking on the Daemonites. Hightower’s goal is just to get on board the ship and peace out, but he’ll kill anyone to get on it. Defile and Helspont still want the ship to use it to dominate Earth. Spartan is having those same thoughts and boards ship to use its weaponry to help in the fight. Defile shows up to stop Spartan and orders the brainwashed StormWatch Prime members to kill Spartan, then each other. They’re successful in taking down Spartan, but Sunburst starts to kick Defile’s control and Nautika breaks his spine before she comes out of the fog. Meanwhile, Cole kills Hightower, rushes to the ship and lands a hit on Defile. Defile has had enough of this noise and messes with ship’s core and takes off. Whatever he did to that ship has made it so that it’s gonna blow-up. Big time. Right in the middle of our heroes.

Jacob is not having this blood on his hands. He’s going to board that ship to get far enough off planet to save everyone on the ground. Jacob is no dummy, he knows it’ll take a Kherubim Lord’s authority to launch the ship, but he needs some help because he’s lost the rest of his Kherubim technical know how to street livin’ and booze. Zealot is the first to volunteer as she remembers a lot and is the only one who knows how to pilot the ship. After that, all the rest of the WildC.A.T.s opt to get on the ship. The ship takes off, Void promises to teleport everyone off if something goes wrong and they can’t keep the ship from exploding. Then the ship explodes. No WildC.A.T.s members are found teleporting out. Everyone leaves upset except Cole, he’s just upset.

Continuity Corner :

• Spoilers, but the Kherubim ship didn’t explode, it made the jump to hyperspace or whatever. As far as anyone on Earth knows, they’re dead, luckily for us readers, they’re about to go on a pretty rad adventure.
• Helspont has a damn submarine? What is he? Some kind of G.I.Joe villain?
• There’s this moment when Helspont is fighting over the Kherubim ship and he’s all like “Oh, great, here come the half-breeds!” and he’s shown facing Maul, Warblade and Winter. We’ve seen that Helspont can recognize Kherubim ancestry on sight from his battle with Slayton in “Backlash” issue 8. Him recognizing Winter as part Kherubim is a fun easter egg, and one I’m glad didn’t get fully retconned with his intended lineage in the planned and canceled “WildC.A.T.s : Ground Zero” book.
• This is the last we’ll see of Defile, Helspont and Hightower for quite some time. Most immediately some of the WildC.A.T.s will go time traveling and run into the three of them, but seeing as how Hightower’s dead, that’s it for him. Defile pops up here and there not doing too much, but comes back in a big way years down the road in “StormWatch PHD” and then keeps up appearances from then on out in the WSU. I’m pretty sure the next time we see Helspont is when he’s acting like a goofy perv towards Caitlin Fairchild and getting his ass beat by Tao in “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue 50. Then he goes back underground until the ill-fated Lee/Morrison team up in “WildCats” Vol. 4 issue 1.
• StormWatch took the remains of Spartan, which explains why he’s on that team during “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 25.
• Majestic wonders if StormWatch got anything of value from Spartan’s remains, as usually by now Spartan would’ve downloaded into a new body. The only reason I can think he doesn’t is that Jacob has the Spartan backup copy on his person, so it’s out in space with the rest of the original team. Sure, this means there’s two Spartans in the universe now, and it won’t be the last time either.
• StormWatch also took Helspont saying they had the means to imprison him. Majestic doubts this, but we’ll never know because it isn’t long before SkyWatch comes crashing down and I have to assume Helspont escapes.
• Cole stays stuck in Nicaragua, which kicks off his solo title that’ll have him ending up in all sorts of places before getting back to New York pretty much in time for “Fire from Heaven” to start.
• We do get a two-page epilogue to the whole thing, with Savant and Majestic at the Halo Building talking about the end of an era. I have to admit, it is a pretty nice ending, and it doesn’t lead you to think what must come next. I had no idea at the time that “WildC.A.T.s” would even keep going, or that there would be a new team on Earth, or that the original team was alive at all! I appreciate that. It was a pat ending. A rarity! It seems like these big events just chain themselves together and go on and on with fuzzy endings at best these days. I know this makes financial sense, but a true ending like this feels pretty damn great as well as earned!

Where to find these stories:

• the “WildStorm Rising” trade paperback
• Comixology: “Backlash” issue 8

NEXT : “Grifter” Vol. 1 issues 2 through 6 by Steven T. Seagle, Ryan Benjamin, Randy Green, Cedric Nocon, Tom McWeeney, Sal Regla, John Lowe and Norm Rapmund

“WildStorm Rising” Chapters 1 – 4

this entry covers “WildStorm Rising” Chapters 1 through 4, which consists of “WildStorm Rising” issue 1, “WildC.A.T.s : Covert Action Teams” volume 1 issue 20, “Union” volume 2 issue 4 and “Gen13” volume 2 issue 2 as well as the “Grifter : Sneak Peak” story from “Overstreet’s Fan” issue 1, which is best read after “WildC.A.T.s” issue 20

Okay, here we go, let’s get started, here’s what many of the WildStorm titles have been leading to for so long! WildC.A.T.s meet StormWatch. StormWatch meet WildC.A.T.s. Now by the law of comics you must fight! Even if said fight is in a parking lot in downtown Washington D.C. I have to say it’s an interesting choice. It feels more real that an abandoned warehouse. More immediate than an empty section of the city. There are even cops telling the rubberneckers to get back. Maybe it’s me, but stuff like this really brings a lot of reality into the comics.

During the brawl, we have Hightower watching and smiling. He’s glad to see the WildC.A.T.s so preoccupied with fighting StormWatch that they’ve forgotten about him. Now it’s time to for him to slip off to the Smithsonian to take the part of the key/badge that Charles Russell will have on display at his new exhibit. Hightower gets into the museum to talk to Dr. Russell disguised as a guard. After pumping the good doctor about where the key/badge was found he cold-cocks the doc and absconds with the key/badge.

Void shows up all big and badass and basically rescues all of the WildC.A.T.s and gets the hell out of that trashed D.C. parking lot. Before she ports everyone to safety, she creates an image in the sky of the Daemonite key/badge. This gets the attention of one Daemonite High Lord named Defile. He decides that his scheme of pitting the WildC.A.T.s against StormWatch must be suspended, he needs that key/badge! Meanwhile, the WildC.A.Ts arrive back at the Halo building to find Hightower just chillin’ with the key/badge wanting to talk to the team.

It is too bad for Hightower that no one wants to hear him out. The WildC.A.T.s just start wailing on the guy. After he finally gets the team to calm down, by holding Jacob at claw-point, he tells them all about Defile and how he’s the guy they’re after. He also tells the team all about the key/badges and how it is his goal to complete the part of the one he has, snag the other two, find the Daemonite warship and go back to Daemon. He’s got no love for Earth or continuing the war here. He reminds them all of the awesome firepower on the Daemonite ship and persuades them that his are the best hands it could be in, and he’ll just leave, while Defile would just use that kind of power enslave Earth.

Jacob gives Hightower’s words some thought and decides that Hightower is right, it is best that they team up with him. Cole isn’t cool with this. Mostly on account of what Hightower did to him and his pal Lonely back in “WildC.A.T.s Trilogy.” Jacob threatens Cole with being fired and Cole over reacts, backhands Jacob and walks away. Wait, did I say he just walks away? Nah, he was also purposely hateful and a little bit racist towards the rest of the team on his way out. While it’s tough to read, this is completely in character when what we know of Cole. Try to make them hate you on your way out, so they never ask you to come back. Classic tough-guy bravado.

Meanwhile, Savant and Charles have been trying to call the WildC.A.T.s but the team can’t hear the damn phone ring due to all the fighting and yelling. She’s already called in Majestic to help (he’s on his way), but the WildC.A.T.s would provide more of the back-up they may need. Because she can’t get a hold of her sister and pals, she does the next best thing, calling her old pal Christine at StormWatch for help. Christine decides that the best operative to answer Savant’s call for help is Union. Before either of Majestic or Union can get Savant’s location at Charles’s house, Mr. White and a handful of the Mercs bust in a wall and start to interrogate Charles. Before the Mercs and Mr. White can do too much damage on behalf of Defile, Majestic swoops in to save the day. He’s doing a bang-up job of it too before Union shows up and thinks that Majestic is the bad guy and start beating on him.

Fresh from a nap and some booze, Cole gets to thinking about quitin’ the ‘C.A.T.s. He’s still sure he made the right choice, but something is bugging him. He knows he’s seen that missing bit of the key/badge before. It dawns on him that it is back in his Team 7 days, and he remembers Cray taking it when they found it in the jungles of Nicaragua. Cole knows he needs to find Cray, but needs some coffee first. Presumably, after that coffee, Cole takes a short job to make some cash protecting some diamonds. While in a warehouse he’s attacked by a woman named Prayer who’s “holier-than-thou” act isn’t so much of an act, but a way of life. Cole’s employers are less than clean, and Prayer means to steal the diamonds and get them to their rightful owner. Cole’s no slouch. He sees when he can play a grift, you might say. In the end, Cole still has the diamonds and all Prayer got away with was half a sandwich in a fancy case.

Back to the action. The action being Union and Majestic beating on each other. These two just won’t listen, and in their brawl, Mr. White and the Mercs manage to escape. They also cause more property destruction on Charles’ house before knocking out the power to a quarter of D.C. Once they stop to think for a few seconds Savant calls them out on their douchebaggery and lets each of them know they’re all on the same side. Seem he’s got a plan. While everyone is scrambling back and forth looking for the rest of the key/badges they’re going to Nicaragua to find the lost Daemonite ship. Savant has sketchy ideas about the location from Charles, but Savant can find anything, especially with the help of Majestic and sure, I guess Union can tag along too.

Defile is starting to get pissed. There are two halves of one key/badge out there, and another whole key as well. He’s gotten enough information to know that one of the members of Team 7 has the half that Hightower doesn’t have. The problem is, he’s not sure which on holds that key/badge part and sends his minions off to snag it for him. One of his minions is Helmut, an old enemy of John Lynch, who’s ready for revenge, but where is Lynch?

After Defile has discharged all his minions, except his zombie rude boy, a young man comes to him with exactly what he wants, the location of Lynch. It’s Trance, the creepy guy from the nightclub that tried to charm Roxy. He obviously knows the location of Lynch and will trade it to Defile for the secrets of Miles Craven. That’s the deal of the century! Go Trance you skinny slick bastard! That’s kind of badass, especially for you.

Defile contacts Helmut and he’s on his way to ruin the Gen13 girls’ day by the pool. Well, Grunge wasn’t helping make it much better, but Helmut made it so much worse. Everyone is doing their best to hold their own against Helmut, but he’s a tough S.O.B. in his armor. Suddenly Lynch yells to Bobby to set up his guitar and amps. See, Lynch remembers from the first time he encountered Helmut that Helmut is susceptible to sonic vibrations. Bobby gets his gear all set up and starts striking a chord in his Soundgarden t-shirt (R.I.P. Chris Cornell.) This act stuns Helmut enough for Grunge to pop in and hit the release button on Helmut’s armor. Once again Lynch strings Helmut up in a net and takes a photo, this time with his young wards.

That’s where I leave you for now. Cole is on the hunt for Cray. Defile’s thugs are on the hunt for Cole, Cray, Jackson and Slayton. Savant, Majestic and Union are on the hunt for the lost Daemonite ship. And the WildC.A.T.s are on the hunt for… well… we don’t really know right now, but we have a double page spread of them kicking some ass, so we know they’re on the hunt for something!

Continuity Corner :

• When the WildC.A.T.s and StormWatch are fighting each other, Zealot and Winter keep getting matched up against each other. When this was happening did anyone know they were supposed to be mother and son? We know that Winter is Zealot’s son because of “Voodoo / Zealot : Skin Trade” but that was published after “WildStorm Rising”, but there’s no place chronologically for it to take place after “WildStorm Rising.” (Pris is on the team, still training to be a Coda, she gets along with Zealot.) Also, according to an interview in “Wild Times : An Oral History of WildStorm Studios” (go get your copy today!) it’s revealed that Winter was also supposed to not just be the son of Zealot but also of Yon Kohl! Winter was intended to be a full-fledged Kheribum! This was to be revealed in the never released “WildC.A.T.s : Ground Zero.” In the end, going by the comics, we never find out who is Winter’s actual father, and as far as we know, it could’ve ended up being rewritten to have been just a random human. Either way, unknowingly fighting your own Mom, pretty messed up.
• So, Hightower can shape-shift. Is this just a rarity for Daemonites? We have Mr. White, Hightower and Olympia with this talent. One of the things that I always assumed was that Daemonites cannot live on Earth without a host. Maybe the shape-shifty ones can. Or maybe I was wrong about Daemonites needing hosts to live, maybe it’s just been that we’ve seen Daemonites in very bad situations where they need a new host because they’re so hurt like in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 Special issue 1 and “Backlash” issue 6. Oh, also Pris has a bit of shape-shifting going on with her “were-form” ability.
• Hey, why is Void huge and golden when she comes back to D.C. to stop the big battle? Well, according to the writer James Robinson in “Wild Times : An Oral History of WildStorm Studios” (have you seriously not gotten a copy yet?) it is because when the pages got back from Barry Windsor-Smith, Void was just drawn huge. It wasn’t something Robinson asked Barry to draw, Barry just did. Not sure who decided she should be golden, but hey, if she’s going to be so much bigger, why not literally go for the gold as well.
• We get a lot of background on Hightower in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 20. We find out that he was both Genghis Khan and John, King of England. This conflicts as their lifespans overlap each other by quite a bit. Khan is only four years older than John but ended up outliving him by a shade over a decade. Since Hightower can shape-shift, and reading the text literally, we only need Hightower to be acting as John, King of England long enough to get the Magna Carta created, and then have him only pose as Khan to lead Khan’s horde for a time. He needn’t have been either for their full lives. It’s possible he worked with Khan to lead the horde on two fronts, and usurped John late in life for his own ends. Yes, this blog has gotten me to do far more historical research than I ever thought was possible.
• Had Hightower’s goal of getting the ship and getting back Daemon worked, man, he would’ve been in for a rude awakening finding the war over and Daemon lost. Whoops, spoilers…
• We never get the back story on how Christine Trelane and Savant are friends, but they’re apparently old friends. We’ll see Savant encounter StormWatch again in “Savant Garde” issue 6.
• Why put this 2 page “Grifter : Sneak Peak” story in after issue 20 of “WildC.A.T.s?” Well, first off Cole is still on his way to get some coffee and I’d assume he needs some cash as well to track down Cray, so why not just take a small easy job to do just that. Also, the name of this story is “Sneak Peak” and that implies it comes before “Grifter” Vol. 1 issue 1. Also, after “Wild.C.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 20, we see Cole in a bar drinking in “Union” Vol. 2 issue 4. Drinking booze, just after he was just looking coffee. Maybe he had something to soak up all that booze, say, that half a sandwich he ate during “Sneak Peak?”
• The next time we’ll see Prayer is in “Grifter” Vol. 1 issue 7. There’s she’s on the West Coast and seems to have been there for a time. To be fair, there’s plenty of time for her to have crossed the continent and ended up in Los Angeles before Cole runs into her again.
• Eventually we’ll see Lynch face off with Helmut for the first time in “Lynch” issue 1. Also Helmut will be back to terrorize the team in “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue issue 16.
• And that’s the first four chapters of “WildStorm Rising!” I decided to group them by writer, with the first three being by James Robinson. The “Gen13” issue is the oddball that is written by it’s normal team. perhaps leading to it being the least connected to the over all story. Well, neither was “Team 7 : Operation : Hell” issue 1, but that book is even more disconnected. Oh, and that “Grifter : Sneak Peak” that was probably by Steven T. Seagle. But look, there isn’t a single cut away in “Gen13” to any of the other WSU characters like there is in “Union” and “WildC.A.T.s”. Every page of “Gen13” is serving that book and only that book. Even the Defile pages feature Trance!
• For now I’m back to a weekly (Tuesday) schedule due to how much there is to cover each entry, hopefully I can get back to twice a week after the crossover!

Where to find these stories:

• the “WildStorm Rising” trade paperback
• the “James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.s” trade paperback contains both “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 20 and “WildStorm Rising” issue 1

NEXT : “WildStorm Rising” Chapters 5 – 7 (Which consists of “Grifter” Vol. 1 issue 1, “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 16 and “WetWorks” Vol. 1 issue 8) by Steven T. Seagle, Ryan Benjamin, Trevor Scott, Mel Rubi, Tom Raney, Whilce Portacio, Tom McWeeny, Rick Mayar and Scott Williams.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 20 & 21 as well as Special issue 2

this entry covers “StormWatch” volume 1 issues 20 and 21 as well as the backup stories within each book and the “StormWatch” volume 1 Special issue 2. The best reading order would the backup of from issue 20 “Cross Currents” followed by the backup from issue 21 “Tagged” followed by issue 20, then the Special issue 2 and then issue 21. It still works fine if you don’t pull is the backups out though, as long as you keep the Special in between issues 20 and 21. Note: due to a misprint issue 21 read as if it was issue 1 on the cover.

So, let’s start with those two backup stories! Both of which feature parents who abandoned their super powered children. We’re not sure exactly why Undertow’s mom left, but we are left with the mystery of who his mom is, who apparently works on SkyWatch. Both of these stories just cover who Undertow and Pagan are when they show up as new recruits in issue 20.

We then move on to see Nautika and Sunburst talking about taking some time off. This is interrupted by Trelene with a special mission. In fact, this same exact scene will play out in the Special issue as well, proving this poor couple can’t catch a break. In this issue, it leads to the three members of StormWatch Prime picking up Undertow and Pagan, not much else.

The second mission for StormWatch Prime is a bit different. Sunburst and Nautika are interrupted by Trelene to go after Flashpoint because this time he’s killing folks. By folks I mean the Mercs, the ones that imprisoned him and the rest of that team for years. Flashpoint is wise to the fuckery that was done to their minds and wants answers and revenge! He actually does manage to take down Kilgore before being cornered trying to kill Hellslayer.

Flashpoint’s murder spree is stopped by the rest of the Mercs, who are in turn stopped by Sunburst and Nautika. Deathtrap is starting to have misgivings about this whole thing. Yeah, he’s a mercenary, and Defile has paid him well, but seeing what Flashpoint has become, due to some of his actions, isn’t sitting well with him. Before Deathtrap gets out a full confession to Flashpoint, Nautika stops Flashpoint and lets Deathtrap walk. Flashpoint is tossed in StormWatch prison and lectured by Trelene while Defile revels in the fact that two of his pawns, Sunburst and Nautika are still in play.

Might as well mention it here, Malcolm starts talking to his frozen Pop.

Meanwhile, we have Winter, Cannon and Bendix fighting Winter’s personal battle against MAD-1 and his cronies. Three cronies, in fact, that are armed in MAD suits all of their own. Bendix brought his latest iteration of the Think Tank armor and due to some harsh battle, it is starting to fail, meaning this side mission is going sideways.

Eventually, after Bendix’s armor has been roasted he manages to hotwire one of the MAD suits that Cannon and Winter managed to fell. They use this to take down the other MAD units and stage a ruse to get into see the men in charge. Bendix posing as MAD-1 presents his bosses with the “defeated” Winter and Cannon to gain an audience with them. Once inside the Russian compound, filled with hundreds of more MAD suits, the unofficial StormWatch crew take out the evil Russians and then blow up the hell out of the compound.

How the heck could an explosion like that go unnoticed by StormWatch? It doesn’t! Winter is called in by Trelene for a right ass chewing! She’s probably still keyed up from the one she gave Flashpoint. Before she suspends or punishes Winter, Diva bursts in the room saying they’ve found Battalion’s killers, they’ve found the WildC.A.T.s, no time for administrivia, get to D.C. and kick their asses already!

Continuity Corner :

• We have Flashpoint running around trying to kill the Mercs in Special issue 2, but we find out later in issue 35 that he was in on everything with them. I know it resulted from a change in writer and direction for the character, but that’s a pretty big retcon. If he was working for Deathtrap the whole time, then what was up with their final moments alone together before Nautika shows up? It just doesn’t track!
• Special issue 2 starts the long road to Deathtrap tiring of his life of crime. We see a bit of it in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 32 and it will culminate in “WildStorm Spotlight” issue 4.
• We’ll see the results of Defile’s brainwashing of Sunburst and Nautika in “WildStorm Rising.”
• Speaking of, we’re right on the cusp of the first big crossover for the WildStorm books. We just need to get the WildC.A.T.s into place! We just need to find out how they ended up in that rubble in Washington D.C.

Where to find this story:

• Excerpts from “StormWatch” volume one issue 21 are in the “WildStorm Rising” trade paper back.

NEXT : “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 19 by James Robinson, Jim Lee, Richard Bennett, Terry Dodson and Gary Martin.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 18 & 19

this entry covers issues 18 and 19 of “StormWatch” volume 1, as well as the backup stories “Loose Cannon” parts 2 and 3

Right off the bat, we see the StormWatch side of Void rescuing Maul from SkyWatch. I mean, one would think that by looking at the cover. Then again, this is ’90s Image, so maybe I should stress that the cover takes place in the actual comic. This drives the members of StormWatch crazy. The monster that lead to their beloved leader’s (supposed) death has been kidnapped. Fuji is the first one that comes across the data that will lead StormWatch towards the WildC.A.T.s. Oddly, while presenting the information to the rest of the StormWatch teams, SunBurst knows they’re called “the WildC.A.T.s” before Diva tells him. This freaks him out, because he’s not sure how he knows this. Oh, and speaking of going crazy, Maul getting sprung from SkyWatch, drive Malcolm to get mad and go visit his crazy ass pops in the prison/freezer.

You may ask why Diva was giving the team debriefing, and the answer to that question is Christine/Synergy/WeatherMan-One has gone missing. Turns out Argos has kidnapped her yet again and plans to use her to open a dimensional portal again. Once again, he fails. This time Christine gets the best of him on her own and kicks his now very preppy ass. Hey, alternate dimension villains, get with the program like Argos, dude was looking pretty damn sharp! Alright, to be fair, he goes back to his lame robes when he’s getting his ass kicked, but when he’s doing his evil monologuing, he’s got a nice tie and suspenders game going.

On top of all this Winter has found out that M.A.D. 1 is back on the loose! He decides it is time for him to take a leave of absence because he means to take down M.A.D. 1 once and for all. To do this, he goes to the one man who’ll have the info he needs, that man is Henry Bendix. Bendix is well aware of why Winter came to him, not only that, but he suggests that they contact Cannon to join them on this personal mission.

Where’s Cannon? Well, since he quit the team he’s just been kicking bad guy ass. He longs to see the world in black and white. Bad folks need a beating, good folks need protecting. So, while taking down a research facility on one of Gamorra’s islands, he comes to a real crossroads. Sure, it was easy to take out the guards at this place, also to take out the gross as hell Gammorian scientist doing experiments on live people. But when one of the experimented on girls begs Cannon to put her out of her misery, he can’t. He just can’t. He’s not about to pull a gun on someone who isn’t a “bad guy” even if they are begging for it. He just walks away, and I get the feeling whether he pulled the trigger on that girl or not, he was going to walk away with the same sense of guilt. For Cannon, there was not “right thing to do” in this situation. The boy needs direction, lucky for him, Winter and Bendix will be there soon.

Continuity Corner :

• SunBurst knows about the WildC.A.T.s because he’s practically the only one that’s been susceptible to Defile’s brainwashing. He probably has a vague memory of the files he sent to Defile back in “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 13.
• When Winter goes to visit Bendix, we see him going over a bunch of information he has at his disposal. This includes pretty much everything that’s been going on in “StormWatch” and “WildC.A.T.s” these past few issues. Heck, it might’ve been him that gave Void the info on Maul’s location in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 17.
• Also, on Bendix’s visual display we see he has not only current SkyWatch info but also files from I/O. He’s trying to put things together and knows a shapeshifting Daemonite was involved in this whole mess. He wonders if there’s a correlation with known Daemonite shapeshifter Hightower. He’s even found out that Hightower is in the Washington D.C. area under an assumed name. Bendix, you sneaky bastard! We’ll see more of Hightower in D.C. in issue 19 of “WildC.A.Ts” Vol. 1 getting even more set up for “WildStorm Rising!”

NEXT : “Warblade : Endangered Species” issues 1 – 4 by Steven Seagal, Scott Clark, Sal Rega and half the WildStorm inking department.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 15 – 17

this entry covers the main stories in “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 15 through 17, including the backup story “Loose Cannon : Part 1″ in issue 17

Alright, here’s how it all comes down, Battalion’s death, step one in StormWatch and the WildC.A.T.s turned against each other and Defile getting pretty proud of himself. Seriously, I wish there was a lot more to say about these three issues, but that’s basically it. Either that or I’m off my game after missing last week’s entry due to severe drunkenness (I’m of Irish, Scottish and German descent, we’re also Roman Catholic, and it was a family wedding, held in Denver, Colorado, with the reception at a brewery, you try to tell me how I was supposed to escape that weekend sober!)

Ok, we have Defile siccing a huge purple monster, with a time bomb strapped to him on Hawai’i. The intent is to reactivate the Mauna Loa volcano, which not only will wipe out the Big Island but will also mess up the other Hawai’ian islands, as well as the honeymoon plans of several young couples. This cannot stand! And because it is a big purple monster, the only team to call is StormWatch.

What I like about the away team here, is it is pretty much “StormWatch Classic” plus a few. We have Battalion, Diva, Fuji, Winter and Hellstrike all together on a mission again, the first since issue 6 I believe. We also have Fahrenheit, Cannon and Strafe along for the ride. So yeah, they’re fighting this big purple monster, with horns on his back… wait, these character traits seem awfully familiar… Battalion eventually rips the bomb off the monster, and the monster passes out. He then protects himself in one of his psychically projected bubbles, says the bad ass line of “Tell Malcolm I love him” and the bomb explodes in the bubble only killing him and sparing the volcano.

Oh yeah, and Timespan shows up to watch this apparent suicide. He also ends up pissing off Diva, because he’s only really there to stall her and prevent her from doing anything to alter Battalion from blowing himself the damn up. Timespan then teleports back to shortly after the 3rd Crusade and the Traveler shows up and they fight. He manages to escape in time again. It says he’s in “New York City, four months ago” but I’m not sure if that’s a reference to his first appearance or just to another time that he hung out to heal before he first confronted Battalion.

During the fall out of Battalion’s death, we see the team in disarray. Strafe is acting out until his mama sets him straight. Cannon is getting to be a big baby again because his girlfriend got the job he wanted, which leads him to quit StormWatch altogether. And Diva and Christine are having a hard time dealing with it all together. Eventually, there’s a funeral and even Henry Bendix shows up. But the big reveal is after the funeral when we see Argos show up to the grave and act all super villain like.

Continuity Corner:

• The big purple monster? Yeah, that’s Maul from WildC.A.T.s. Defile made him look a bit different, but not too much. He’s still big, purple and has horns on his back. This is why Mr. White was posing as Maul in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 15 and 16. Defile is just sowing the seeds to make sure the two teams hate each other. Having a member of one team inadvertently kill the beloved leader of the other team would do it!
• The Traveler’s name is Nadia? In “Gen13” issue 1/2 (“Backlist” trade version) she says her name was Loran. Wait, are there two “The Travelers?” To be fair, when Loran shows up she does say she’s only a traveler, so maybe there are several Travelers out to stop Timespan.
• Why call StormWatch about this huge purple monster? Well, I’ll admit, this is something that works better once the WildStorm Universe is taken out of the greater Image Universe because the WSU does not have a lot of traditional superheroes. The WildC.A.T.s by their very definition are covert, as are WetWorks, the Gen13 kids are on the lam, Union works for StormWatch on an as needed basis, Mr. Magestic hasn’t officially come out of retirement yet, and Deathblow is a freelancer who doesn’t have any powers that would be of any use anyway. If we want to look ahead in the WSU timeline we’ll know that the $trangers were broken up by this time, and Planetary, while existing, are super underground, and don’t often take active missions anyway.
• If we look at this situation as part of the larger Image Universe at the time it really gets you scratching your head, because where was Youngblood? They work for the U.S. Government, Hawai’i is U.S. soil. Or even Supreme, he’s a Superman type, and unlike Majestic, he’s active. This is why I really don’t get into the cross-overs w/ the Extreme books, they bring up a lot more questions than they can answer. At least with Cyber Force they are also an underground/off the radar kind of team and Freak Force seems to stick around in Chicago for the most part.
• After the 2006 reboot there’s a ton of superheroes retconned into the WSU that’ve been active since the ’50s, but as of right now, StormWatch are the only real public “super heroes” in the WSU.
• Also, spoiler, Battalion will be back…

Where to find this story:

• Excerpts from “StormWatch” volume one issue 16 are in the “WildStorm Rising” trade paper back.

NEXT: “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 17 by James Robinson, Travis Charest and Troy Hubbs

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 11 – 14

this entry covers “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 11 through 14.

Alright, right back into “StormWatch!” We have a couple arcs going on. We have Henry Bendix in trouble with his bosses, Winter facing an old foe, Cannon and Flashpoint becoming bigger and bigger assholes, Hellstrike starting to feel better and Defile laying more groundwork for his master plan. There’s kind of a lot going on, and it is all pushing towards issue 25 and the upcoming “WildStorm Rising” cross over.

We start off this batch of issues with StormWatch kicking some ass in Siberia, helping the Russians against a rebel insurgent group. Jackson asks permission to evacuate the base where everything is going down and then blow it up. Bendix is all “no can do buckaroo, get your ass back to space.” What the rebels were after, and what an issue later they activate is M.A.D. 1, an old USSR super-cyborg, who has a past with Winter.

Before we get to that, we need to address why StormWatch got pulled out of the mission early. Turns out it took this long for StormWatch’s bosses at the U.N. to get pissed over what went down in Gamorra, oh so long ago. The U.N. council wants to get rid of Jackson altogether, but Bendix takes one for the team and gets fired over it.

Meanwhile, we have Mr. Coma Pants Hellstrike starting to actually do something for the first time in six issues. The problem is, said “thing” is the uncontrollable explosion of SkyWatch. In a nice use of flashback, we get to know a bit of Fuji’s backstory, and how he manages his superpower. Fuji discovers that it has a lot in common with what Hellstrike is going through, and he finds a way to save him. It’s nice to give these two characters something to bond over. We still don’t have a good personality for Hellstrike yet, he’s still a bit one-note, but his look is getting a little less generic.

Speaking of underdeveloped characters, I need to bring up Cannon and Flashpoint. These guys are just dicks, acting like dicks. With Cannon, you can kind of see why, as when things don’t go his way he acts like a dick, acting like a dick gets him in trouble, getting in trouble makes more things not go his way, when things don’t go his way he acts like a dick and the cycle continues. Flashpoint, on the other hand, is just a jackass who hates Jackson. Later on, we’ll get to know a bit more about these guys and I’ll personally soften on Cannon, but Flashpoint will forever be a jerkface to me. Oh, yeah, they both take Malcolm out to a strip joint and he figures out real quick to leave these two losers behind.

Ok, back to work! The team is back in Siberia and this time they actually encounter M.A.D. 1. Bad news for StormWatch, M.A.D. 1 is really good and beating them the hell up! He wants to go and blow up Moscow, and the U.N. just can’t allow that. Winter, for the love of his homeland, really goes to town on M.A.D. 1! Winter’s power is to absorb energy, contain it, then expel it. You know, kinda like Sunbursts… but.. uh… cold based. Anyway, I’m just letting you know all this because after Winter gets done with his initial fight with M.A.D. 1, M.A.D. 1 sets several nuclear rockets to fly off and blow stuff up and Winter absorbs them all. He’s one badass Russian!

That basically takes care of issues 11 through 13. Issue 14 is kind of a “one shot” dealing with Christine growing into her new role as Weather Man-One. We see Jackson take a day off, then sneak back onto SkyWatch and attempt to kill his father Despot in the freezer lock-up. We also see Cannon and Diva still in love, despite them getting in a huge fight on a mission in Rwanda. The biggest revelation is on the last 2 pages of this issue with the reveal of Mr. White, a shapeshifting Daemonite, under the employee of Defile. What’s he doing? Oh, just taking on the forms of various WildC.A.T.s members!

Continuity Corner:

• Henry Bendix takes the blame for the actions of Jackson in “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 6 & 7 and their adventures on Gamorra. With him out of the way, Christine gets the promotion to Weather Man-One as we knew she would by issue 25.
• At one point we see Sunburst accessing some files from the StormWatch database. The files are sent to Defile and are of the WildC.A.T.s whom StormWatch started watching after the events of issues 6 & 7 of Vol. 1 of “StormWatch”
• Even though he takes a hell of a beating, M.A.D. 1 will be back in a few issues and we’ll find out his actual motivation, besides just wanting to kick the snot out of Winter and his new pals.
• Mr. White isn’t named at all in his first appearance in issue 14. Defile mentions that he has the shapeshifting talent, but that’s about it. I’ll have to keep an eye out for when he’s finally named.
• After stating in the write up for “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 25 that I don’t think we ever see Doreen again, I’m proven wrong when she appears and is name-checked in the cold storage prison on SkyWatch in issue 14.
• If there was anything pertinent to place between issues 13 and 14 I would, but due to other factors, I really can’t. Maybe a couple issues of “Deathblow” could fit in but “WildC.A.T.s, ” “Backlash” and “Union” depend on how things are playing out right now in “StormWatch.”
• Defile sure does talk about how much he wants to take down the WildC.A.T.s an awful lot for a guy who is mainly appearing in “StormWatch” and getting referenced in “Backlash” most of the time.

Where to read these stories:

• Comixology: “StormWatch” vol. 1 issues 11 & 12

NEXT: “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 15 – 16 by James Robinson, Travis Charest and Troy Hubbs.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 10

this entry covers “StormWatch” volume one, issue ten.

Before we get started I’d like to bring all of your attention to three things WildStorm related. First, the KickStarter for a book all about WildStorm Studios called “Wild Times“. If you’re into WildStorm at all, back this! Second, we now have a “sister site”! Reader Martin has started his look at how the WildStorm characters were retrofitted into the DCU with New 52. It’s obviously named New 52’s WildStorm and well worth a look. And lastly, the blog Crushing Krisis did a month long feature on early WildStorm books and while it covers the same issues I’m covering now, he takes a different angle. Also, take a quick look at that WildStorm Chronology: WildStorm Rising section, there’s been a wee bit of restructuring to match up with some hard dates in the texts of “Gen13” Vol. 1, this issue of “StormWatch” and an issue of “WetWorks.” I assure you, it all still works! But it is one of the reasons I’m only covering this single issue rather than the five I had planned.

Ok, so this issue is just a pretty simple one-shot type issue. It is mostly dealing with Jackson coming to terms with his future, or rather, lack there of.  Jackson has to lead the StormWatch team on a mission to Japan to capture Talos before he can get his hands on some serious hardware. Nothing is easy for the StormWatch crew because as it turns out, Japan doesn’t want StormWatch there, they never requested the U.N.’s support.

Jackson and company reject the notion that the Japanese can handle it, because, well, it’s goddamn Talos and buncha robot samurai and they’ll royally eff the place up while the Japanese keep throwing normal soldier after normal soldier after them. The whole StormWatch crew pretty much says “Screwa youse, buddy, we’ll save your asses whether you want us to or not,” as they each use their unique abilities to take down Talos and Co. Jackson gets downright suicidal as he knows he’s not much longer for this world, and as he says “We all have to die someday.”

Like I said, it’s a simply structured story, but it really gets into Jackson’s head. How he thinks about his impending death. How he views his life. What he thinks of his co-workers. Not to mention that this book is frickin’ gorgeous! I know that Mat Broome takes over soon, and he draws really pretty too, but damn does Dwayne Turner’s art look fabulous here!

Continuity Corner:

• Without being too obvious a lot of this book is setting in motion the events of issue 25 of “StormWatch” Vol. 1. The biggest being getting Talos back aboard Sky-Watch One so that he can escape during the crash.
• The StormWatch team defies what the local authorities want in regards to help with Talos, and this too will have implications very soon, that also lead to some of the changes we see in issue 25.
• Jackson is writing his report or journal, or what have you, and it is dated 6/15/1994, which puts it shortly after the events of “Gen13” Vol. 1 which started in May of 1994. I’m pretty confident that that story played itself out over a matter of a few weeks at most.

Where to find this story:

• Comixology: “StormWatch” vol. 1 issue 10

NEXT : “Savage Dragon” Vol. 2 issue 13 by Jim Lee, Brandon Choi and Scott Williams

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 Special issue 1

this entry cover both stories, “Never Give Up” and “the Music Lesson” from “StormWatch” Vol. 1 Special issue 1.

This issue opens w/ the Jackson King in the “we’re-not-calling-it-a-Danger-Room” battling automated opponents AKA auto-ops that look very familiar. Ok, it’s the WildC.A.T.s. He soon gets interrupted by Weather Man-One for a mission. Turns out StormWatch crew members keep going missing on the moon, and Weather Man needs StormWatch One to get their asses over there to find out what’s up. Jackson doesn’t seem interested until he’s told that Christine is one of the missing StormWatch personnel.

The usual team is formed, Jackson, Diva, Hellstrike, Winter and Fuji, despite Jackson wanting to tackle this one alone. As soon as the team gets there they find a dead StormWatch jobber and an odd archway. Hellstrike teases Jackson for being in lurve with Christine and is told to stuff it while the team walks through the archway to be transported to… another planet? another universe? it isn’t clear other than it is someplace else, and totally not the moon!

What they instantly find is two super powered beings named Ajah and Argos fighting. Ajah requests the aide of the new arrivals and StormWatch goes after Argos and his minions. It doesn’t take long before Argos turns tail and runs. Turns out, Argos came for Ajah to make her his latest concubine, and too bad for him, she’s a single independent woman who don’t need no man. Or at least not a crazy one like Argos, because she takes a real shine to Jackson. So much of a shine that after a royal dinner, because she’s part of the royal family, duh, that she comes on pretty strong to Mr. King. I’m not sure, but I think it’s implied that they totally do it.

Next day, it is time take the battle to Argos, because, as rumor would have it, he had another back-up concubine plan if it didn’t work out with Ajah. Put two and two together and it’s obviously Christine. StormWatch fights strong, gets to Christine, frees her and then aren’t sure what to do. At this point Christine lets them know that Argos built his own portal archway. Oh, dammit, I forgot to tell you that that klutz Fuji busted the original portal archway, just like Jackson forgot his kinda sorta girlfriend chained up in an alien prison while he hooked up with a space princess.

Once they get to the portal archway Jackson informs the team he isn’t going with them. Turns out, he’s totally all about Ajah now, despite really not seeming to “like like” her prior. Here’s where Argos gets the jump on the team and attacks Ajah. He also calls her “my sister!” as he shoves his hand through her torso. Uh… he wanted his sister as his concubine? Well, they are royalty, inbreeding and all that I guess. At any rate, Argos runs through the archway and transports to the moon, StormWatch follows, Argos tricks Jackson into blowing up the archway on the moon and disappears, an unhappy StormWatch heads back to SkyWatch.

In the back-ups story we find out the secret origin of Diva, during a date to the opera with Cannon. It’s a tragic tale where during her first singing lesson, her seedling power kicks in, and it breaks all the glass in the joint, including her singing instructors glasses, blinding him. This memory is brought up due to Diva and Cannon running into this now elderly blind man at said opera. It is indeed upsetting and Diva runs off. Cannon follows after her, and in one of the few instances for the character, acts like a decent human being, comforting his distraught girlfriend. In the end does a bit more to humanize Cannon than it does Diva, but it helps us know where she came from.

Continuity Corner:

• It’s a slight continuity error that Jackson is battling auto-op versions of the WildC.A.T.s in the opening this issue, only because of a cameo of Weather Man-One during “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 7. This is where StormWatch finds out about the WildC.A.T.s and he mentions that StormWatch should upload what they just learned about to their auto-ops program for future combat training. That issue of “WildC.A.T.s” is happening during the “Killer Instinct” cross-over, which is happening at the exact same time as “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 6 & 7. But wait, before you say “Fine, put it after issue 6,” well, you can’t, because at the end of issue 7 we have Deathtrap royally effs up Hellstrike, and Hellstrike remains in intensive care for several issues before looking completely different than before. By the time Hellstrike is active again there would be even more continuity errors than if we place the first “StormWatch” Special before issue 6.
• An archway portal on the moon to a different world/universe?  Good thing it got destroyed, that way there couldn’t be any more shenanigans on the moon during the protracted end of “Fire from Heaven.”
• Argos was only seen once after this, and Ajah and the rest of her family were never seen again. When we see Argos he is visiting Jackson’s grave after he dies, prior to the events of “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 25.
• In the back-up story we see Diva’s sonic scream first manifest. She’s pretty young, younger looking than Malcolm and we were lead to believe Christine activated him sooner than most seedlings. Do all seedlings eventually manifest on their own with out an activator, or will the powers eventually out themselves over time? I’m afraid we’ll never get a straight answer to this one.

Next: “StormWatch : Deadly Tidings” and “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 6 – 7 by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee and Scott Clark.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 9 and 25

this entry cover “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 9 and issue 25

I originally had these much later in the timeline… then, when reading “Deathblow” I realized my mistake, so these two move up! Originally I was trying to preserve the narrative of Timespan on the run from Nadia, but, uh, they go around in time, so that was kind of silly of me. Stories involving time traveling characters work differently. So instead of reading this after “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue ½, and meeting Nadia as she curses losing Timespan, I know, complicated, but it makes more sense this way (the correct way) for the main storyline for the WildStorm Universe that what I had previously posted/though. Thankfully not too much actual time travel goes on in the WSU, just Timespan, Nadia and the WildC.A.T.s that one time… all of which impact very little as far as contradictions go, so good going WSU! Doing time travel stories pretty much right! Alright, got that? This issue opens with us seeing Timespan just after he used a “triple shift” landing in the present day. He seems to be pretty pleased with himself for out “running” Nadia.

Suddenly we are joining a StormWatch mission already in progress and things are going wrong. StormWatch Prime is there, and it seems StormWatch One has turned traitor on them. Wait… it’s all just a dream from StormWatch Prime member Sunburst. Dream? More like crazy nightmare! StormWatch Prime hasn’t done much since being rescued from Deathtrap on Gammora. They’ve just been resting up on SkyWatch One while WeatherMan One and Synergy watch and wait to see if they’re ready to be active again. Well, wouldn’t you know it, a big enough problem comes along, with multiple terrorists hitting multiple locations, threatening to blow up places of international importance, and StormWatch doesn’t have enough members to go around and just HAS to activate StormWatch Prime to help out in Rome.

The mission goes on pretty normally, but these terrorists are really giving Rome a beating. Suddenly a bomb is brought out, and it is the same as the bomb in Sunburst’s dream! Oh no! He’s even more freaked out when Battalion shows up, having completed his mission early, and wants Sunburst to turn over that bomb. Sunburst, still spooked from his dream, doesn’t trust Battalion and flies up into the air to let the bomb explode all around him. He absorbs the energy of the explosion and then channels it straight up and away from the city. He feels better about himself that he took care of the issue on his own, and gets some self-confidence back. Not so fast Burster Brown, turns out all of this, the nightmare, the terrorist attacks, the coincidental bomb, it was all a plot by Lord Defile! Turns out when StormWatch Prime was captured, it was Defile who was paying Deathtrap to keep them hostage and break down their will. I guess so that they could serve Defile, but Sunburst was bending while in captivity, so Defile invaded his dreams… why didn’t he go with Plan B in the first place? He then set up the terrorist attacks to get StormWatch to put his puppets StormWatch Prime back in action.

After the mission Battalion is just looking for some rest by himself when Timespan pops up and kidnaps him into the future. The future is in Death Valley, California, and it is a problem. Within minutes of being there, Battalion sees SkyWatch One crashing to the ground. Battalion, ever the hero, dashes forward to see what he can do to help in this situation before he’s even done yelling at Timespan for ambushing him. What he sees he cannot believe. It’s a slightly different StormWatch team, and they’re just as confused about him being there are he is.

The biggest change is that we see two new members to the team, Fiend and Undertow. We also see that Synergy has become the new WeatherMan. While it takes the team a few beats to realize that yes, somehow, this is the Battalion you know, love and miss, now is not a time for celebration. Mainly because they’re on the run from the WarGuard, Despot and they can’t find their leader. And who is this leader? None other than Spartan of the WildC.A.T.s! “What the huh? Frickin’ awesome!” Well, that’s what my reaction as a teenager, and it’s pretty much the same here. My mind filled up with so many questions, just as the book’s creative team had intended, it worked on me, big time! This was the coolest idea ever, and man, they were throwing out some big crazy changes just a few pages in! WOAH! “StormWatch” certainly is going to be a heck of a ride to get to this point!

But the big reveals just keep coming! Despot is Battalion’s father, whom we saw as a member of Team One. He went totally nuts and is bent on taking down StormWatch. Malcolm sides with his father on the issue, but during the fight, he turns to Battalion and stutters out “D-D-D-Don’t join h-h-him!” and Timespan was all “I don’t remember this happening.” Now, I’m not sure what to make of this. Has Timespan been there before observing? Is Timespan present in another way, as in, is he hiding in the shadows or a future version of one of the team? I’m not sure this is ever answered, I guess I’ll keep this on my mind as I keep reading. After the warning, Malcolm has a personality shift and starts beating on Battalion.

Turns out Malcolm was being controlled by Despot. This is a thing he likes to do. He even likes to do the puppeting with the corpse of Diva. It’s gross. Then he rips Diva apart. It’s grosser. Then Battalion goes all Care Bears and tries to defeat his crazy dad with the power of love. Before he can fail, Timespan sends Battalion back to his own time while Despot screams in his face. With the rest of StormWatch still in battle with the WarGuard, Despot pulls a Thanos and starts to kill everyone in the universe, and we see people starting to fall over dead on city sidewalks. Ok, not really pulling a Thanos, he isn’t trying to impress a chick, he just finds it easier to puppet dead folks, that’s all. Suddenly Despot is struck from behind by an unknown attacker and is told: “You may have beaten Battalion, but you don’t stand a chance against me, old man!” And we are told that the issue #26 won’t be out until over a year from now!

 

Continuity Corner:

• • The semi-destroyed Rome will be mentioned in “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 6 which officially puts it after “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 9.
  • Why did StormWatch Prime have to go to Rome in the first place, did someone give the Centurions, Protectors of Rome the day off? (See “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue 6 for more details)
  • Hey, this is the first time we actually see Defile and his be-suited zombie side-kick, neat!
  • When we get to “WildStorm Rising” we’ll see Defile’s plan for StormWatch Prime pay off. Hell, “WildStorm Rising” is the explanation for many of the new developments that we see in “StormWatch” Vol. 1 #25.
  • Also, the WarGuard are joined by Stricture (the snake monster) who we’ll see a few more times, but won’t learn much more about, and a girl named Doreen. I don’t think we see any more about Doreen at all outside of this issue. I mean, with a name like Doreen it’s hard to see how she fell through the cracks.
  • Never will another artist draw Fiend as we see him here, he’ll never look like that at all. In fact, it is off-putting to see this version of the character if you read issue 25 after reading the issues leading up to it. Also, other than this issue, Fiend is known as Pagan. 
  • Speaking of when to read this book, you totally need to read it after “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 9, because it is really anticlimactic to read it right before “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 26. Trust me, I did that once… not a good idea.
  • Frankly, I don’t mind leaving you hanging before we pick up with the “StormWatch” book again because the book itself just left you with a long ass cliffhanger with the “Who shot Despot?” mystery.
  • If I remember correctly, “StormWatch” was the only title, out of the 4 comics that participated in the “Images of Tomorrow” gimmick that actually reached their 25th issue when they were supposed to, or at all. In case you didn’t know, different Image titles skipped to the future to see what their 25th issue would be as part of “Images of Tomorrow.” “Bloodstrike” petered out at issue 22, although when the series got rebooted they started at issue 26, so that’s kinda funny. “Brigade” also only made it to issue 22. While “Supreme” officially made it to issue 25, to do that they started doing two issues a month, so just in case they fell behind a bit they’d still hit it on time, they over did it, and wound up having what was to be an issue for July 1995, coming out in February of that year. Not to say that “StormWatch” didn’t employ a bit of padding to make sure to hit issue 25 on time and make sure the story was in the right place, I mean, that’s where “StormWatch” Special issue 2 and “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 23 ½ come from! Also, the more I think about it, the more I’m curious why “StormWatch” was a part of this event, all the others are Extreme Studios books, and we didn’t see any books from McFarlane, Highbrow, ShadowLine or Top Cow join in, so why the lone WildStorm book?
    

Where to find these stories:

• Comixology: “StormWatch” vol. 1 issue 9

Next: “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issues 5 through 12 by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee and Tim Sale