“DV8” vol. 1 issues 1/2 and 5

This entry covers the “DV8” issues 1/2 and 5  by Warren Ellis, JJ Kirby, Humberto Ramos, Randy Elliot, Dexter Vines, Saleem Crawford, Sal Reglas, and Wendy Fouts.

Our first story concerns the DV8 kids sitting around telling the grossest things they’ve ever experienced. Whoever has the least gross story has to drink an unholy concoction of various liquids from about the penthouse. This “half” issue is more a less an excuse from some gross out humor from Frostbite, Sublime, Evo, Powerhaus, and Copycat. Each story escalates until we get to Copycat, and before she can think of one Sideways Bob pops in to see what the game is about. And if it is gross stories you want, Bob has them for days. He tells so many the kids eventually beg him to stop. To that Bob declares that he is the winner, and that the winner makes a new rule. His rule is that all 5 of the kids have to split the bowl full of gross liquid at the center of the table as Sideways Bob hands out straws to the DV8 kids.

In issue 5 we have all the kids, including Threshold and Bliss on a mission to steal some teleportation device from some Japanese inventors. The Japanese firm was supposed to create new this “teleplate” for StormWatch, but their new invention also created what amounted to “free energy” which is why they probably won’t hand it over to StormWatch. It’s also why Ivanna wants it.

The kids break in and Threshold is going… well, kill-crazy, but that’s pretty normal for him. As the rest of the DV8 kids are defending themselves and getting a few shots in Copycat vanishes. Turns out that Copycat stepped on a teleplate and no one is sure where she went. That fact doesn’t matter to Threshold, he’s found a teleplate, that’s the mission, time to go home. This, of course, does not wash with the rest of the kids.

Where is Copycat? She’s seeing herself in an endless white void. In case you forgot, Copycat has several different personalities that rattle around in her head. They are all conversing amongst each other trying to find their escape.

Outside the void tensions are rising w/ everyone against Threshold’s idea for leaving Copycat behind. A fight breaks out, and ultimately Powerhaus kicks Threshold’s ass! He then reaches out using his power to absorb emotion, looking for a direction that Copycat may be in.

Powerhaus locates Copycats body hooked up to a bunch of machines in a small room. Turns out the white void is nothing more than a type of virtual reality, acting as a sort of prison for trespassers. As she comes to she is not as thankful as Powerhaus would’ve thought. Turns out, all that time in the void was getting her multiple personalities to integrate! She surmises that it wouldn’t’ve been much longer for full integration and now that’s something that Powerhaus and rest have stolen from her. She really starts to go crazy beating on Powerhaus until Sublime wacks her in the back of the head knocking Copycat out. Sublime is sick of it, she says if Ivana wants the teleplate she can come back for it herself, and as for the rest of the team, you’re all on your own, we won’t look after each other any longer.

Continuity Corner

• The “Half” issue fit perfect here, because the kids were all “let’s be friends” after issue 4, and then by 5 they were all “screw that friends nonsense” by issue’s end. So it’s the best logical placement. (It’s also when it was published, but that’s never been too reliable as far as these kinds of things go)

NEXT: “Backlash” issues 21 – 23 by Sean Ruffner, Brett Booth, JJ Kirby, John Tighe, Saleem Crawford, Mark Irwin, Martin Jimenez, Tad Ehrlich,  and George Davis

Where to Find These Stories

• the “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” trade paper back contains both stories
• Comixology: “DV8” issue 5
• Comixology: “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” collection

“DV8” Vol. 1 issue 3 & 4

This entry covers “DV8” volume one issues 3 and 4 by Warren Ellis, Michael Lopez, Humberto Ramos, Troy Hubbs, Sal Regla, and Wendy Fouts

It’s a “Boy’s Night Out” for Evo and Frostbite. Both were pretty bored staying in the penthouse, not to mention kinda creeped out by Sideways Bob making out with Lucille that they leave and see what the neighborhood has to offer.  Turns out it’s a lot, but none of it good! There’s street justice, rampant drug use, and a drive-by shooting. Not only that but there’s a girl named Memorie.

Memorie is leading Evo and Frostbite around, shortly after the boys are shot at. She keeps talking, doing drugs, and leading the boys from one messed up situation to the next, but something just not right about her. Evo is even having trouble getting a scent from her. After getting into a scrap with the local toughs an old woman calls for help and Evo and Frostbite oblige. Turns out the woman’s daughter has passed out due to an OD. Evo and Frostbite break into her room and revive her, because, as Frostbite says, “I am sick of people dying!” Yep, that girl is Memorie, who said she dreamed she was talking to Evo and Frostbite.

Meeting strange girls doesn’t always turn out so well. Take Powerhaus in our next story. Boy meets girl. Boy is convinced to go home with girl. Girl works for the CIA and this was all a set up to capture boy. Tale as old as time. Luckily Sideways Bob has a tracker that can read pain on each of the kids and sees that Powerhaus’s is going off and he’s nearing death. Evo, Frostbite, and Sublime decide, against Ivana’s objections, that they need to go save him, mostly in the spirit of friendship and team solidarity, but possibly to piss off Ivana. Bliss opts out because she realizes that she isn’t quite like the rest of the team and their connection, while Copycat joins the other kids, she feels much the same way as Bliss.

Speaking of girl trouble, the reason Threshold isn’t with the group is that he’s recovering from the Gen-Factor booster shot Ivana gave him. He’s currently drugged up out of his mind. Threshold is both deeply in love with and fearful of Ivana. With good reason, while in his drugged up fugue state it seems to be implied that Ivana was the person who killed his mother!

Back at the CIA compound, Sublime, Frostbite, and Evo bust through the doors, walls, and roof to free Powerhaus. They quickly realize that they are up against the CIA, and that the CIA are pissed off and are seeking retaliations for when the kids stole that little alien back in issue 1. While punching out the men in suits, the gal that lured Powerhaus in the first place makes a bolt for the exit, too busy none of the others can help. But here’s where Copycat steps up, because seeing how the other three went to the mat for Powerhaus, she can see herself trusting the others and becoming friends.

With all members of the CIA team knocked out, the others are like “Duh Copycat! We’re pals!” because ultimately if those 5 don’t have each other’s backs, who can they rely on? Bliss? Threshold? Sideways Bob? Ivanna? Fat chance!

CONTINUITY CORNER

• We’re seeing Evo watch a TV report about the plane crash that we just saw StormWatch Prime deal with in “StormWatch” volume one issue 40, showing that “DV8” issue 3 is happening at roughly the same time, or shortly thereafter.
• Here we start seeing Frostbite doubt working for Ivanna, he’s not totally cool with all the killing they’ve been doing lately. It’s going to be a long slow road before he gets free.
• Memorie being able to interact in the real world while ODing seems like a very odd thing, especially when we don’t know her to have any powers. In the next issue we have the CIA chick seducing Powerhaus with a the promise of trying a new Gamorrian drug. Is this what Memorie took? The side-effects seem like something that could come out of a lab in Gamorra. Then again, lil miss CIA could’ve been bull-shitting about the drug…
• The art in Threshold’s hallucination appears to depict Ivana, or at least a woman, killing Stephan Callahan, but we know from “Gen13” volume one issue 1 that Frank Colby was the triggerman. Chalk it up to drugged out and messed up visions. 

NEXT: “Gen13 : Interactive” issues 1 – 3 by Mike Heisler, Jason Johnson, Edwin Rosell, and JD.

Where to Find These Stories

• the “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” trade paper back
• Comixology: “DV8” issues 3 and 4
• Comixology: “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” collection

“DV8” issues 1 & 2

This entry covers “DV8” issues 1 and 2 by Warren Ellis, Humberto Ramos, Sal Regla, Troy Hubbs, and Peter Gazman

Alright, time to catch up with Ivana’s reprobates from Project Genesis. It’s the DV8 kids and they’re really not as bad as we’ve been lead to believe from previous comics. In fact, most of them could be pretty stand up folks if it wasn’t for who’s in charge of them, that being Ivana, Threshold and to a lesser extent Bliss. And adding to the cast of unstable, unreliable, and inadequate guardians we’re introduced to Sideways Bob, a former I/O agent who is kinda nuts and doesn’t mind working for Ivana. He also has a mannequin head named Lucille for a girlfriend.  While the DV8 kids aren’t too sure about him, it’s always good to have more muscle protecting them around.

OK, who are the DV8 kids AKA the Deviants? We have Leon AKA Frostbite who can control heat, Rachel AKA Sublime who can control her personal density, Hector AKA Powerhaus who can amass muscle and strength based on surrounding emotion, Michael AKA Evo who can change into various animal forms to survive practically anything and Gem AKA Copycat who can control body movements of other people. Oh and Gem also has multiple personalities, in addition to her own, mostly dominate personality, that can take over her own body named Little Gemma, the Soldier, the Spy and the Nihilist. That’s a lot going of for this character, along with a fairly large cast, but I’ll have to say it works more often than not.

Getting to the issues at hand, we see the kids being introduced to their new digs in a New York City penthouse. They all run to claim their own suites in the penthouse like an upscale version of Big Brother as Threshold doubts if it was wise to set up shop so close to normal people. Ivana explains it’s all a bit of an experiment, as the kids have little to no idea what the real world holds and it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll react. She gives the kids wads of cash to go and do whatever their hearts desire before shortly calling them all back home to go on a mission for her.

Ivana’s mission is to steal an object from I/O in upstate New York before I/O has a chance to ship it to France. The team goes in following Threshold’s direction, Rachel and Gem seem a little dubious about Threshold’s order to kill, but follow his direction anyway. They find the package and it’s a small grey alien. After arguing who’s going to carry the thing to their get-away-chopper the manage to take flight. Unfortunately I/O shot up the chopper so much that by the time the team made back to NYC they had a crash landing and the alien exploded all over Gem.

Our second issue opens with the kids trying to get drinks at Clark’s. This of course doesn’t go well and after a dust up with Hellstrike from StormWatch a full-on bar brawl ensues. Lucky for the DV8 kids they find Sideways Bob outside with a limo and ready to kids to their next mission. There’s a group out in LA that goes by the name “Twist,” they’re Gen-Active and they are also lead by a former I/O agent. The DV8 kids (minus Threshold) head out to the desert to confront Twist. While everyone else is in the dark, Bliss was told by Ivana to try and recruit any of the Twist kids if possible. The rest of the kids make it clear to Bliss that Bliss keeping the rest of the kids out of the loop can’t lead to anything good.

The group heads out into the desert surrounding Los Angeles and after meeting the Twist kids: Texas, Blind Lemon, the Smoking Boy and Virginia Dentata they are greeted with their leader, Menlove. While Bliss and Menlove go inside the Twist house to see if they can come to an agreement the rest of kids hang out with each other in the sand. Blind Lemon tells Leon that he’s going to kill her, the Smoking Boy keeps creeping out Rachel and smoking crack and Virginia and Micheal try to find a quite place away from everyone. Virginia’s quite place is the house cellar and it’s not empty, it’s full of Gen-Active’s that Menlove found that didn’t develop powers, just mutations. Meanwhile Bliss is finding out all about Menlove’s past and how he got kicked out of I/O. Turns out he liked messing with young girls, particularly one named Nicole. Bliss realizes he’s talking about her and kills him, she then bursts out of the house telling the DV8 kids everyone needs to die. Rachel and Leon had already got the idea that they needed to get the hell out of there, they didn’t need to be told twice and Leon proceeds to explode the place. Once home they wake Ivana for answers, where she tells them that Twist needed to be eliminated, but wanted the DV8 kids to see how good they had it with her before destroying them. Bliss suddenly knows what it is like to be kept in the dark.

Continuity Corner:

• While at Clarks’s we have Hellstrike and Fuji looking a bit different to their current “StormWatch” version, but I suppose Hellstrike can look however he wants, and Fuji has a variety of “suits” he can use, so it isn’t too out of continuity. I cannot explain what Pris is doing at Clark’s though, maybe she’s still traveling around before she lands in New Orleans.
• I figure that the first issue could’ve happened during the same week as our last several books, but the second issue feel like it occurs some time later. I’m fine with putting them both together here for readability’s sake.

Where to find these stories:

• the “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” trade paperback
• Comixology: “DV8” issues 1 & 2
• Comixology: “DV8: Neighborhood Threat” collection

NEXT: “Hazard” issues 5 – 7 by Jeff Mariotte, Jason Johnson, Roy Allen Martinez, Edgar Tadeo, Richard Friend and Gerry Alanguilen

“Gen13” Vol. 2 issues 8 & 9

This entry covers “Gen13” volume two issues 8 and 9 by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, J. Scott Campbell, Humberto Ramos, Alex Garner, Al Gordon and Wayne Faucher.

Our boys and girls in Gen13 are still hiding out in San Francisco where they were last seen after their adventure with Michael Cray.  Lynch is resting up as good as he can without the Gen-Factor. Roxy has been having nightmares starring the mysterious Trance, much to the concern of bother Caitlin and Anna. So, how long have the team been hanging out in San Francisco? Well, long enough for Grunge to get a haircut. A haircut, while it undermine’s his nickname/codename a bit, it’s a much better look for him. Wait, what is this site? “Styling the Storm : One Fanboy’s Fashionable Take on the Clothing of the WildStorm Universe”? No! Let’s get back to the recap!

How the hell did these damn SJWs get into my comic from Feb 1996? That can’t be right!

Some of the kids decide that they are going to go dancing, while Bobby and Sarah decide to stay in their safe house along with Lynch and Anna. While on the way to the club Roxy sees Trance out of the corner of her eye, but he disappears quickly enough to make the rest of the kids question her freak out. Later at the club, Roxy, Grunge, and Caitlin run into Trance again. Instead of big-time freaking out, Roxy just lets Caitlin start dancing with him. I mean, she has a bad feeling about it all, but she must be playing it cool. Once Trance puts Caitlin in, well, a trance and they walk out of the club together does Roxy get the nerve up to put a stop to it. It’s too little too late for her and Grunge just encounter a creepy little girl who hands them the address of the old amusement park. The girl tells them if they ever want to see Caitlin again, that’s where she’ll be.

Turns out this was all an elaborate ruse for Trance’s minions to get the jump on the rest of the Gen13 kids, as well as Lynch. For the most part, it works. Every Gen13 member is teamed up with someone who can easily thwart their superpowers. I’m of the mind that Trance specifically sought this team to deal with Gen13. It was a stroke of genius to turn Caitlin bad to take down Lynch too! But for all his planning he didn’t count on two things. The first being Queelocke opening a portal to bring in Anna, an android he cannot mind control and is hella tough. And second, that once his team isn’t matched up against their ideal Gen13 opponent that they are easy to defeat.

The reason Trance wants to add the Gen13 kids too his army is because wants revenge on Damocles. We never find out how they’re tied together, so it is kind of a letdown. Of course, Trance knowing Damocles does explain why he was first around when the Bounty Hunters showed up at the Soil Machine. He was watching for them, it was just a bonus that he met with Roxy leading him to more members for his revenge society. Trance also knows that The Sword is after Qeelocke. Trance, for all his faults, is really out to stop Damocles, which is something the whole WSU can get behind during “Fire from Heaven.” Too bad he doesn’t show up to help.

With Trance and his crew on the run, the kids want to follow and continue the fight. Right at this moment, Lynch gets a call. It’s his Team 7 pals! They’re taking the fight to Craven and they’re going to need his help. Hell, bring the kids, let’s make this a party!

While all this has been going on we’ve been seeing Threshold and Ivana get their team of Gen-Active teens ready to fight the Gen13 team. They’ll soon be called the Deviants or, yah know, DV8 for short. They are ready to stop wasting virtual versions of Gen13 and get their hands on the real deal.

Also, we see Capt. Lucius Morgan and his daughter Daphne from the Coda Island story. Turns out Lucius is looking up an old friend, one Alex Fairchild! He lets Alex know he’s met Caitlin as well as that he’s heard Kaizen is messing with some Gen-Factor stuff. They agree to head to Gamorra and see what they can find out, on the Gen-Factor projects as well as on the current whereabouts of Caitlin.

If that’s not enough, there are two more threads woven throughout these two issues! The first is a nightmare experienced by a teenage boy named Ethan McCain. A character who will become a big player during “Fire from Heaven.” The other character we meet is a young Gen-Active man who goes by the name Absolom who seemingly has control over ground next to him. Currently, all we know is that he’s on Gamorra and is from a different clan that calls Gamorra home.

Continuity Corner:

• The last we saw Trance was in “Deathblow” volume one issue 17 trading information with Miles Craven. We know he was asking for information on Kaizen Gamorra, yet we haven’t seen him confront Kaizen or know what he’s doing with that information.
• The next we’ll see Trance and friends is a long way off in a few issues of “Gen13 Bootleg” then he’ll bother some of the DV8 kids in “Gen-Active.” None of it has anything to do with his relationship or knowledge of Damocles.
• At one point Trance almost gets to say that Caitlin and Roxy are sisters before Qeelocke summons Anna to come kick his ass. I cannot believe how long and how often they teased this!
• What an introduction for Absolom. Too bad we’ll never see him again! He’s supposed to be a brother of Grunge’s but the only way to know any of this is from the “WildStorm Universe Source Book.” So it is acceptable that we don’t know any of this. I wonder how he and his story line got dropped? Note: his father didn’t fare much better in this department either.
• Not sure if it has already been mentioned, but Capt. Lucius Morgan was a member of Team 7. We’ve never seen him in any flashbacks, so I figure he was like Bloodmoon and quit the team early and didn’t get super-powers. But later we’ll see him with some… so… yeah, I dunno… he must also have the power of half-assed retcons.
• When Lynch gets the call it seems like the whole gang is already there with Cray. We don’t really see them all coming together, but it’s interesting to note that they were all together when they called. Considering how much some of them hate each other, that’s a pretty tall order.

NEXT: “Brass” volume one issues 1 through 3 by Richard Bennett and Aron Wiesenfeld

“Gen13 : the Unreal World”

this entry covers the one-shot book “Gen13 : the Unreal World”

We join the story already in progress… and we see Fairchild as a waitress? Say what? And she’s having a terrible, no good, very bad day. Turns out she’s not alone, in another part of La Jolla a young orphan named Roxy is getting into a food fight at a Catholic school. So yeah, it’s pretty clear to see, something is amiss.

That something turns out to be a man named Cull. He’s tall, wears a face paint, as well as boots that make it look like he has two gigantic toes, and he’s the guy who is in control. By control I mean, he’s basically erased everyone in La Jolla’s memory and substituted them with whatever he wanted. He then commands them all to watch him on television every night. Watch him sit there and stare at the camera. It’s all rather dumb, Cull comes off as the kind of guy with a godlike power, but he’s too damn dull of a person to do anything interesting with it. It’s not like he even realized that he’d ensnared the members of Gen13 in his trance, or else one would hope he’d have a plan to prevent his demise from them, or at least use their powers for evil, something like that at least!

Anyway, Caitlin and Roxy eventually bump into each other at Caitlin’s job and remember who they really are. They then go hunting for the other members of the team. Lynch is a soccer coach, Bobby’s a hobo and Grunge is a preppy little son of a bitch. Once they break them all out of their fake lives, they all get to Sarah and find out she’s pretty cognizant of what is going on. Before she gets a chance to fully explain what’s going on, a pissed off Cull pops in to kick everyone’s ass.

The team ends up… well… working like a team and takes out Cull. While Cull is laying on the floor, not getting taken into custody, or restrained in any way, we see a ghostly figure fly out of Sarah. This is Rhiannon, the witch. Seems as if she can leave her body and take over others. She’s a witch, that’s totally a witch thing! Anyway, she did this so that she could hide from Cull and get together a group to help her stop him. Hurrah, it worked and Rhiannon takes off leaving Sarah wondering what the heck had just gone on, and why is there a creepy fetish freak laying on the floor? Is anyone going to do anything about that guy? Just leave him there never to be seen again? Oh, OK.

Continuity Corner:

• Why place this book here of all places? One of the reasons was that there’s a note in this issue that it takes place before “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue 8. The other is a bit more obscure. I’ve mentioned before the “Gen13 : Backlist” collection. It collects the 1/2 and 0 issues of the series. It also has the first issue of Vol. 2 in it. After that issue, we’re presented with “the Unreal World” to close out the book. It looks like to me that it had been established that “the Unreal World” takes place after Vol. 2 issue 1 and before Vol. 2 issue 8. When we look at Vol. 2 issues 3 – 7 are an arc we see that the kids far from La Jolla, on Coda Island and in Rome, not to mention that Lynch isn’t with the kids at all during this time. Lynch doesn’t rejoin the kids until “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 21, which if you don’t read makes Lynch’s return in “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue 8 seemingly come out of nowhere, so for me, it would be just too jarring to see a story like this after what they just went through, not that picking up at 8 is much better. There are only a few places for this book fit into continuity. Right after Vol. 2 issue 1 or Vol. 2 issue 2. I like it better just after issue 1 because we get one more story with the team before being tossed into the “WildStorm Rising” cross-over. Also, it has a lighter tone, much like these early few issues.
• Cull did seem to know the identity of Lynch, and of Team 7. How he knew that is anyone’s guess. I thought that was all classified. Maybe he read Lynch’s mind, that’s my best answer.
• We won’t see Rhiannon the witch until later in Union Vol. 2 issue #5 where we will learn… well, not too much more about her.
• Rhiannon drops a hint to the relationship between Caitlin and Roxy… I swear, there’s like a million not-so-subtle hints to this, that us fans were yelling at our comics “Just tell us they’re sisters already!” making the actual reveal a bit anti-climatic.

Where to find this story:

• the “Gen13: Backlist” trade paperback

NEXT : “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 15 by Brandon Choi, Mel Rubi and Rick Magyar