“Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 25

This entry covers pages 18 – 22 of “Deathblow” volume one issue 24 and then all of issue 25 by Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner, Jeff Mariotte, Scott Kolins, Geof Isherwood, Trevor Scott and Rick Bryant.

The Gen13 kids are on their way to meet Team 7 out in the wilds of Virginia. While the kids are wondering why they’re alone in the middle of nowhere, Lynch informs him that his old friends are already all around them. Cash, Cray, Dane, and Slayton emerge from the foliage to meet the young group. While most of the guys are either giving Lynch the business for becoming a “family man” or teasing Cray because of his report with Grunge, Roxy is the only thinking that, hey, one of these Team 7 guys could be her father. Is it a coincidence that all Team 7 members that are Gen13 fathers are dead or in hiding except for Lynch? Is there something here about not wanting our heroes to be dads for some reason?

Soon the group comes upon the I/O towers. Team 7 and Gen13 are going to break into them to take the fight directly to Craven in revenge for stealing their Gen-Factor. As they’re figuring out the best way to break in, we see Craven sending LeGauche to Gamorra with the Gen-Factor extracts. He’s also giving other members of the Brethren (who are joined by another member named Animus) orders to keep everyone out of I/O at all costs. Finally, he calls up Kaizen, straps into some crazy contraption and starts an up-link to Gamorra and the Gen-Omega.

Craven’s idea of leaving the Brethren in charge comes to a head once Frank Colby clocks in. He immediately questions why the hell the Brethren is in the Tac-Ops department, and where the hell Alicia Turner is. The Brethren threaten Colby’s life and he relents to working with them. Just at that moment Team 7 and the Gen13 kids are breaking into I/O via the old service tunnels. Colby eventually meets the group in the service tunnel and agrees to help them continue to break into I/O. Colby is a straight shooter and even though he’s been seen as Craven’s stooge, he’s only been doing it for the better of his country. Until Craven shows exactly how crazy he is being, Colby will do as directed by him. Locking up Alicia and calling in the Brethren is too much for Colby to ignore. If Team 7 is at I/O to exact revenge, he’ll help them out.

Well, Colby helped Team 7 and Gen13 right into a Black Hammer ambush. Uh oh! The two sets split up, Team 7 will handle the Brethren and the Black Hammers, Gen13 will take Colby and go rescue Alicia. After a few twists and turns, this eventually happens and the two teams are reunited to confront Craven. Well, kinda. Team 7 wants to take care of Craven themselves, leaving the Gen13 kids with Alicia and Colby outside of the crazy tech room where Craven is residing.

When Craven is confronted he starts spilling even more secrets that Gabrielle did an issue back. Turns out that Cray’s parents were killed by LaGuache on behalf of Craven because Craven was pissed that Cray Sr. helped Dr. Tsung get away with his research. Then, Craven, had Cray kill the man that had gotten the blame for the “terrorist attack” that ended up with both his parents dead. When I say that Craven is a certified dick, these are the kinds of things I’m talking about. Then Team 7 goes around and tells Craven exactly what he’s stolen from each of them. Suddenly, off-panel a gun goes off and Craven receives a single shot in the head. For now Craven is dead, and Team 7 can stand down for a night.

Continuity Corner:

• We pick up on page 18 of issue 24 of “Deathblow” because we need the Gen13 kids to get the call from the full Team 7 group at the end of “Gen13” volume two issue 9, and on page 17 Slayton isn’t with the crew yet. While I really hate to split up books in the middle of pages, I think this one is reasonable and necessary.
• And yes, Grunge is sporting longer hair again, despite having it cut and a big deal made about it in “Gen13” volume two issue 8. It’s a bit of a common mistake that will plague a lot of Grunge’s depiction in the “Fire from Heaven” crossover.
• Old service tunnels, the air duct system, a wall in a top level bathroom, all ways to break into I/O, and all but the last one are super obvious. What kind of high security are the I/O Towers supposed to have?
• Colby full on admits to Lynch that if he was really Craven’s stooge, that Lynch wouldn’t have made it out of I/O after being caught in “Gen13” issue 0.
• Wait, aren’t the Brethren Gen12 like Team 7 is? Why doesn’t Craven just steal their Gen-Factor? Are they not powered with the Gen-Factor? If not, why are they also labeled as Gen12? Or is it that because Craven likes the Brethren and hates Team 7 that he only wants to steal the Gen-Factor from them?
• What exactly is Craven attempting to do in his tech room? He’s uploading himself to a new body, a Gen-Omega body soon to be chock fulla Team 7 Gen-Factor. This body was constructed by Kaizen Gamorra and is in Gamorra. Not sure why he’s spilling all this truth to Team 7 as he doesn’t think he’s really going to be dying. If he was dying what would he have to lose? Sure, tell away! But he plans on being back, in a younger body… so… uh… why give your enemies MORE reason to want to come after you?
• We found out about Cray killing the supposed architect of the terrorist attack that killed his parents back in “Team 7 : Dead Reckoning.”
• While it is never stated who fired the shot that killed Craven, I’ve always assumed it was Cray. Mainly because it is his book and the title of the book is “Deathblow.” Kinda works on two levels.

NEXT: “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issues 25 – 28 by Alan Moore, Travis Charest, Scott Clark, Aron Wiesenfeld, Kevin Nowlan, John Nyberg, Dave Johnson, Troy Hubbs, JD, Scott Williams, Dexter Vines and Bob Wiacek.

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 8 and “the Kindred : Prologue”

this entry covers issue 8 of “StormWatch” Vol.1 and the 2 part prologue for “the Kindred,” originally printed in two issues of “Previews” and later reprinted in “WildStorm Rarities.”

OK, here we go, diving deeper into the interconnectivity of the WildStorm Universe. Also, bonus Ripclaw! Shorty after Ripclaw got back from Gamorra he got a call from the Apache Nation that one of their own had gone missing. Ripclaw takes on the mission to hunt down this child, a girl by the name of Sarah Rainmaker, a character we haven’t seen since she was a baby in “Team 7 : Dead Reckoning.” As Sarah is telling Ripclaw why she left (government goons) they are set upon by the Keepers (more government goons.)

Meanwhile back on SkyWatch we see Jackson and Slayton talking about the mission in Gamorra and how WeatherMan One pulled Jackson’s fat out of the fryer. They both know that repercussions are on their way for that. Also Slayton let’s Jackson know that he’s quitting StormWatch. He needs to learn more about the Daemonites and the UN will only hold him back.

Then comes the call, StormWatch is called by the Apache Nation to come help with all the craziness going on there. WeatherMan One sends in the team, minus Hellstrike due to being messed up, and with Malcolm instead. Jackson is told to suck it up, this could help them out due to Sarah and Malcolm being similar in age.

The mission mostly works! The StormWatch team fends off I/O’s Keepers with the help of Ripclaw and Sarah is staying on the reservation with her family. Here’s the catch, those repercussions that were due from WeatherMan One’s actions on Gamorra strike. One of the conditions turns out to be that Sarah be turned over to I/O’s Project Genesis. So in tears Sarah enters a limo with Ivana Baiul.

OK, some questions are raised. At this time StormWatch the team and “StormWatch” the book are made up of seedlings, meaning they got their powers from that magic comet. (Except Backlash, but he’s supposed to be a mole for Craven, so he most likely lied to the UN about where his powers came from.) So if StormWatch is headed to the Apache Nation under the idea that there is a seedling, and it turns out the seedling is not a seedling but a human with the Gen-Factor what do they do? Take her in anyway? Tell her to wait for enough other Gen-Factored types to show up and start a team book with them? While seedlings still play a part as “StormWatch” continues, it stops being the common factor for why and how the team members received their respective powers.

Now, on to the prologue for “the Kindred!” You may ask yourself, why isn’t this right before “the Kindred?” Why is there two issues of “WildC.A.T.s” between the prologue and series proper? Well, we need to get Grifter into place, and we need it to make a little sense with what’s going on in both “WildC.A.T.s” and “the Kindred.”

After the events of “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 8, Backlash is looking to find out all about aliens. First he calls I/O and gets a bunch of static from Lynch. Craven must’ve never told Lynch about Backlash being a plant in the StormWatch organization. Classic Craven. After that, for some odd reason, Backlash tracks down Grifter for help. Not sure why, they kinda sorta hate each other! In fact Backlash ruined Grifter getting ready for a night out on the town, that jerk! So they fight and it’s dumb and they part ways. Backlash off to Cyberjack’s and Grifter to meet Zealot at a bar for some pool.

Where to find these stories:

• Comixology: “StormWatch” vol. 1 issue 8

Next : “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 8 & 9 by Jim Lee, Brandon Choi with Jeff Mariotte and Travis Charest

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 0, 4 & 5

this entry covers “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 0 as well as issues 4 & 5.

“StormWatch” is a book that never seemed to give a damn about any marketing gimmick that it was supposed to participate in. Take the concept of a 0 issue. Image comics came up with this strategy, their first comics published would be a number 1 issue, but it wouldn’t burden you with backstory, instead it would get right to the action. The backstory would come at a later date via the 0 issue, and they would also be set before the events of the number 1 issue. But no, not “StormWatch,” “StormWatch” is too good for all of that! While the 0 issue of “StormWatch” would have a boat load of backstory in it, it also couldn’t be read prior to the events of the first two issues (and due to the writing, issue 3 as well) lest you spoil the death of Mr. Windsor.

This book opens with Jackson and Fuji fighting in a Danger Room-Holodeck kinda thing. “StormWatch” at its worst is just a mash-up of “X-Men” and “Star Trek : the Next Generation.” Which is another reason I probably liked it so much as a kid, because both those things are super rad! I say “worst” because it is taking a lot of those elements and not doing anything really interesting with them. Also, Danger Room’s for anyone but the X-Men are super lame. Hell, I even think the one the X-Men have is lame, and makes for lame story openers. I can only suspend my disbelief so far before I feel insulted, and the Danger Room/Holodeck in “StormWatch” is one of them. Just let the X-Men be the X-Men and have their Danger Room, and even though you’re super sci-fi “StormWatch” leave the Holodeck to ST:TNG. Smack each other around in a gym or something, I dunno, just always comes off as super lame.

While this lameness is going on there’s a group of terrorists on a small space ship approaching SkyWatch. They have a cloaking device; they attach their ship to the side of SkyWatch and then literally break in. The main dude, Tony, of this group, has a grudge against Jackson for messing up his brother during a StormWatch mission years ago. We cut back to the ’70s where we see StormWatch in its younger days, presumably not long after John Stone left when the organization was known simply as S.T.O.R.M.

We meet Jackson on a treadmill talking smack with another early StormWatch member known as Flashpoint. This is all being egged on by Windsor. Jackson mentioned how great Windsor was, and we know he died a hero, but he comes off very douchey here. We also learn that Flashpoint has the same bad attitude as Canon, there’s always one on every team. We go to a wider shot and see another member of StormWatch Prime, Nautika, not just the team girl, but also the team member without a nose.

We see the mission in which Jackson, Flashpoint and Nautika are being lead by Backlash against a group known as the Third World Liberation Front. Of course this is the group that Tony was in at the time with his brother Pedro. They were breaking into a government facility to steal information for Ivana Baiul, who is trying to get her “Project Genesis” started at I/O, for now looking at “seedlings” before switching to “gen-actives.” Jackson freaks out at Pedro and pretty much mind wipes him. This was the reason why Tony was out for revenge. This issue was the first that let us meet other older StormWatch members other than Jackson and Backlash. One more will get squeezed in soon, so be prepared to add one more member to the family tree.

When we get back to the present in issue 4 we see a StormWatch scout ship checking the perimeter of SkyWatch as we wouldn’t want any more space jock terrorists breaking in! The scout ship finds a piece of a Daemonite ship that got partially through to Earth’s atmosphere due to the events of “Reunification Day” AKA “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 0 – 4. It should be noted, these Daemonites are tough, they’ve been floating in space from April ’92 – Sept. ’93. Of course the Daemonites take over the SkyWatch workers and infiltrate SkyWatch.

Meanwhile we see Backlash trying to work up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend Diane LaSalle. He wusses out, way to go Slayton! Wouldn’t you know it, the Daemonites run into LaSalle and one of them takes her over but not before she sounds the shipping alarms. While “riding” LaSalle the Daemonites find out about the WarGuard. The WarGuard was a group of scientists that were on a satellite when the magic comet passed by the Earth. Being so close to the comet they got stronger powers and went crazier than seedlings on Earth. The WarGuard were locked up on SkyWatch for the safety of humanity. With the Warguard now on the loose, hosting Daemonites, we know StormWatch is in some serious trouble.

While StormWatch goes up against the WarGuard, Backlash is trying to figure out what had gotten into LaSalle. Hint: it’s an alien (I mean besides… wait… I’m too mature to make this joke.) He electrifies her with one of his little whippy things which separates LaSalle and the Daemonite. The blunt separation sends LaSalle into a coma. The WarGuard tumbles out of a SkyWatch window and for some reason everyone just assumes they’re going to burn up on re-entry. Not sure why, but we have to get to seeing a super sad Backlash with LaSalle in the medical lab of SkyWatch, so no time for worrying about possible future plot lines.

It’s important to note that the public at large has no knowledge of the Kheribum and Daemonite war, or even their existence. This is all a shock to StormWatch, who usually deal with human and super-human problems on Earth, not aliens in their space home. We know a bit more about what’s going on with LaSalle than the team, and that’s cool. Tight continuity and world building is front and center as well as seamlessly integrated for both of WildStorm’s lead titles.

Where to find these stories:

• Comixology Links: “StormWatch” vol. 1 issue 0, 4 & 5

Next : “StormWatch” Vol. 1 Special issue 1 by Ron Marz, Dwayne Turner, Richard Johnson and Kevin Nowlan.

“Deathblow” Vol. 1 issues 0 – 4

this entry covers “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 0 and “Deathblow/Cybernary” issues 1 through 3 and “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 4, but only the “Deathblow” stories from 1 – 4, the Cybernary stories don’t happen until later, despite what the letters column states. Note: the first 9 pages of “Deathblow” Vol. 1 issue 0 originally appeared as a short story in “Darker Image” Vol. 1 issue 1.

The “Deathblow” book mainly follows the “adventures” of Michael Cray, whom we already know from the “Team 7” books as having been on, well, Team 7. We also know that he agreed to stay and work for Craven at I/O after Team 7 broke up. We’ve seen 2 of these I/O missions before. One in “Team 7 : Dead Reckoning” and one in the “WildStorm Winter Special” story “Deathblow Gets Dusted.” The mission he is taking on in the 0 issue doesn’t go much better.

Cray is found on a mission in Costa Mesa seemingly attempting to avenge a fallen comrade form a prior mission. Cray feels he is responsible for this this man’s torture and death, and Cray means to take out General Manuel Ortega by way of assassination. We learn most of this due to a mission briefing our old friends Miles Craven and John Lynch are giving to Lieutenant Conrad, as they are asking him to take out Cray before he can kill Ortega as a matter of national security. When Conrad asks why Cray has gone rouge, as well as over of the edge, the response is that Cray had been recently diagnosed with cancer, and that he’d like to right a few wrongs before his ticket gets punched. Conrad is instructed to put together a small group, get into Costa Mesa, take out Cray and hightail it back home. It’s a Craven mission, so of course it can’t be that simple!

We, the reader, find out that the mission to stop Cray is just a false flag to establish plausible deniability. The government wants Ortega dead, but politically they’re still aligned with him. Cray was actually sent on that mission to take out Ortega, but officially he’s a rogue agent. Craven does not care what happens to anyone involved, just as long as Ortega is dead by the end of it. Lynch, really isn’t on board with this plan at all, and we’re starting to see some serious doubts on his behalf. Cray takes down Ortega, most of Ortega’s men take out Conrad’s team, Cray himself has to take out Conrad so that he can take out Ortega too. Also, there’s a bit of human sacrifice and a minotaur-like demon that was summoned, because comics. We also see a man going by the name of Mr. Trickle who’s making sure everything goes according to plan down in Costa Mesa as well, not too much is known about him at the time, but he seems to be working for I/O as well.

Once Cray gets back to America he meets up with Lynch and he’s totally pissed off that 4 good men had to die on that mission. Meaningless deaths. Cray socks Lynch and reprimands him for what he’s become under Craven at I/O and states that he’s quitting. The next mission I/O has is for Mr. Trickle’s team. We find out that Mr. Trickle has a first name, it’s Travis and he is apparently Cray’s best friend and one time I/O partner. Lynch is insistent that Cray accompanies Trickle’s team on the mission. I mean, I thought we just saw Cray quit I/O, what’s he doing back? And why is he buddy buddy with Lynch again? Maybe there was an off panel conversation that took place at a bar, and over beers it comes out that Lynch is unsure of everything Craven is up to, and I/O has gone too far. Cray is all “told ya, and so did all the other guys too. Except for Slayton, that jerk” so Cray came back to I/O to be an inside man for Lynch. At least, that’s how it goes down in my mind. A little bit of head-cannon can go a long way, but if anyone else has a good idea why Cray came back, explicitly at Lynch’s direction, lay it on me!

The mission, Kussein (get it) has been causing trouble in Iraq again, so I/O is tasked with getting in there, gathering info on their weapons supply and blowing stuff up if they have to. Exactly how much Lynch knows about what is going to go on here is debatable. He’s been seeming wary of Craven early in this book, as well as with what went down in “Wetworks,” but we have Craven commending him on “quite the little show” he set up for this mission. Then again, Lynch seems to be just talking about the straightforward aspects of the mission, it’s Craven who gets all Mr. Burns about what is being said.

The mission is more than just kicking some Iraqi butts, well it isn’t for the I/O team at least. Someone working with the Iraqis is having them dig up what they were told is a stash of Scud missiles. It infact is a seal of the long buried temple of the Black Angel. The Iraqi troops in charge are then shot so that their blood will open the seal and then reawaken the Black Angel and its minions. Oddly, there is a monk that was working with the Iraqis too, who is trying to make sure this all this doesn’t happen. About the time the monk is realizing that it is all too late he happens to be the bunker that the I/O team is breaking into. All the Iraqis end up dead, they think they got Kussien, but it turns out to be a body double, and Cray is a bit spooked about how that monk was fighting. Cray ends up taking out the monk and gets really upset once he finds out it wasn’t just a disguise and he really is a man of God, to be clear he’s a member of the Order of the Cross. As the monk is dieing he’s begging Cray to go after the Black Angel and stop him at all costs. Then, while the I/O team is leaving the scene (and bombing it to hell) we see the Black Angel calling out to Cray stating that Cray’s nightmare is just beginning. Cray can’t catch a break, first cancer, now evil angels are after him.

And that’s where we drop off for a bit. I know, it’s a bit cliff-hangery, but issues 5 – 12 of “Deathblow” offer no break in the story, and there is a passage of time between issues 4 and 5 that becomes clear when you start in on issue 5. I have to commend the art of this book, I know it is basically the “Image style” as heavily influenced by Frank Miller’s “Sin City” but that’s what sets it apart from all the other WildStorm books at the time. Some WSU books take on a true style at this time, but none more so than “Deathblow” being so moody and “Gen 13” being so bubblegum. Not only is it fantastic that both these books are coming out from the same company at this time, but also that they books that are quite closely related! I must commend Tim Sale for picking up where Jim Lee left off so flawlessly. Sale really make this book his own.

Now it’s time for me to admit that I never read “Deathblow” growing up. I was never interested in military themed comics, nor violent ones. This is also why I never got too into “Wetworks.” “Gen13” was goofy comics fun, “WildC.A.T.s” was a sci-fi comics saga, “Union” was a post modern take on “Superman,” “StormWatch” was, well, it was something different, but “Deathblow” was dark and violent, and I just couldn’t hang with that as a teenager. Now? Now I dig it. Sure, I blow past the military stuff, and the violence doesn’t bother me so much, but a lot of this rests on the character of Michael Cray. This guy just gets more lovable as his series goes on. Maybe “lovable” is the wrong word, but “relatable” doesn’t work either, who can relate to the life that he’s been through? He’s a tough bastard that develops a real sense of humor. Well, he had one in the “Team 7” book, but lost it by the time we met him in “Darker Image” and “Deathblow/Cybernary,” I guess that cancer will do that to a guy. Michael Cray just might be one of my favorite characters of this time in the WildStorm Universe when I look back on it, he’s the WSU’s drunken cranky uncle who cracks you up at Christmas. He’s awesome and salty, and you can’t believe he’s at the party, but you never want him to leave.

Where to find this story:

• the “Deathblow” hard cover and trade paperback contain all 5 issues’ Deathblow stories
• the older “Deathblow : Saints and Sinners” trade paperback does not contain the 0 issue
• Comixology: “Deathblow” vol. 1 issues 1, 2, 3 & 4

Next : “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 0, 4 – 5 by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Brett Booth, Sean Ruffner, J. Scott Campbell and Scott Clark

“WetWorks” Vol. 1 issues 1 – 3

this entry covers “Wetworks” Vol. 1 issues 1 – 3 and the “Wetworks” back-up story from “WildC.A.T.s : Covert Action Teams” Vol. 1 issue 2.

I’m not going to lie; I was never a “WetWorks” reader growing up. I picked up the first issue when it came out due to curiosity, but it didn’t catch me like the rest of the WildStorm books did. Luckily for me when going to read this, the back issues were pretty damn cheap to find, I guess I’m not the only person that wasn’t too into this series. Oddly, I really dug “WetWorks” Vol. 2 when that came out a decade later, so reading the backstories and origins for some of these characters was kind of fun… kind of. I guess I always regarded the WetWorks team as characters that had a few cross-overs with the normal WildStorm Universe but I didn’t really need to follow them all that closely, more like the “Cyberforce” characters, less like the Savage Dragon.

I’m not even joking when I say that “WetWorks,” while having deep historical ties to the WSU, rarely has anything to do with the rest of the WildStorm books during its Volume 1 run. Aside from Dane we really don’t see much of the other characters outside of their own book. Even during the two big cross-overs “WildStorm Rising” and “Fire from Heaven” the other members of the team aren’t seen much even in crowd shots. Dane, the leader of WetWorks we all know as Jackson Dane from Team 7, so whenever those geezers get back together we know that Dane will have a thing or two to do with that adventure. The WetWorks team is also the modern incarnation of Team 7 at I/O. So yeah, a second Team 7, led by one of the former members. The one that went crazy. This was a good idea.

We don’t know how long this “new” Team 7 has been working for I/O, or for how long Dane has been able to lead a team, or even how long he’s been shaving off that exquisite beard. What we do know is that Miles Craven is sending them all on a mission, a mission to Transylvania. Another mission from Craven, that Craven knows is doomed from the start, much like the first Team 7 mission that we saw over in “Team 7.” The only thing is that this time Craven doesn’t expect the team to survive, in fact he wants to be rid of them, and the targets he sent them after, so he can have those sweet sweet golden symbiotes, that he knows are contained there, for himself. How does he know about the symbiotes? He’s Miles Goddamn Craven; dude knows everything shady going on in the WSU, always, count on it.

Luckily for Dane and the rest of his crew, this mission has another backer and a few mysterious allies. The backer is Mr. Waering of the Waering Institute of Higher Werewolf Learning. Or something like that. He’s a werewolf, but it’s supposed to be a secret for now, even though from his very first line it is obvious that he’s a werewolf. Either way, he’s the one that’s apparently been pulling the strings on Dane’s professional life for a while. He got Dane onto Team 7 (the first or second version, we aren’t told) and made sure that Team 7 would be taking care of this Transylvanian mission. Waering wants Team 7 to find the symbiotes and take control of them, kill all the vampires (duh, the Transylvanians Team 7 were sent out to kill are vampires) and then come work for him. He even installs one of his own people, Mother-One the cyborg, as a pilot of one of the I/O ships.

Team 7 has no idea what is going on, or why some of these vampires are hard to kill, because they don’t know they are vampires yet. After everything that Dane has seen and done he doesn’t think there are vampires? Eh, small quibble, because he and the rest of the team seem to accept that they’re killing vampires pretty damn quickly. But there’s more vampires coming, and Team 7 is running low on fire power. What is there to do? Hey, look at these pretty tubes full of gold liquid! Now, it isn’t Team 7’s initial idea to get those tubes open and dump them on themselves. Nope! Persephone, a vampire from a rival vampire faction, shoots open the glass on one and it gets all over Team 7 member Claymore. The team figures out pretty quickly that this new golden skin is protecting Claymore and they bust open the rest of the tubes to “suit up” and take down the rest of these vamps. See, Persephone is the right hand lady to the Blood Queen, ruler of the vampires, and this Transylvanian faction means to take her power from her to rule the vampire nation. Persephone is sent to make sure the Transylvanian dorks are taken out by Dane’s group, and if the symbiotes are the way to go, so be it. The Blood Queen has been messing with Dane’s mind for years. The book says it has only been 6 years, but from what we later see in “Gen 12” we know that it has been a bit longer than that (unless this book takes place several years earlier than it seems.) So the Blood Queen kind of gets what she wants, her thrall/secret weapon is now in possession of a powerful weapon, which is now on a personal mission to take down other vampires that might challenge her rule.

As all this craziness is going on inside where the symbiotes were stored, outside I/O copters wait for Team 7 to be done with the mission. But like I said earlier, Craven means for this to be Team 7’s final mission, so when Team 7 is exiting the building, Craven tells his men to take out Team 7. This is when Mr. Waering let’s Mother-One know to put his secret plan into action and she shoots down the other I/O helicopters and takes out the I/O agents in hers. She suits up with her own golden symbiote and gets the team out of there to go and meet Mr. Waering and find out his plan for them. Dane really doesn’t trust him all that much, but he’s no worse than his previous employer, so what the hell, we need cash to fight vampires, so no more I/O and Team 7, bring on WetWorks!

The next mission is overly complicated for what is a pretty simple story. Some vampires want to release a virus at a concert that will start to take down humanity. They also hate the Blood Queen. We find that the Blood Queen long ago brokered a truce not only between vampires and humans, but also between the other Night Tribes, including werewolves, trolls and creatures of that nature. Maybe. Sometimes the phrase “the Night Tribes” is used for all those kinds of creatures, sometimes just for vampires and sometimes just for a certain group of vampires. It’s all jumbled up and kind of a mess. Anyway, the reason the “evil” Vampires pick the concert of Johnny Savoy to target is because he is the Blood Queen’s brother, so you know, kill two bats with one stone.

The WetWorks team takes down the bad vamps and become buddies with (and a little star-struck by) Johnny Savoy. The team member Pilgrim is saved by a mystery man going by the name of the Wilder, and we see Mother One kick some ass. Unfortunately the Wetworks team loses two of members; Crossbones and Flattop. The thing about the Wetworks team is that outside of Dane and Mother-One we don’t get to know any of the other characters well enough to care for them. We’ve just lost two of them and you don’t care because there are still so many more. It doesn’t help that they are not too differentiated in look from each other, in or out of gold covering. The team consists of Dane (the leader), Mother-One (the cyborg), Dozer (soon to be the “big guy”), Grail (the ass kicking loner), Jester (the wisecracker), Crossbones (the other guy) and Pilgrim (the girl). I don’t know if it is too many characters, or because this title actually devotes too many pages letting us get to know Mr. Waering and the Blood Queen, that none of the characters come across as deeper than a bowl of soup. Even after reading all the “WetWorks” books I only ended up with an attachment to Dane and Mother-One. Later in the future when a few more team members die I actually thought “good, not enough room in this book for them anyway!”

Back to the story. Craven is super pissed that not only did Team 7 survive and that Mr. Waering double crossed him, but that those awesome super powered suits got away! Also, after everything went down Lynch warned Craven that Dane will be gunning for him now. Craven means to have his revenge and gets presidential approval to reinstate one of his best operatives to hunt down the former Team 7. This man’s name is Raymond LeGauche and he’s a right bastard. Even the other members of the National Security Council think it’s a bad idea, but when the Commander-in-Chief says it’s cool, you let that maniac out of prison to do the dirty work! Also in the “we didn’t really think this out” department, a television reporter and camera man find out that vampires can’t be caught on tape, ruining what they assume will be their big break. Even few secret agent types still confiscate the video in question from them, which is basically just a video of a concert hall ceiling. The very next page has the Blood Queen spying via video camera on the vampire faction that means to dethrone her. So we’ve learned that vampires won’t show up on video playback, but can be clearly seen on live video. That reporter and camera man should’ve gone live with their story!

We end this entry with what was a four page preview of “WetWorks” from the back of an early issue of “WildC.A.T.s.” It takes place as the team is starting to work together and understand their suits, so I’d put it just after these first three issues of volume one. Its main focus is on Dane being the leader as the team takes on a small enclave of vampires. For what it is, it’s a nice little story, the main thing is how much better the coloring team got at WildStorm. Seriously, in the series proper they really look like they’ve been coated in gold, where in this story they look more like they’ve been coated in urine.

Where to find this story:

• the “Wetworks : Rebirth” trade paperback contains all 3 issue, and the short from “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 2
• Comixology: “Wetworks” vol. 1 issue 1

Next : “Union” Vol. 1 issues 0 – 4 by Mike Heisler and Mark Texeira (with Ryan Benjamin)

“Team 7” Vol. 1 issues 1 – 4

this entry covers “Team 7” volume one (aka Team 7 Series 1) issues 1 – 4

I’d like to start out saying that while “Team 7” isn’t the first book that Wildstorm ever put out, it is integral for the history of the Wildstorm Universe that we start here. The first several years of Wildstorm comics (up through the disastrous “Fire from Heaven” cross over) all, to some degree, revolve around the members of Team 7 and their former bosses at International Operations, an intelligence agency for the United States Government. Second, this book was never presented as a character telling a story to others, or even features a wraparound to set the book in the present timeline with flashbacks to Team 7’s exploits in the ‘70s. Finally, it must be said that when this series started the readers knew most of the key players already, and were excited to see their collective past together. In the end, knowing these characters going in is a bit of a hindrance, in fact, I remember hating this when it came out. I wanted answers to some of the built up mysteries in the Wildstorm U and I wasn’t getting them here at all. All I was getting was a sci-fi war story from the ‘70s and that wasn’t what I was getting hyped up to read.

When we meet Team 7 they are already in the middle of a mission that is already going wrong. The team is being led by John Lynch under the direction of Mile Craven at I.O. and consists of Stephen Callahan, Cole Cash, Phillip Chang, Michael Cray, Jackson Dane, Alex Fairchild, Andrew Johnson, Richard MacNamara, Mark Slayton and a member that we only ever get the last name of, Breckmann. The mission goes south, but we get to see how resourceful Team 7 is in saving their skin in a tough situation. The mission was screwed from the start with the team being tasked with saving some hostages that had already been killed, I’m guessing that the idea was to draw out Team 7 and pick them off. It didn’t go as well as the “bad guys” had planned, the team survives and I.O. gets revenge on the source of the bad intel.

If you were me at the time, you were thinking “Who the hell are Johnson, MacNamara and Breckmann? And where the hell are Diaz¹ and Rhodes²? We’ve never heard of the first three and the last two have been mentioned as Team 7 members by both Backlash and Grifter!” Well, as an adult I see that the book needed some cannon fodder as Craven is sending Team 7 on their second doomed mission, the mission that imbued the boys with the Gen-Factor.

Let’s be honest, I’ve never been exactly clear on what the Gen-Factor means. I had always assumed that it had meant there was a structural change to one’s genes that gave the recipient super powers. It may have very well been this at one point, but as time goes on we find that you can freely give your Gen-Factor to another person, or it can be stripped from you by someone for their own use. My initial understanding always made more sense to me, as it tracked that the Gen¹³ kids would get their Gen-Factor powers due to the enhanced genes their fathers are passing down to them. That’s just me, I didn’t write this stuff, and I can be kind of an idiot.

Let’s talk about the Team 7 members we do know. We’ve seen Lynch in the pages of “WildC.A.T.s” before he became the mentor of Gen¹³, whose roster includes the children of Callahan, Chang and Fairchild. We’d gotten to know Cash as Grifter very well in “WildC.A.T.s” as well as Slayton in “Stormwatch” and also we saw him in an uneasy team up with Grifter in “The Kindred.” Cray had recently started his own solo title with “Deathblow” so we didn’t know him that well quite yet, but enough to be interested to see how he started to work for I.O. as well as why he didn’t seemingly have any powers at all. Finally we’d seen Dane in “Wetworks”, even if he looked and acted a bit different back in his Team 7 days. Oh, and Callahan had died in the open pages of “Gen¹³” Vol. 1 #1. During the time that “Team 7” was coming out, the only members that we didn’t know the final fate of were Breckman, Chang, Johnson, Fairchild and MacNamara. I should’ve known that if you weren’t alive in the current Wildstorm books, you were assumed dead or would be dying soon in “Team 7,” and to keep Chang and Fairchild live long enough to have kids, they’d need a few people to fall early on to keep the stakes high. The last we’d see of Breckman and MacNamara is in I.O. headquarters where they are both having trouble controlling their new powers. Breckman has torn his eyes out and sits bloody on the floor of a padded cell, while MacNamara commits suicide because he can’t control his body from sending blasts out from it, having already killed a few I.O. staff members.

Through this initial “Team 7” series we find that Craven had been trying to create super powered beings for a while under his own command, and Team 7 was the first to mostly be intact after receiving those powers. We also are introduced to Gabriel, a telepathic assistant to Craven. Where he came from, and how he gained his powers are unknown, but we do find that Craven has been keeping all his failed super-soldiers on I.O.’s 9^th level, which technically doesn’t exist and Gabriel is frightened of it. We also meet Alicia Turner as a nurse where Team 7 is waking from their post Gen-Factor induced comas. Wildstorm readers had already known her from “WildC.A.T.s” and I have to say, she ages just as well as Cash & Dane do, to say, in 20 years, she really doesn’t age at all, unlike Craven, Lynch and Slayton.

Wait, I haven’t told you the final fate of Johnson yet! Johnson just goes on to be a real dick on the first Team 7 mission with Gen-Factor powers and Cash kills him for it. Johnson had pretty much become a monster, mind controlling the team’s enemies into commenting suicide with a smile as he laughed at them. Cash wanted to win, but not like this, so he takes out Johnson. This starts a real rift between him and Lynch and as a result we start to see the team fall apart. Some want to remain loyal to Craven and I.O., others want to get away from the craziness that their lives had become. Also Fairchild gets kinda rapey trying to mind control a girl at a bar and Cash kicks his ass for it. Cash really hates mind controlling. The team fraying all comes to ahead when Craven decides to send Team 7 on their final test.

Oh, the final test. I’m still not sure what Craven was hoping for. He takes all of Team 7, except for Cray, as he’s not showing any powers, and sends them on a mission to a temple in Middle East. While there the team finds that there’s no strategic reason for them being at the temple and Lynch and Cash start to have a mind battle. Then Craven launches a low yield nuclear missile at the Team to see if they’ll survive. Yup, that’s the final test; let’s see if this can destroy them. The team that without super powers was already surviving the near impossible by working together and being smart. I know that Craven is a jerk, but come on, from everything we’ve seen, even if we didn’t know they’d all survive, we’d still assume they’d all survive. Team 7 huddles and concentrates on their psionic powers to shield them in a bubble force field and protects themselves from being blown up. They don’t give a shit about any of the monks in the temple though, them monks is dead.

Predictably having a nuke lobbed at Team 7 is the final straw and the only members willing to work for I.O. are Lynch and Slayton. Cray is pretty much blackmailed/coerced in to staying with I.O. by Craven after he threatened to murder half the crew of the boat that launched the missile at the rest of Team 7. Callahan, Cash, Chang, Dane and Fairchild all retire to a small town in Nicaragua, hoping to hide from I.O. and anyone else who would try get them to use their powers for purposes they disagree with. Good call, as we’ve seen a very creepy Russian man on crutches who has been one step behind Team 7 this whole time, who seems very interested in what they’ve been up to.

That’s it, that’s the first series! As an adult I really enjoy it. I enjoy seeing what good friend Cray and Dane were back then. I enjoy seeing Cash as a brash young man, but I wish he would’ve developed his sense of humor a bit back then. It was also fun seeing Lynch as a being highly fallible, which we’ll go years in the Wildstorm U before we see a hint of this again. When I picked up this book as a kid I really wanted to know how Lynch lost his eye, why Dane acts so different in “Wetworks” as well as how I.O. was founded. None of this is really answered in this series. In the future we’ll get an answer to the first, clues to the second and some murky details on the third, but nothing all that definitive. Also most of the team winds up in a small South American town? What? Really? How do they get to be who they are? I thought this was a prequel to some of Wildstorm’s biggest names! I want more story, dammit!  As an adult comic reader I’ve learned patience, but I really wish we would’ve gotten a bit more into the personalities of Callahan and Chang, who we never really see again for any true measure of time. They and Fairchild really come off as bit players in this book, and I feel the book is suffers a bit because of that.

Where to find this story:

• The “Team 7” trade paper back
• Comixology: “Team 7” vol. 1 issues 1, 2, 3 & 4

Next Week : Team 7 : Objective : Hell (aka Team 7 Series 2) issues 1 – 3 by Chuck Dixon & Chris Warner

1 We’ll see more with Robert Diaz in “The Kindred” mini-series
2 Jack Rhodes, also known as Cyberjack, is a supporting cast member in the “Backlash” comic.