“WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 31 – 34

This entry covers “WildC.A.T.s : Covert Action Teams” volume one issues 31 through 34 by Alan Moore, Jim Lee, Travis Charest, Josh Wiesenfeld, Mat Broome, Pat Lee, Rob Stotz, Richard Bennett, Trevor Scott, Jason Gorder, Troy Hubbs, Scott Taylor, JD, and Sandra Hope.

Back to the blog! Back to old school WildStorm Universe continuity! Back to the WildC.A.T.s! Back to the Crime War! That’s right, even during the “Fire from Heaven” crossover, the new team of WildC.A.T.s were involved in a war against various mob bosses in New York City. The war was getting bigger and the rookies from StormWatch, along with Fuji, were being enlisted to help TAO and company fight those mobsters.

Leading us through what is going on is our old buddy Cole Cash, who’s just woken up from a crazy psychedelic dream he had about his old friend Michael Cray. We see the now awake Cole checking in with TAO and Savant as they direct the teams, we see Maxine and Zannah fighting about, well fighting, we even see Spartan become more and more like John Colt and how he would like to rekindle the romance that he once had with Zannah. This last one is a gut punch to Cole.

Meanwhile, we see that the Mercs have been hired by the mob. They’ve taken a handful of hostages, one who swears he shouldn’t be there. Yep, it’s the surprising return of Vic Lazarr! Remember him from all the way back at the President’s Restaurant job and the bombing of Clark’s Bar? Sure you did! You know who else remembers? That’s right, Maxine! And she’s pretty confused as to why he’s a hostage, shouldn’t he be working again the WildC.A.T.s instead of being detained by the Mercs? Not that she gets too much time to think it through quickly, as it is time for her to meet the ace up the Mercs’ sleeve, Overtkill! A giant cyborg, that as much as Maxine wants to kill, she also wants to date. She kind of fangirls out on him, and he takes it in stride. Rather a nice guy for a homicidal mercenary robot son-of-a-bitch.

While trading shots, Cole and Deathtrap get to talking. There’s no real reason why they’re fighting as the Mercs didn’t even bomb Clark’s Bar. The boys call a truce to talk it out. At this same time, Maxine manages to rip out Overtkill’s gyroscope, therefore putting him out of the picture, and then zeroing in on Lazarr. She gets him to spill the dirt on TAO, and Cole is there to hear it. The Mercs back off, as this is now a family problem for the WildC.A.T.s and the Crime War is pretty much done.

As the remaining team (plus Fuji) talk it over, they decide that TAO is too dangerous to let live, and he needs to be taken out quickly. In the ambush on TAO, Savant ends up getting shot as she used her Seven League boots to enter the room too quickly for Cole to see her coming. While Zannah is attending to Savant’s injuries, the rest split up to better take out TAO. This proves to be a bit dangerous to those who didn’t follow the buddy system.

Fuji is the first to find TAO, but TAO evades capture from Fuji by tricking him mentally, putting his mind into a loop. When Maxine finds TAO he manages to get close enough to her to unhook the cooling system of the nuclear reactor that powers her body. So yeah, she’s going into meltdown. The only one that can save her is Majestic.

After Mr. Majestic saves Maxine, by disconnecting her body and flying it out into space before the explosion, he vaporizes TAO. Why did it have to be Majestic? Well, no one else could pull the trigger on TAO. Seriously, the guy has the cure to all the problems in the world in his head. Even if he’s a world class dick if he’s the man that has the answers no right-thinking person would kill him. Despite Majestic being a “right-thinking person” like the rest of the WildC.A.T.s, he’s also the only one for whom TAO actions are personal, who in any state to do a thing about it. Majestic feels responsible for the new team, with Max missing and Maxine and Savant incapacitated, it is up to him to clean up the team’s final mess, TAO. Majestic fires up his laser eyes, baby, and blows TAO to atoms.

Later, for whatever reason, the team holds a funeral for TAO. It is a ceremonial funeral and burial due to TAO having been blowed-up real good. He’s technically the first team member to die, so there’s a bit of a somber “I guess we should do this” feel about it. Savant and Majestic hobble out to the service and quite fittingly dance on the grave of TAO as well as their version of the WildC.A.T.s.

Continuity Corner

• By this count, the WildStorm Universe has lost 4 of the major villains that would define the entire line. First Helspont bites it at the end of “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue #4, then the man we all knew as Kaizen Gamorra and Miles Craven end up dead by the end of “Fire from Heaven” and now TAO is gone. Of course, Helspont comes back in fits and spurts, and the real Kaizen Gamorra reveals himself, but TAO stays “dead” or at least underground for a long long time. Only Craven gets the short end of the stick on this front.
• So yeah, TAO isn’t dead, as we’ll come to find out in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 50. Turns out that it was actually Mr. White posing as TAO by the time that Mr. Majestic encountered him.
• We’ll also see in “Sleeper : Season Two” issue 5 that Lynch tried to warn them about TAO and his cleverness, to the point where he called Cole to tell him it was very possible that TAO survived them eye-beams.
• We see TAO at Clark’s in issue #38 of “StormWatch” volume one, which I assume was probably being published during this arc without knowing of the final outcome and TAO’s villainy. I guess it could be a bit of a continuity error that we see him alive and out and about because he is supposedly dead, even if we will know he’s been alive the whole time. We can’t really push this “WildC.A.T.s” arc after this issue of “StormWatch” because most of the StormWatch members fighting in the Crime War are fired in “StormWatch” volume one issue #37. So yeah… tiny looking error, that’s not really an error, but takes years to reveal in-universe why it’s not an error.
• Speaking of StormWatch, we never really see Fuji out of commision for too terribly long as it was speculated he would be. I guess his non-traditional physiology worked in his favor and he was a quicker mental healer than expected.
• Mr. Majestic saving Maxine, and her calling him “a dad” sets up one of my favorite relationships in the WildStorm Universe. The only real follow up was in “Mr. Majestic” issue #3, but it was awesome enough.
• Not to mention that Majestic is literally the dad of someone on the new WildC.A.T.s team as well.
• I figure the only reason why Cole, who quit the team in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue #20, is back with the team, is that he has decided to repay the favor to the ‘C.A.T.s helping out him and his Team 7 buddies on Gamorra by helping them end this war on crime.
• Hey, who was this new woman with the Mercs? The one in the mech suit. Did they say her name? I seriously couldn’t find it. I double checked and everything. She seems badass and we never see her again! Half the time it seemed like she was a Razor redesign based on the accent and relationship to Deathtrap, that is until we see the actual Razor a page later. So who in the hell was she? A character from before that I’ve forgotten all about? She doesn’t seem to appear again after this. Even Hellslayer manages to keep making cameos for years after the Mercs’ heyday, so why not this woman? Seriously… who the heck is she?

NEXT: “Gen12” issues 1 and 2 by Brandon Choi, Michael Ryan, Sal Regla, Luke Rizzo, Armando Durruthy, John Tighe and Peter Guzman

“Fire from Heaven” Finale

This post covers “Fire from Heaven” Finale chapters 1 through 3, which includes “The Sword of Damocles” issue 2, “Fire from Heaven” issue 2 and “Deathblow” volume one issue 28 by Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner, Randy Green, Jim Lee, Trevor Scott, John Tighe, Richard Friend, Luke Rizzo, JD, Sandra Hope, Troy Hubbs, Danny Miki, Sal Regla, Edwin Rosell, Art Thibert and Tim Townsend.

Alright, time to start wrapping this crossover coverage of “Fire from Heaven” up. By the looks of it, I took longer to write about it than the books took to come out. That’s… damn… didn’t expect to fall that far behind! Oh well, here we go, here we all go all the way to the moon!

Yup, that’s right, everybody gets to the moon via Void and some SkyWatch teleporters! I mean except for Cray, Dr. Tsung, and Ethan, they were already on the moon fighting Damocles, while The Sword, the Bounty Hunters, and some random Hunter-Killers watched. But like I said, everyone is on the moon now, so now it is time to kick some bad guy booty!

First to get done in is The Sword. Turns out that The Sword is an alternate version of Union. The Sword and Union are pretty evenly matched so… blah blah blah, fishcakes. You know what, Union wins, we all saw that coming, but how? Looks like Winter is back! Yup, remember way way back at the start of this crossover when The Sword tried to take out Winter? Looks like he should’ve done a better job because Winter proves his undoing. Union ultimately shoves the American flag left on the moon from the Apollo 11 mission, through The Sword’s Justice Stone and then takes The Sword’s… well, sword.

While this is starting to wind down, the StormWatch moon base is secured from the Bounty Hunters. Zannah and Jeremy seem to do most of the work on that one despite other heroes being there. Most of the Bounty Hunters get away fine with Jade being the only one who gets nearly deaded.

Meanwhile, Spartan, Hellstrike, Union and Mr. Majestic are fighting off waves and waves of various henchmen of Damocles. While putting up a good fight, especially since 3/4th of them are supposed to be the WildStorm heavy hitters, they’re starting to get overwhelmed. Well, looks like blind luck and clumsiness to the rescue as Dozer shows up in even more gigantic-er armor than we’ve seen before and literally trips over and flattens pretty much the rest of the enemies. Oh Dozer, you lovable goof!

Now back to our for real main event, and that’s Damocles versus Team 7 and Ethan. It is not going well for Team 7. Lynch and Cole are phasing in and out of reality and Dane’s symbiote is hardly keeping him together. Other heroes show up to join, but it doesn’t go too well for them. Cannon gets straight up knocked out and Void gets sent on a trip into broken space-time. So yeah, it doesn’t look good, but after seeing Cray take a savage attack from Damocles the rest of Team 7 get an idea.

It seems as if Cray’s Gen-Factor has made is obviousness known, Cray, well, is pretty indestructible. Now that it’s obvious, he starts feeling the rush of his Gen-Factor and Team 7 pull an old trick to help him amplify it. Cole, Lynch, Dane, Alex, Slayton and even Ethan gather in a circle, hold hands and concentrate together. It’s something they came across in their old Team 7 days. This not only helps amplify the Gen-Factor to help Cray get some extra strength but also helps give some of the Gen-Factor back to Cole, Lynch, and Dane.

Ethan leaves the power circle to help the charged up Cray fight Damocles because Damocles is one tough bastard. Suddenly the Qeelocke opens a portal that will vaporize anyone who goes through it. Cray is trying to push Damocles into it, but he still doesn’t quite have the power for it. Ethan wants to blast Damocles back into it, but can’t get a clear shot around Cray. Cray, knowing what is best for the world yells at Ethan to take the shot. Cray doesn’t see his life as more important than the rest of the Earth’s and demands Ethan to take the shot.

Ethan takes the shot.

Suddenly the book goes black and white and Cray is face to face with Gaby. He’s worried that he’s failed and Gaby lets him know that he did his best. Cray can’t understand what is happening. Then he sees the four men that lost their lives on one of his last few I/O missions and starts to get an idea of what exactly happened and where he is now.

Continuity Corner:

• Looks like Union and The Sword is another case of someone fighting an alternate version of themselves in this series. We had Ethan fighting the Miles Craven Gen-Omega, we had Spartan fighting Yon Kohl and Dr. Tsung doing what he can against Damocles. It’s almost like it’s a theme…
• This is also where Union gets a back a justice staff, as his got lost in “Union: Final Vengence.” Good thing too, as he’ll need one again when he shows up in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 35.
• In “Fire from Heaven” issue 2, we see Fuji on a few panels. My best guess is that he got restationed from the New York Crime War to the moon based on priority. Hell, for all we know, that’s what Ladytron is yelling at TAO and Savant about on the first page of the issue.
• I keep looking back and forth over these pages and I looks like Amanda and Jodi didn’t go to the moon. That’s acceptable, I can see Slayton telling Jodi to stay on Earth and Amanda helping him out by agreeing to stay behind with Jodi. But I also don’t see Claymore… WTF Claymore! Where are you!?
• When teleporting to the moon Slayton says “Holy $#%@! we’re on the #$%@ing moon!” which feels out of character for him a bit. Actually, any of Team 7 to be honest. Should’ve saved that line for Roxy or Grunge.
• It seems like Cray’s Gen-Factor only kicks in when he’s dead. This is how he came back after being killed by those Russians in the “Team 7: Dead Reckoning.” This is also how he survived his cancer earlier in his own book. It’s been his power the whole time but he didn’t know it.
• While Damocles’ takedown of Void is savage, it doesn’t last long and she finds her way back to the team in no time.
• For me, Damocles always seemed like a weak villain to be the main Big-Bad of this story. The revived Miles Craven Gen-Omega, Kaizen Gamorra in general before the reveal of him being Yon Kohl and hell, even The Sword all seem like better villains. It’s like a video game where all the mini-bosses are better than the final one.
• If this last issue feels a little anti-climactic… well it kind of is. Not sure if it was by design or what. The real final issue of this massive crossover is actually the next issue of “Deathblow.” Without it, this crossover feels very incomplete.

NEXT: “Deathblow” volume on issue 29 by Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner and Trevor Scott.

“Fire from Heaven” Chapters 9 – 11

This entry covers “Fire from Heaven” Chapters 9 through 11, which include “Gen13” volume two issue 11, “Backlash” issue 20 and “Wetworks” volume one issue 17 by J. Scott Campbell, Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Brett Booth, Sean Ruffner, Jonathan Peterson, Terry Shoemaker, Melvin Rubi, Cedric Nocon, Saleem Crawford, Richard Friend, Alex Garner, Tom McWeeney, Tom Raney, Luke Rizzo, John Tighe, Mark Pennington, Art Thibert and Chuck Gibson.

Well, here we are again, covering the massive “Fire from Heaven” crossover! Here’s some good news, these three issues are pretty much told in real time, chapter by chapter. No more rewinding to find out how who got where just straightforward storytelling. But I have some bad news… it lasts for a few more issues after this. Then it gets back to the whole “all these issues are happening at once” tactic. Enjoy this streamlined ride while you can!

When we last left Team 7 and Gen13 they were in a big fight against Damocles and his pals, being backed up by Kaizen with the Minotaur and his cronies, and we just saw Ethan, Dr. Tsung, and Michael Cray teleport away with Qeelocke.  It’s a bit too much for our heroes and they all get captured by Kaizen and detained. Before Kaizen can take them for himself, StormForce shows up to help and monitor the prisoners. Jackson King gets into an argument with Kaisen stating that because they were called to help, StormWatch is gonna help, and that means they take the prisoners.

In the detention center, things get a little more… well personal. Jodi is excited to see Amanda again, and Team 7 is happy to see Dane holding up. Alex Fairchild puts two and two together and realizes that Caitlyn is his daughter. They have a nice little moment until Grunge asks about his dad and Alex starts to tell him about how they smuggled the kids out of the country. This is when Lynch gets crazy mad because he just realized that it was Alex who kidnapped his son and sent him off, lost forever. Well, not entirely forever, as Alex tells Lynch that Bobby is his son. Whoa! Too much information and Lynch passes out.

Meanwhile, Damocles starts to put a few things together about this universe. While his motivations remain a mystery to the reader and those around him, Damocles kidnaps Victoria and Celia Tsung. Once the Tsung women are on the moon with him he calls for his doomsday device to be activated, just for a test run. It’s basically a huge rocket engine on the moon, and his plan is to smash the moon into the Earth and use the released energy to teleport him to another universe. Again. He seems to do something like this a lot from what we can gather. Anyway, like I said it was a test, so you know, the stars of these books still have plenty of time to get to the moon and stop him before he is for realzies about this moon missile plan.

Oh, and these three things happen. All of the WildCATs except for Spartan are immediately caught and thrown in the same prison as the rest. DV8 are wandering the woods of Gamorra and manage to secretly escape the island. Jackson King is starting to think that something is up, and is not comfortable holding so many good men and women hostage.

Back in the main narrative, we see Slayton and the Cybernary starting to check out the prison compound where the rest of our story antagonists are located. They are quickly joined by Spartan. Suddenly they are under attack by Aries and a bunch of Hunter-Killers, and they unleash their most terrifying weapon of all: Evil Mind-Controlled Pimped Out CyberJack. Slayton can’t believe his eyes, or his ears as Jack isn’t talking with anything but his fists. Luckily Union shows up to even the odds out a bit.

The fight between Slayton and CyberJack is massive and eventually leads us right into the prison. All this destruction and distraction turns out to be a good thing as is leaves massive holes in the walls and dead HK guards making for an easier exit for all the captives. At one point Flashpoint tries to stop them all, but he’s met with a knock-out mind ray from Jackson King. Seriously, Jackson is really getting sick of his shit. Slayton manages a few good blows to CyberJack that momentarily give old Rhodes back his mind. Jack tells them all to clear out, he knows what Kaizen is going to do and wants them all safe. What is Kaizen going to do? Well, detonate a bomb in CyberJack’s cortex. Yeah… devastating. All our heroes manage to get free as they take a quick minute to mourn the loss of a friend and ally.

Alright, everyone, it’s time for the team up of the WildStorm decade! Pretty much all their characters are together (save StormWatch) on the way to punish Kaizen Gamorra as a group! Seeing them in such a big mass together, sneaking around Gamorra, interacting with each other is a trip! This is the kinda thing that makes comics so fun. Well fun for me, the reader, not so much the characters. This trek isn’t so easy. In fact, at one point they all get surrounded by some new high-tech attack drones. While the fight seems all but lost, there’s a sudden save from a massive (and I do mean massive) Dozer from Wetworks being dropped like a machine gun blazin’ bomb. He saves the day and everyone soldiers on.

Back on the moon, Damocles readies his weapon for reals. That’s right, it’s time to shoot the moon right into the Earth. It’s go time! And of course, that means things going haywire on Earth again. We have more earthquakes! We have volcanos erupting! And we have an even bigger big ass wave headed towards the island of Gamorra! Could all our heroes be wiped out by the wave before they get to Kaizen? If the wave takes them out but also Kaizen is that a good thing? Wait, why am I worried about this huge wave THE FRIKKIN’ MOON IS ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH EARTH!

Continuity Corner:

• The first few pages of “Gen13” volume two issue 11 here is the only real retread we get of what we’ve seen before. It gives us a nice J. Scott Campbell 2 page spread of the end of the fight, this time branching off to see what is going on in Gamorra instead of following Ethan, Dr. Tsung and Cray to California.
• We currently don’t know much about the Gen-Active child smuggling that Alex was involved in just yet, but we’ll find out all about it in the “Gen12” series.
• Too bad The Bleed had yet to be officially “found” in the WildStorm Universe, could’ve saved Damocles a lot of time and effort.
• While we don’t see an official meet up the Wetworks team being imprisoned with the rest. Those characters are suddenly there, in jail. I think a page or two could’ve been spared to address this… maybe even a single panel.

NEXT: “Fire from Heaven” chapters 12 through 14, which include “StormWatch” volume one issue 36, “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 30 and “Sigma” issue 3 by Drew Bittner, Alan Moore, Brandon Choi, Renato Arnem, Ryan Benjamin, Travis Charest, Kevin Lau, Jose Pimentel, Richard Friend, Sandra Hope, Mark Irwin, Sal Regla, Luke Rizzo, and John Tighe.

“Fire from Heaven” Chapters 1 – 3

This entry covers “Fire from Heaven” chapters 1 through 3 which include “Fire from Heaven” issue 1, “Backlash” issue 19 and “Gen13” volume two issue 10 by Alan Moore, Sean Ruffner, Brett Booth, Brandon Choi, J. Scott Campbell, Jim Lee, Ryan Benjamin, Ryan Odagawa, Chuck Gibson, Richard Friend, Mark Irwin, Mark Pennington, Alex Garner, JD, Tom McWeeney and Scott Williams

Ok, now it is time for us to properly get this crossover started! We see StormWatch making their presence known on the island nation of Gamorra. The leader of this island is Kaizen Gamorra, and he’s mixed up in researching the Gen-Factor. While this is usually enough to get Team 7 involved, they have more reason after finding out he’s been working with their former boss Miles Craven, the man who recently had the Gen-Factor extracted from many former Team 7 members. Kaizen knows that Team 7 will be coming for him, so he’s requested StormWatch to come and protect him from the rebels that threaten him. Little does StormWatch know that the rebels aren’t actually all that bad once you consider Kaizen, and that Team 7 and the Gen13 kids aren’t really part of the Gamorra rebel group, they’re just concerned citizens trying to find their friends and family that have been captured by Kaizen and the Bountyhunters. Yeah, the Bountyhunters and Kaizen have struck up a shaky alliance. Hey, it’s a cross-over, pretty much every major player in the WildStorm Universe is tied-in somehow, that’s the whole point!

While Team 7 and Gen13, along with Ethan and Secret Agent Maggie, are on their way to Gamorra, their jet gets shot. While the jet is going down Slayton, Bobby and Dane get into an escape pod and safely land far from the rest of the team. Yeah, even though their flight plan was changed due to a frickin’ laser from space, Cole, Caitlin, Grunge, Sarah, Lynch, Cray, Ethan and Secret Agent Maggie manage to survive the landing. While getting their bearings on the beach they are attacked by Flashpoint, Cannon, and Fahrenheit of StormWatch. Depending on which book you read (“Fire from Heaven” issue 1 or “Gen13” volume two issue 10) shows you a different outcome to the fight. Either way, the fight is resolved and StormWatch moves on.

Before we check in with the trio in the escape pod, we first need to catch up with a few other characters. To this end we see Jodi and Amanda looking for leads on where CyberJack might be. While lurking they see and are squicked out by, Ivana and the DV8 kids, who are on Gamorra because Ivana found out about the clone of Ethan, and she wants it. Eventually, Jodi and Amanda end up in a bar where they overhear from Kaizen’s right-hand man Aries, that Team 7 is on the island. They take off, hoping to find Slayton, before Aries, the Minotaur or his goons see them.

Now back to Marc, Bobby, and Dane, who get separated from the rest of their crew when their plane was shot down by a frikkin’ space laser! The boys argue a bit while the girls are catching up to them. Just as suddenly as Jodi and Amanda get to Bobby, Dane, and Marc they are joined by Aries, the Minotaur, Borgia and a number of hunter-killers.

Our heroes seem to make short work of the bad guys before an earthquake occurs. Turns out this earthquake is over a volcano and magma starts pushing itself up to the surface. At this point, Bobby grabs Jodi and Aries and flies off, Marc tosses Amanda to Dane and a font of magma flies up between Marc and the rest knocking him over. Fearing him for dead Amanda and Dane mournfully move on. But come on, nothing like that could kill ole Backlash! Truth be told, he his holding on for dear life on the edge of a cliff hoping not to drop when Cybernary comes to save the day! She’d been watching the brawl, and anyone who’s against Kaizen and his crew are friends to her.

Back in New York, we are seeing the WildC.A.T.s team start to splinter. Zannah leaving the team to follow Cole to Gamorra and we have Pris and Jacob straight up leaving everything. The new team wants the old team to stay behind and help out with the crime war, but Zannah isn’t hearing it.

We get one quick page of seeing what Kaizen has done to CyberJack after all his time on this island. He’s more Cyber than Jack now and has seemed to have lost his personality. Kaizen’s plan is to turn Jack on his old friends… uh oh!

Up on SkyWatch II, Henry Bendix is sensing some crazy shit going on behind the moon. It looks like the Bountyhunters are using some crazy tech to open a portal for Damocles to come through. All this power so close to the moon is also starting to affect the tides on Earth.

Back down on Gamorra Alex Fairchild and Lucius Morgan are combing this island for info about what’s going on. They eventually find out pretty much everything on their first try! That Team 7 killed Craven, that Team 7 is on the island, and that Kaizen is keeping a hostage, that of a Team 7 child. The duo surmises that Team 7 is on Gamorra to kill Kaizen and they head off to join their old friends.

Ivana wants that Gen-Omega so her and the DV8 kids are breaking into Kaizen’s compound through the front gates. While a slight annoyance to Kaizen, he isn’t too worried. He just decides it is time to awaken the Gen-Omega a little ahead of schedule. What could it hurt, it’s probably what they’re after anyway. As Dr. Tsung and Roxy talk about how they each ended up on Kaizen’s floor in chains, their friends in Team 7 and Gen13 are sneaking in the back door.

Meanwhile, Jodi and Bobby get to know Aries. Well not really. All they know is that he’s their key to getting to Kaizen and that his and Jodi’s powers go all wonky when they get too close to each other. Aries reluctantly agrees to take them to Kaizen.

Back to Berkley for a quick page to see Colby and Alicia leave the Tsung ladies to go back to work at I/O. Mrs. Tsung and Celia are devastated by what they’re seeing on the news about Gamorra but know that Colby and Alicia could do more good back at the newly Craven-free I/O.

In Gamorra there’s less good news. Team 7 and Gen13 reach Dr. Tsung and Roxy and before anyone can celebrate too much Ivana and the DV8 kids burst into the same room. Predictably a fight is on! It doesn’t go too well for the DV8 kids, and it seems that Ethan is the secret weapon, as he even took down Threshold! During the fight, Ethan starts to feel woozy, and Dr. Tsung thinks it might have something to do with the Gen-Omega coming online. Ethan, Dr. Tsung and Secret Agent Maggie head down the same corridor that Kaizen disappeared into earlier. They arrive at the Gen-Omega pod just in time to meet it… the reborn Miles Craven! In a fresh new body, complete with the Gen-Factor stolen from Team 7. This… this is gonna be trouble!

Continuity Corner:

• Jesus, is Hellstrike miscolored here! I mean they even allude to his “jade glow” later and still managed to miscolor him for pages! Which colorist and editor were asleep at the wheel for this one?
• Speaking of, seeing Frostbite and Evo in DV8 colored as pale white guys gives me the heeby-jeebies! It just looks so very very wrong!
• We’ll see an expanded version of the WildCATs scene from “Fire from Heaven” issue 1 in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 29.
• At the end of “Fire from Heaven” issue 1 we see Hunter-Killers move in on the Team 7/Gen13 crew after StormWatch has subdued them and leaves. When we get to “Gen13” volume two issue 10 we never see that scene. We have Team 7 and Gen13 kicking the StormWatch boy’s asses and then moving to Kaizen’s place after Fahrenheit takes Flashpoint and Cannon away.
• One of the reasons I always forget that Minotaur has a horse-body is because sometimes he doesn’t! Like in the bar in “Backlash” issue 19. I figure that Minotaur must be mostly cybernetic and any of his organic parts left are must be in his upper body so that he can just mount himself on either robot-horse legs or robot-human legs, his choice on how centaur-like he feels in the morning. This would also explain how easily he can replace his left arm after Slayton lops it off.
• Cray mentions the sneaky way into Kaizen’s place cost a friend of his their life, I assume he means Mai-Li T’Sung from “Deathblow” volume one issue 19.
• An odd bit of continuity here with the Bountyhunters in chapters 2 and 3. In “Backlash” issue 19 (Chapter 2) we see them already on the moon getting the portal ready for Damocles. In “Gen13” volume two issue 10 (Chapter 3) we see the Bountyhunters with Kaizen, then they leave to go to the moon. I have to figure these events are happening at the same time, because later on in the “Gen13” issue we see Bobby with Jodi and Aries. If we wanted to get super picky I’d say that “Backlash” issue 19 should be read after the first 10 pages of “Gen13” volume two issue 10, right after the Bountyhunters attack the StormWatch members on the moon. But man… that’d be super convoluted, even for me!

NEXT: “Fire from Heaven” chapters 3 through 5, which include “Wetworks” volume one issue 16, “StormWatch” volume one issue 35 and “Sigma” issue 2 by Jonathan Peterson, Drew Bitner, Brandon Choi, Cedric Nocon, Renato Arlem, Randy Green, Chuck Gibson, Danny Bulanadi, Jose Pimentel and Sal Regla

“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

“Union” Vol. 2 issues 7 – 9 and “Union : Final Vengeance”

This entry covers “Union” volume two issues 7 – 9 and “Union : Final Vengeance” issue 1 by Mike Heisler, Pop Mahn, Allen Im, Carlos Mota, Jim Lee, Travis Charest, Whilce Portacio, Scott Clark, Chuck Gibson, John Lowe, Gary Martin, Mark Pennington, John Tighe, Mark Irwin, Rene Micheletti and Sal Regla.

Jill is unhappy with Union. Union keeps ignoring Jill to fight crime. Jill gets more fed up and leaves his ass for a stranger she met in an alley one day. That stranger saved her from some thugs. This stranger? Oh, he’s just Regent, the bad guy from Aegena, where he and Union grew up. Yup, that Regent! Turns out Mr. Douchebag engineered the whole alley attack on Jill thing just to steal her and then beat Union’s ass. Really, when you do that, you know you’re the bad guy, right Regent? There’s no possible way you thought you were doing something positive right? But to be fair, Regent seems pretty a-ok with his evilness. Dude is owning it!

And by owning it, I mean really mean owning it! You see, Regent has killed Union’s best friend Maikone! Then he kicked Union’s booty and paraded it around NYC for a few hours before taking Union’s unconscious body and tossing it into the sea. Sounds like a real bastard, no? Not only that but like every good villain Regent monologues like a real sonuvabitch, revealing that Union really didn’t kill all those Directorate soldiers back in Chichester. That was just a failsafe that went off when Regent’s pop died. A failsafe that Regent put into his own dad’s justice stone! Union only survived because he was in the eye of the storm, so to speak.

While Union is chilling at the bottom of the ocean, we find out that Regent has not only kidnapped Jill, but he’s also kidnapped Union’s former main squeeze from back home, Eliya. He’s holding both of them captive on his secret hidden base, in outer freakin’ space! Eventually, Union’s justice stone wakes him and leads him to said space base. That’s when all hell breaks loose!

Union goes in hot, and after a rocky start is holding his own against Regent. Meanwhile, Eliya and Jill get loose from the cages Regent was holding them in. Regent decides he’s not going to stand for a lowly Protectorate beating him up, so he tries to implant a second justice stone on this body! This just gives him more than he knows what to do with and Regent just starts blasting everything, resulting in ripping his satellite of loserdom apart. In the middle of this Regent tries to teleport away, but due to the doubled up justice stones he becomes some kind of portal/gate/black hole and sucks up everything, including Eliya, right in front of Union and Jill, who remain unharmed and unsucked up.

Union and Jill return to Earth and decide to live off the fake rich playboy life that Regent had constructed for himself. It’s not much, but it’s all they have except each other. And with these two, it’s a guess on how long that’s going to last.

Continuity Corner:

• Not only was Union not paying attention to Jill when he should have, but he’s also been blowing off StormWatch and he got a real dressing down from Bendix for not being around when he’s needed.
• The first few pages of issue 9 we are introduced to Data Assimilation Bureau of I/O consisting of Agents Kroger and Hanley and they both report to Director Sterling. I’m not sure we ever see these characters again. But if I’m wrong, let me know! They also refer to Director Rios and we’ll see him again in a lot of upcoming books. First in “Black Ops” but soon after that in pretty much any book that deals with I/O because he becomes the new director (until Ivana manages to steal that position from him.)
• Union makes a big comeback in “Fire from Heaven” which in all actuality was published well before “Union : Final Vengeance.” “Final Vengeance” had several delays but indeed was set before “Fire from Heaven” according to the final letter collum.
• Jill, however, we’re not going to see again. Maybe she finally left Union’s ass for good and that’s the reason for the despondency that leads to his suicide in “the Authority” volume one issue 21.
• Also, I don’t recall that we ever see the final fate of Eliya and Regent. Which is a shame as I liked Eliya a lot and would have loved to see the proposed “Union” relaunch with her at the center.
• During his fight with Regent, Union loses his staff. Don’t worry, he’ll steal one off of his alternate universe doppelganger The Sword in “Fire from Heaven.” Hrm… having an evil dude’s staff in your justice stone… maybe this is also something that leads to Union’s horrible last moments.

NEXT: “Cybernary” volume one issues 2 through 5 and “Cybernary : the Price” by Steve Gerber, Jeff Mariotte, Jeff Rebner, Richard Friend and John Tighe

“Cybernary” Back Ups & Vol. 1 issue 1

This entry covers the “Cybernary” stories from “Deathblow/Cybernary” volume one issues 1 through 3, the “Cybernary” story from “Deathblow” volume one issue 4 and “Cybernary” volume one issue 1 by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Steve Gerber, Nick Manabat, Jeff Rebner and Richard Friend.

Alright, Cybernary is one of those books that reveals itself over the course of reading it. I’m going to present the story pretty much chronologically, not the order the story is told in. Why? Because I’m as boring as dry toast. Also, I’m imploring you to read these books as presented as Nick Manabat’s art on the first 4 short installments is fantastic and you should really get a look at them. My words will never do justice to that art, so I’m not even going to compete, hence my uninspired coverage!

“Cybernary” is all about how a girl named Kat, in a land of extreme have and have-nots, and how she tried to lead a revolution to save the less fortunate. Katrina, along with her “boyfriend” Cisco intercepts a dairy truck that is carrying weaponry. The idea is for that weaponry to be used to arm her and her fellow revolutionary types. Nothing, of course, can go this easy on Gamorra, and it isn’t long before Katrina and her rebel group are attacked by Gamorran madman Gila and an army of Hunter-Killers to get the weapons that were stolen from them.

While all their partners in crime were getting mowed down, Cisco and Kat are very close to getting free. While Kat makes it out, Cisco is snagged at the last second. Kat manages to track Cisco to the labs of one Dr. Vandalia in a Gamorra Industries building. Like most evil scientists in Gamorra, he’s totally given himself some kind of crazy-ass techno body. He’s doing his evil mad professor thing of replacing Cisco’s body with mechanical parts when Kat tries to stop him. For reasons known only to him, Vandalia takes a shine to Kat and offers her Cisco’s life for hers. He even goes so far as to offer return Cisco to his organic state before letting him go. Kat sheds a tear and takes him up on the horrible deal.

What Dr. Vandalia has in mind is to turn her into a gift for Kaizen Gamorra. He’s reshaped her ears, as well as some other questionable “upgrades” to make her more resemble a high-end Gammoran Nympho-Droid. While working on this “gift” Vandalia has fallen behind on the latest upgrades to the ever-present Hunter-Killers. A man by the name of Mr. Chang goes to confront Vandalia on his slacking off, and takes Yumiko, the bosses daughter, as a power play move. It doesn’t quite go the way Chang would like and he leaves in a huff, Yumiko, however, stays behind.

Yumiko is trying to smooth things over with Dr. Vandalia as best she can, but she makes a simple, costly mistake. She reminds Vandalia and Kaizen Gamorra can have any woman he wants, so what would make even the greatest Nympho-Droid useful to him? Valdalia, always the messed up dick, decides to incapacitate Yumiko, hook her up to a bunch of machinery, remove her consciousness from her body, download it into a computer chip, and then install that computer chip in Kat’s brain. So yeah, now this crazily advanced cyborg now has two distinct personalities in a single body, and one is Kaizen Gamorra’s only child. Oh, and they both HATE Dr. Vandalia now.

Suddenly, a door in Vandalia’s lab is blown clean open as a charred body flies through it. Sensing an opportunity, Kat/Yumiko kick the stuffing out of Dr. Vandalia and make their escape. They find their savior is one Mr. Michael Cray. While they didn’t know him at first, the Yumiko side searched her data banks and noticed that he was a sworn enemy of the Gamorra Clan, and thusly our 2-in-1 heroine, slunk back into the shadows to avoid him.

Once free of the Gamorra Industry building they were trapped in, our gals are suddenly being pursued by a bunch of HKs. The ladies make short work of the green guys, and their little dogs too. But after mistiming a single grenade explosion, the body that the women inhabit crashes to the ground a goes limp. She’s picked up by the underground inhabitants known as the Techno-Dwarves who mean to scavenger the body for spare parts. While investigating their new prize they start to learn it’s history and that it is no ordinary Nympho-Droid. Because of this, one of the Techno-Dwarves accidentally fries his mind trying to interface with it. After this, the Techno-Dwarves send in a small cyborg named Miranda to talk to the Nympho-Droid and get information the old-fashioned way. Come on boys, don’t be scared to talk to pretty girls.

Meanwhile, all manner of creature are out looking for Kat/Yumiko. Minotaur is on the hunt at the behest of Kaizen. Mr. Chang is on the case because he knows that something crazy is up with all the destruction of Gamorra Industries property brought on by both Cray and Kat/Yumiko, and he means to find the party still on the island. For all his troubles Chang finds a scavenger named Guggen who lets him know that there’s no body here for him to retrieve, even if he wanted to get mixed up in all this mess. At this point, Chang gives up, but Minotaur and his crew won’t be stopped and will continue to pursue our girls for as long as it takes to capture them.

Continuity Corner:

• Vandalia’s lab and even the “man” himself is very reminiscent of the HK lab that Cannon found in “StormWatch” volume one issue 18’s backup story.
• While it was originally intended that when the “Deathblow/Cybernary” flip-book was coming out, they were occurring at the same time (this was in the letter pages) we now see that that cannot be the case. Those issues open with a Cybernary free of her creators running around before being captured by the Techno-Dwarves and having her origin recounted. It’s not until her proper series begins that we even see the conclusion of her story concerning her escape from her creators. She recounts the escape story as happening in the not too recent past, but based on Chang’s yelling, at the start of “Cybernary” volume one issue 1, her escape happened the night before, so these stories happen sooner than I’d previously thought! Like, right after Cray’s adventures in Gamorra in “Deathblow” volume one issues 17 through 19.

NEXT: “Gen13” volume two issues 6 and 7 by Brandon Choi, J. Scott Campbell, Jim Lee and Scott Williams.

“Gen13” Vol 2 issues 6 – 7

This entry covers “Gen13” volume two issues 6 and 7 by Brandon Choi, J. Scott Campbell, Jim Lee and Scott Williams.

The Gen13 kids are on their way to America, but due to an airport strike, they get stuck in Rome, Italy. Apparently, James McArthur hooked the kids up with a friend of his and Lynch’s to take care of the kids while they wait for a flight home. Mr. Bovini gets the kids outfitted in fancy high fashions, and new haircuts for the ladies, before taking them out to a swanky dinner.

At din din, Grunge acts like a cad and upsets Roxy, but Bobby cheers her up. Speaking of “cheers” the kids share a bit too many drinks. Which results in Grunge throwing up and Rainmaker and Bobby making out until they pass out. The next morning Rainmaker brushes Bobby off, which sends him into a tizzy, leading him to overreact flying straight up into the air, blazing flames. Unfortunately, this attracts the attention of the local authorities, as it is a violation of something or other, and Italy thinks it may be under superpowered attack or whatever.

Our old pals the Order of the Cross seem to have their superhero team known as the Centurions. They’re not fooling around as they manage to capture Roxy, Grunge, and Caitlin. They also knock a whole building down on Rainmaker, which can’t be good. While most of the Centurions team are concentrating on the aforementioned capture of the kids, one member, Domina, is after Bobby. She just about takes him out before he’s saved by an unlikely ally. It’s Ms. Bliss! By “Ms. Bliss” I mean Nicole Callahan and not Hayley Mills.

So where has Bliss been? Well, her, her brother Threshold and their boss Ivana Baiul have been holed up on Caballito Island hiding from I/O. Not only are they hiding out, they’re defrosting and training the Gen-Active kids that Ivana put on ice as Project Genesis was falling apart. Bliss got sick of all that and decided to bounce and tour the world while Ivana and Threshold trained the DV8 kids. Not sure if she was specifically searching the Gen13 kids out with her little “Gen-Active finder device” or she was just looking for other Gen-Actives for the fun of it. Either way, she ended up in Italy just in time to save Bobby’s bacon.

Bobby and Bliss team up to save the rest of the Gen13 kids. As luck would have it Rainmaker ended up falling down a manhole into the sewer as that building was falling down around her. With her safe, she joins the rescue squad to go and find Grunge, Roxy, and Caitlin. The trio ends up breaking into the Order of the Cross by way of the men’s room. Meanwhile, Roxy and Grunge manage to break free due to getting into an actual fight, even though Caitlin thinks it’s a diversion at first. Speaking of fights, Bliss and Rainmaker can’t stop their own bickering for a second, even when taking down a hefty group of the Order’s men. That’s commitment to an argument!

Both teams meet up and are trying to find a way out of this mess. Caitlin is accessing all of their files and is trying to get to more of their top secret ones, but keeps getting blocked. As luck would have it, Bliss knows that Ivana has backdoors in just about every computer network ever created! Bliss gets Caitlin where she needs to be and gets a compliment from Caitlin at the same time. Caitlin then threatens to upload all of the Order of the Cross’s secret information to the public. Since the Order has secrets they’d rather keep to themselves, they let the kids go.

The Gen13 kids, plus Bliss get a private jet from the Vatican to get them back to Cali. While the team is celebrating another win, Bobby and Bliss share a few tender moments near the back of the plane. However; Bliss being Bliss just can’t be pinned down, and opens the jet door and leaps out of it with a parachute, as if to prove to Bobby, you can never predict some girls.

Continuity Corner:

• We’re finally following up on where Ivana, Threshold, and Bliss have been up to since the end of “Gen13” volume one issue 5.
• We initially see an unnamed DV8 member in the VR training. We don’t see her in the training session itself, but afterward, stuck in her VR suit. This would later be retconned to have been Freestyle, and it was explained that she so underwhelmed Ivana she got put back on ice.
• One of the files that Caitlin threatened to release from the Order of the Cross was Project Lazurus. I literally cannot remember if that ever comes up again. To tell the truth, I sure wish it would’ve along with more appearances by the Centurions.
• I really liked the direction that this book was taking Bliss in, but it wasn’t much longer before she went back to being the super crazy chick she used to be. Of course, there may be a narrative reason for return to nutso-land. You know, with her getting kind of possessed by a Kindred lizard-person. See “DV8” issue 26 for more details.

NEXT: “Deathblow” volume one issues 20 and 21 by Brandon Choi, Trevor Scott and Tom Joyner

“Gen13” Vol. 2 issues 3 – 5

This entry covers “Gen13” volume two issues 3 through 5 by J. Scott Campbell, Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Alex Garner and Scott Williams.

Caitlin doesn’t trust Lynch. He says he’s going to help the Gen13 kids to find their parents, but so far it hasn’t happened. She decides to take matters into her own hands and she starts snooping on Lynch’s computer. She even manages to find info about her father Alex Fairchild that Lynch has not made her privy to. Lynch catches her red-handed and tells her that that lead on Alex is a dead end. Caitlin doesn’t agree and leaves in a huff. She will not be told what to do.

Caitlin takes what little information she knows and convinces the other Gen13 kids to come with her on an investigation. This leads the team to Beverley Hills to meet with Mrs. McArthur, head of the philanthropic McArthur foundation. Turns out she knows Lynch from way back when and is willing to help the kids. Mrs. McArthur lets Caitlin know that the information about her father came from the Isle du Mystere, not only that but she’s recently lost an expedition in that area. An expedition led by her son James. Caitlin promises Mrs. McArthur that the team will follow in the footsteps of that expedition and hopefully find what they’re looking for, as well as find James for her. With that, the team is off to cross the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and Africa to get to the Mozambique Channel, home of the Isle du Mystere.

Lynch catches up with Mrs. McArthur and she tells them where she sent the kids. Lynch gets hella mad, leaves, making the poor old bird weep. While trying to get to the kids Lynch starts to beat himself up for the way he handled Mrs. McArthur, just then gets captured by Black Hammers. Sucky day for Lynch.

The team is on a boat getting as quickly as they can to the Isle du Mystere, when suddenly, out of the fog they’re hit by a big ass boat! In fact, it’s a pirate ship and sends the kids flying and mostly separated. Caitlin finds find James McArthur alone in a crashed out plane on the Isle du Mystere. Roxy and Bobby manage to get saved by the pirates that knocked them into the drink in the first place. Sarah and Grunge wake up on the island too and discover the “mystere” of Isle du Mystere is that it is Coda Island!

 

You’d think the life of a pirate is fun a one, looting booty, swashling some bucks, sharing torrents online, but it isn’t if your name is Roxanne Spaulding. The pirates have put her to work as the head cook aboard the boat, but she isn’t good at it. All the pirates give her a hard time about it, just making it even worse for her. Not only that, but Bobby is being treated like royalty while she slaves away. It’s really tough for Roxy right now.

You know who else is having a tough time? Sarah. She’s been captured by the Coda and locked up in a dungeon. While locked up she makes friends with a young girl named Daphne. Now, Daphne, she ain’t like the other women ’round these parts. Modest dress (comparatively) and not even a lick of face paint! Meanwhile, Grunge sexes up a lot of Coda ladies. That dirty dog. Little does he know that he’s going to be sacrificed the next day at the Coda blood ceremony.

So, you may be asking yourself, how is this all connected? Well, turns out the head of the pirates, one Capt. Lucius Morgan had a relationship with a Coda warrior from the Isle du Mystere. That union resulted in a pregnancy, and because there was love involved Lucius was kept away from the island, and his love was chained up until the birth of their child, and then she was put to death. That little girl grew up to be, you guessed it, Daphne. The Captain wants to storm the island and get his baby back!

Here’s where it all comes together. Caitlin and James head further into the island to find her friends. Sarah manages to get free of her restraints with the help of Daphne and is going to escape any way she can. The pirates are attacking the island with Roxy and Bobby and Grunge is brought center stage for his impending doom. As Caitlin and James watch the first part of the blood ceremony they see the Coda Majestrix cutting flesh wounds on her self for the other Coda to drink. It’s a freaky scene to be sure, and then the pirates bust in!

As the pirates are cutting down the Coda one manages to get the jump on the Majestrix. Sarah ends up saving the Majestrix’s life and trades in the life debt for Daphne’s freedom from Coda Island. Caitlin frees Grunge from where he’s tied up and Roxy and Bobby get to center stage after the show is nearly over. The team leaves Coda Island and James manages to get them on a plane the heck outta dodge.

Continuity Corner:

• In the Coda blood ceremony, they speak to the fact that Zannah’s blood is what gives them long life. Who knew that a blood transfusion from a Kheran was all you needed to secure a near-immortality?
• While the main Coda base is in Greece on Mt. Themiscrya, they also apparently have this island in the Mozambique Channel. Them Codas is everywheres!
• Lynch will remain in I/O custody and be tortured by LeGauche until the Gen13 kids team up with Alicia Turner and Cray in “Deathblow” volume one issues 20 and 21 to save him.
• Lucius mentions that he knows Alex and he was part of that damn mission on Gamorra back in the day that everyone is talking about!
• Lucius also talks about how he and Alex accidentally ended up on Coda Island and the Coda tolerated and kind enjoyed having them around. This was all up until Lucius and Daphne’s mom fell in love. I believe this is the event mentioned in “Gen12” that results in Alex no longer being able to hide the young Caitlin, Grunge, and Bobby on Coda Island.
• These 3 issues feature back-up stories in the form of “Robot Ruckus” which, while both hilarious and fun, is way too meta and “out-there” to be considered for a real place in the continuity. Do not skip them as you read, there’s some good humor in there.

NEXT: “Lynch” issue 1 by Shon Bury, Trevor Scott, John Tighe and Luke Rizzo

“WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 19

this entry covers “WildC.A.T.s : Covert Action Teams” volume 1 issue 19 and the backup story “Savant: Wings and a Prayer”

To tell the truth, I thought there would be a lot more going on in this issue. I realize that I always get parts of issue 19 and issue 20 merged together in my mind. So, when I open the book, ready to be reminded of everything that’s going on in it to relay it to you, the fine reader of this blog and comic, I come up with… not much. That my friends makes me sad.

So, alright, we pick up from where Grifter mistakenly thinks that Hightower is the guy behind everything. Why? Bad intel from stupid informants. Or maybe, because Hightower is such a small fry all the remnants of the Cabal are willing to sell Hightower out to the WildC.A.T.s and keep their affiliations with Defile secret. Why not sell out S’yrn? Well, he might end up being Hellspont’s successor in the Cabal, so best not piss him off either. No, send the Kheribum do-gooders after that jackass Hightower. A jackass so jackass-like in his jackassery that even Defile is all “I need a shape-shifting Daemonite to do my bidding, and I’ll find and even resurrect that milquetoast hipster, Mr. White than even try to work with that jackass Hightower. What a jackass he is!”

Where is Hightower? Well, he seems to be the only Daemonite that remembers that keys to the Daemonite ship are also badges of rank, and he means to take part of one that’s recently been found and will be on display at a nearby museum. To do this he figures he should have some protection, so he goes to the best mercenaries in the WildStrom Universe, the Coda. Lucky for him, the Coda run a restaurant in Washington D.C., right where his key/badge bit is! He thinks he needs protection from Defile or other Daemonites, but he’d be wrong.

As Hightower is trying to convince the Coda to work for him, the WildC.A.T.s bust in and start wrecking the place. There goes the Zagats rating. Because the Coda are so bug-fuck crazy, they decide the best course of action is just to blow the whole building to hell. I mean, our heroes have already gotten all the actual patrons out of the place via Void, so there’s nothing to lose. Void has a crazy vision of the upcoming crossover and the bistro goes boom, with only the WildC.A.T.s left to survive. As the team is emerging from the rubble they are confronted with a StormWatch team, ready to kick them while they’re down.

In the backup story, we catch back up with Savant and her friend Mabel, while a gremlin sits on the wing of their plane. This gremlin means to tear up the wing and ruin Savant’s day. It’s just what gremlins do! After the ladies manage to shake the little bugger they land at, I’m figuring near where at least Mabel lives, and they pick up their piling mail. Savant has a letter from her dear friend Charles Russell and his new exhibit. It just so happens that it features the Daemonite key/badge and Savant knows she needs to get back to D.C. as soon as she possibly can!

Continuity Corner :

• It’s nice to get reintroduced to Hightower as a player in the “WildC.A.T.s” books. We haven’t really seen him since “WildC.A.T.s Trilogy” but I had my suspicions he was behind the opening fight of “Spartan : Warrior Spirit” for what it’s worth.
• Having both the Savant backups read after their issues proper may not be the more narrative and linear way to go about things. They may be better served to both be read right after “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 18. Either way works though, so I’m going to leave it as is.
• Last we saw Mr. Russell he was hitting on Savant back in “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issue 11. She should’ve taken him up on that offer, then she’d be too busy with her new man than to start getting cozy with TAO.

Where to find these stories:

• the “James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.s” trade paperback
• Excepts of “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 19 are in the “WildStorm Rising” trade paper back.

NEXT : “WildStorm Rising” Chapters 1 through 4 (Which consists of “WildStorm Rising” issue 1, “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 20, “Union” volume 2 issue 4 and “Gen13” volume 2 issue 2) by James Robinson, Brandon Choi, Barry Windsor-Smith, Travis Charest, Ryan Benjamin, J. Scott Campbell, Alex Bialy, John Floyd, Troy Hubbs, Chuck Gibson, Tom McWeeney and Alex Garner.