“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 7 & 8

This entry covers “Fire from Heaven” chapters 7 and 8, which include “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 29 and “Deathblow” volume one issue 27 by Alan Moore, Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner, Travis Charest, Ryan Benjamin, Trevor Scott, JD, Richard Friend, Mark Irwin and Luke Rizzo.  

Here we are once again to talk about “Fire from Heaven” the biggest damn WildStorm crossover there ever was! Once again we’re hitting a bit of a rewind button as we see how the WildC.A.T.s team makes their way to Gamorra. We also start to finally see a lot more of that fight with Team 7 and the Gen13 kids vs. Ivana and the DV8 kids while Ethan is starting to rumble with Damocles!

The story starts out the night before everyone is arriving on Gamorra, the night that the original WildC.A.T.s team gets back from their space trip. Cray and Cole are hanging outside the Halo building talking about the old team being back and they see Marlowe walking out. Cole offers his condolences about what went on on Khera and even apologizes for his past behavior. None of this does much to stop Marlowe, the little guy just keeps on walking, away from the team, away from his fortune and away from this volume of “WildC.A.T.s.”

Marlowe isn’t the only one out the door either. Pris says goodbye to Jeremy and Reno and finally to Spartan. It’s an uneasy farewell, but hey, she’ll be back later after her mini-series. All other leaves of absence are short, like Cole taking off with Team 7 on the way to Gamorra to join the big crossover, or Max ditching the team after he wakes up in hospital. Don’t worry, both Cash brothers will officially be back on the team when all the time traveling starts.

As the members of each of the WildC.A.T.s teams (that actually stuck around) catch up with each other, Majestic finds out, and cannot comprehend the Daemonite/Kherubim war being over. Much in the same way that the old team cannot fathom why the new team is involved in this crazy crime war. Eventually, after a few insults from Zannah, what’s left of the old team heads to Gamorra to help their buddy Cole. As Reno says “We all need some sort of direction after getting back from Khera. I guess this is as good as any.”

The new team thankfully has some StormWatch rookies and Fuji to help them out even if the old team isn’t still around. Fighting in the streets isn’t easy, so it is still best to have some backup. Not that the old team is doing that well on their mission. In fact, their jet gets shot by the same space laser that’s been bringing down everyone else. Luckily Void teleports what’s left of the team safely to the island. Now that they’re on Gamorra, where are they going to start looking to help their friend?

Meanwhile the big Team 7/Gen13/DV8 fight rages on! Only being momentarily interrupted when Damocles tosses Ethan into the middle of it from the other room. Ethan calls all the members of the fight, despite the side, to focus all their energy on Damocles instead of each other. Before they all join in Damocles gets a good look at Dr. Tsung and cannot believe what he sees! Obviously, more on that later. Before he can do anything all the Gen-Actives start to pour it on. Despite some early progress in beating him down, Ivana wants all the DV8 kids to leave with her immediately. Threshold, but more importantly the rest of the kids disagree with Ivana and refuse to leave the fight.

Alright, let’s take a break from this never-ending battle to find out what is going on in the rest of Gamorra. We have The Sword out taking a stroll in Gamorra City and starting to feel very paranoid. It’s an unusual feeling for him. We find Slayton and Cybernary tricking their way into a Gamorrian listening station/data gathering location and shutting it down. But, most importantly, we see Cray finally, once and for all, take out Raymond LeGauche! It’s about damn time!

Back to the main battle and we see Kaizen brazenly stroll in and interrupt the whole damn thing. The kind of thing you expect from a conceited douche who literally owns the place. He pledges his allegiance to Damocles, excuses Ivana and the DV8 kids and then sics the Minotaur, Borgia, and Gila onto his remaining enemies. Ethan is drawing from all the Gen-Factor in the room and delivers a pretty big pop to Damocles! But wouldn’t you know it, as soon as that happens The Sword and the rest of the Bountyhunters show up to the fight.

One may think that having the Bountyhunters join the fight would be a bad thing, but not exactly. See, Hardball is still carrying Qeelocke, and Qeelocke escapes, and Qeelocke has a sudden interest in Ethan. About this time Damocles is starting to put the hurt on Ethan. While Ethan may be more powerful, Damocles has experience, and experience is winning at this moment. But there is something that can help knock Damocles down a peg or two.

Earlier, when confronted with all the Gen-Omega clones where the reborn Miles Craven was found, Cray set up a virus to shut down on the containment chambers of the Gen-Omegas, thereby killing them. This causes a psychic backlash that incapacitates Damocles. This is the moment that Qeeklocke uses to get Ethan and Dr. Tsung back home to Berkley, CA. Oh yeah, and why not take along Cray as well. The Tsung/McCain family are back together, and now Cray, Ethan, and Dr. Tsung can better plot a way to defeat Damocles before they face him again, willing that their sudden absence doesn’t cost the lives of any of their friends.

Continuity Corner:

• Other than Pagan, I was never able to figure out exactly who the other “StormWatch Rookies” were. Of the StormWatch team members, we only see Fuji, Pagan and then 3 nondescript rookies. Ok, one of them kinda looks like Blademaster, but not enough for me to swear by it, mainly because he isn’t holding any sort of blades. In “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 32 we officially have Pagan named checked for confirmation. We also get a name check from Prism too, but we never actually see him. Also, by the time we get there we also see Fahrenheit helping the WildC.A.T.s in the crime war, so you know, they may’ve deployed more help than just Fuji and the rookies after the main team gets back from Gamorra.
• The reason The Sword is paranoid is that he feels like he’s being followed. Later we’ll find out that this was Union stalking him. It’s possible that he felt Union’s eyes on him more than any others because [SPOILER I JUST DON’T WANNA SPOIL YET, JUST ‘CUZ]
• Part of me really wishes that these two issues were flipped in the chapter order. Mainly because the “Deathblow” issue picks up with the big fight that we’ve been having in Kaizen’s lab. Also, that issue ends with Kaizen either kicking everyone out or capturing them, while Qeelocke transports a handful of heroes away. Near the end of the “WildC.A.T.s” issue, we see an android report on the fact that several Team 7 and Gen13 members have been captured. To me, it would read just a tiny bit better if they were switched.

NEXT: “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.

“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

“WildC.A.T.s” Vol 1 Issues 25 – 28

This entry cover “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issues 25 through 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

When we last left “WildC.A.T.s” we had our original team on the planet Khera, home to team members Lord Emp and Lady Zannah, and the rest of the team just found out that the Kherubim/Daemonite War is over. Not only that but it’s been over for quite some time. The rest of the team are going to ask Emp and Zannah what is up with that, and what they, as a group, are going to do? Turns out neither Emp nor Zannah have any plans to leave. In fact, they are running against each other for a Kheran senate seat! After Emp blows them off and Zannah gets into a mini-smackdown with Pris, Pris pretty much calls the whole “WildC.A.T.s” thing bullshit and is already aiming to leave the team, and Khera, as soon as she can.

Since the team has been on Khera, the latest bootup of Spartan has been, well, little more than Emp’s lap dog. Turns out Spartan has just been biding his time and set a late-night alarm to wake himself up to be, well, himself! He immediately goes forth to find his teammates and find out why everything is spiraling out of control. While he’s no closer to any real answers while visiting any of them, when he goes to visit Zannah he finds her asleep and some of her Coda sisters scheming against her as well as Emp. They have a plan to disrupt the entire Kherubim Senate! Before Spartan can get a good idea of what they’re going on about, a few other Coda sisters find and trash him, eventually leaving him for dead in the Daemonite ghetto where Pris has been confined.

Once the team has Spartan up and running he lets them know the Coda is involved in the sabotage that not even Zannah knows about. All they know is that the Titanothropes will be blamed for whatever is going to happen. Once on site Void puts it together that the fancy sword that the Coda gave Zannah, that she has at her side, was made by the Titanothropes. Also, that sword has a bomb inside it. Uh-oh! Before any of our regular heroes can react, Jeremy’s alien gal-pal Glingo grows big, snatches the sword and keep growing to get the sword as far away from everyone as she can. The sword explodes and Glingo gives her life for the planet she loved so dearly.

 

Zannah is shocked that she was chosen for martyrdom rather than a true shot at the Senate seat. Emp, meanwhile, is becoming disgusted with how his fellow Parthenon members are ready to seize upon the horrors of the day to further their goals. The whole team is now in agreeance, it’s time to go home, time to get back to Earth.

Speaking of Earth, we see the All-New, Not Entirely Different WildC.A.Ts dealing with the aftermath of H.A.R.M.’s funeral. They’ve taken Attica, Slag, and Deathtrap into custody and have them hooked into the same virtual reality prison that they’d previously used to tame Maxine. While imprisoning them Savant starts mad crushing on Tao. They eventually start making out, only being interrupted by a drunken Irish superhero getting into a fight with Majestic.

“Wait? How’d that happen?” you ask. Well, I’m here to tell you. It’s kinda the point of this whole blog. Cole Cash is meeting up with his buddy Michael Cray, and Cray is already drinking with Hellstrike from StormWatch. They get to talking and Cole mentions that the new WildC.A.T.s have managed to capture Deathtrap. Due to the personal history between them, Deathtrap being a StormWatch target, and the fact that ole Hellstrike’s had a few too many pints, he decides to go after the new WildC.A.T.s and show them a thing or two about respect!

Hellstrike holds his own against Majestic and Maxine and isn’t really taken down until Max fires a concussive shell near his head, giving Hellstrike an instant headache. This gives Majestic the edge to thump him one and start getting an explanation. While explaining that StormWatch was going to after Deathtrap and the Mercs in a few weeks, Tao walks up and lets Hellstrike know that Deathtrap has escaped. Not only that, but Tao left a tracker on Deathtrap and gives Hellstrike the device to track the tracker. Cole and Cray take Hellstrike with them and wish the new team luck. This is when Tao reveals that the tracking device he gave Hellstrike can also be used by the team to spy on Hellstrike and StormWatch. While Majestic is pretty miffed about all this, the rest of the team thinks it’s pretty funny.

 

Well since it hasn’t been two weeks yet, this leaves Deathtrap plenty of time to be checking up on this new WildC.A.T.s team that trapped him and busted up a funeral. He happens upon a reality show called “Fuzz” and it features the team in action against the shapeshifting Mr. White. He takes a recording of this to New York City crime boss Tony Twist and shows him that this new WildC.A.T.s team is a proactive one, and if he means to continue to run the NYC underworld, he best take out this team before they come gunning for him.

Twist first sets his boys on taking out Max. Max manages to keep outsmarting and gunning down Twist’s men while wearing only his undies. Maxine shows up just in time to help, even though she thinks this is a date with her and Max. Max admits that he does like her and takes her to Clark’s later that night. While at Clark’s Max spots a familiar face, turns out it is Vic Lazaar, the goon from the presidential theme restaurant. Max thinks “Why the hell is a villain at Clark’s?” Turns out that Vic was dropping off a bomb, and Max runs to where Vic just came from to check it out/stop it, but that doesn’t matter, it blows up injuring Max pretty terribly.

While Cole, Cray, and Maxine rush Max to the hospital Majestic is wondering why the villains of today would bomb such an establishment as Clark’s. While this makes Majestic angry, Tao suggests that it could help them grow their ranks in the crime war, now that StormWatch and other super folks had been in the line of fire. Tao sets up a meeting with StormWatch and while said meeting is going on, the intruder alarms in the Halo building are going off. What or who could it be? Why it is the original WildC.A.T.s team back home and wondering what the hell is going on!

Continuity Corner:

• When we catch up with Cray and Cash at Clark’s, Cray remarks about Cash just getting back in town. I guess after the raid on the towers the Team 7 boys split up for just a bit to deal with what just happened in their own ways.
• We also see Grunge and Lynch hanging out at Clark’s. Grunge is once again having no luck with getting underage drinks, and Lynch, who knows who he’s hanging out with? Maybe it’s Dane, they always kinda got along, or maybe it’s Slayton showing why Cash didn’t go sit with them instead.
• Never been sure if the Deathtrap that talks Tony Twist into the crime war was actually Deathtrap or if it was Mr. White. We know that Tao wanted the crime war to start and know later that Tao hypnotized Mr. White. Plus when we next see Deathtrap shooting at Cole during the crime war he only mentions H.A.R.M.’s funeral and not the takedown of Mr. White as his motivating factor joining the war in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 32.
• When Max and Maxine are headed to Clark’s he talks about how he and Cole used to hang out around Clark’s and check out the superheroes that patronized the place. Cute story, but the Cash boys grew up in Chicago, not NYC. Maybe their gangster step-dad had business out East and took the boys with him… that’s my best guess to make this work.
• Savant tells Majestic not to act like her father! Ha!
• While everyone else in the Halo building looks shocked to see Reno asking “What the hell is going on here?” Tao looks upset like his favorite video game just got taken away from him. If it wasn’t for the whole “Fire from Heaven” craziness I’m sure the old team would’ve cottoned on to Tao’s plan earlier and stopped it and he knew it. He looks like a kid who is fearing his looming bedtime.

NEXT: “Fire from Heaven” issue 1/2, “Sword of Damocles” issue 1, “Sigma” issue 1 and “Deathblow” volume one issue 26 by Johnathan Peterson, Warren Ellis, Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner, Randy Green, Tomm Coker, J.J. Kirby, Ryan Odagawa, Mel Rubi, Danny Bulanadi, Bob Wiacek, John Tighe, Mark Irwin, Richard Friend, Troy Hubbs and Trevor Scott,

 

“WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 23 & 24

This entry covers “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issues 23 & 24 by Alan Moore, Ryan Benjamin, Jason Johnson, Art Thibert, Terry Austin, Tom McWeeney, Hakjoon Kang, Andy Owens and Harry Thuran.

At long last, we get back to the flagship title of this WildStorm Universe! Man, I love these characters. I’m not just talking about the main team that’s stranded on Khera, I’m also talking about the makeshift team back on Earth. Bless Alan Moore, or whoever at WildStorm gave him the idea to assemble that team. Ladytron and Tao are the only characters that were created for the new series, so somebody is a genius for the (obvious) team-up of Savant and Majestic but also pulling in Cole’s little brother, Max. I could literally read another 20 issues of the teams being separate and their adventures on Earth and in space. I’ve always been happy with what we got, but this run looms large in my head, and I’ve always wanted more.

To the matter at hand. I’m going to split this recap up, I’ll do the Earth team’s issues first, then the Khera team’s issues. It just keeps this easier to recap, still best to read them as they are presented.

On Earth, the team is breaking into the home of H.A.R.M. of the Troika. Seems as if Slag and Attica are out of town so the new WildC.A.T.s team decides to take on one of the old team’s enemies. I believe the team is meaning to apprehend H.A.R.M. and then put him into stasis like they did with Ladytron when they first got her. I guess by that I mean that is the rest of the team’s idea, I’m pretty sure that Tao meant for the big lug to end up dead the whole time. If H.A.R.M. didn’t die then there’s no raid on his funeral later, leading to no apprehending of Slag and Attica, thus no distraction during their break out for Tao to make his escape when his plan falls apart later on. The best part of the “Capture/Kill H.A.R.M. Plan” is when Majestic drops Ladytron through the roof of H.A.R.M.s place as an ambush. She wasn’t sure she was going to survive the drop, and she’d only just found out dropping her was the plan during her fall. In true Maxine Manchester fashion, she hilariously stuck the landing.

Because we’re in the future we all know what an evil git that Tao is, so it is kind of fun seeing him take advantage of Maxine’s bloodlust knowing that if she landed on H.A.R.M.s head she’d try to rip off his noggin, exposing his brain. Then knowing Majestic would take enough action to scare H.A.R.M. towards the back entrance where Max and Savant had already snuck in. Either move H.A.R.M. made, be it threatening Max or Savant once he found them, would always result in Tao taunting Max about his brother’s shooting abilities and mentioning H.A.R.M.s exposed brain. Kind of brilliant in a sadistic way. That’s our Tao!

On the topic of sadistic, the team decides that they might as well crash H.A.R.M.’s funeral and see what other baddies they can nab. This is all going down at the Church of Gort, a religion created by and for cyborgs. The team does damage to the floor as they bust up through the catacombs and they manage to take down Attica pretty swiftly. Slag proves more complicated until that uncouth bastard Tao decides to subdue Slag with some liquid metal. Why is this so extra heinous? Because the super-hot liquid metal was the melted down remains of H.A.R.M. that were going to be used to cast his grave. Ew. For good measure, the team also take in Deathtrap as a bonus, even though he was just there paying his respects to a fallen comrade.

Ok, let’s get to space where… well… things aren’t looking so keen on Khera and Void is the only one that seems to notice or care. In her looking for where the heck Pris is she checks in with each member of her old team. Jeremy is looking to go see the sights of Khera. Reno is learning more about his powers from a Kherubim Lord at the Shaper’s Guild. Zannah is back with her Coda where she is being treated like the high queen she is. Zannah is becoming kind of a jerk, she’s not alone, Emp is too but we won’t see that just yet. The power of local politics amplifing the worst of people and all that. When Void meets up with Spartan she sees him playing with other Spartan guards. He fills her in on the Kherubim Senate seat that Zannah and Emp are each after and compares Emp’s side to Republicans and Zannah’s to the Ku Klux Klan.

It takes some time for Void to find Pris, but once she does she’s in for a surprise. Turns out that Pris wasn’t out all night dancing in a nightclub like literally, everyone thought. Seriously, how shallow are they all and how shallow do they all think Pris is? Pris reveals that she’s been staying in a Daemonite ghetto since they landed on Khera. Why there? Because she has Daemonite blood. Why is there a Daemonite ghetto? Oh, for all the refugees of the Kherubim/Daemonite war. Refugees? Why yes, see, the war, well that’s been done 300 some years. Uh…. what?

Jeremy’s sightseeing takes him to an area underground called “Down-Town” where everyone looks like him. We’ve always seen other Kherubims and they’ve looked human, only Jeremy ever turned another color, now we know why. Technically, he’s Titanothrope, not Kherubim. Well. Kind of. Turns out that the Titanothropes are native to Khera, the Kherubim just took over their planet and made second-class citizens of the native population. Jeremy is finding all this out from a young woman he meets name Glingo, who he starts to develop a crush on. It isn’t long before Jeremy finds himself challenged by a local boy named Baxa. Baxa is Glingo’s brother and he doesn’t like Jeremy hitting on his lil sis. Of course, the challenge is a fight, and Jeremy uses his brains and beats Baxa, what does he win? Surprise, it’s Glingo! Oh Jeremy, what a pickle you’ve found yourself in now. Just looking for a little fun in what seems like paradise and you end up with an alien fiance. Jeremey’s excited confusion is replaced by frustrated confusion as soon as he gets back to his hotel room and finds Void, Pris and Reno looking pretty damn dour. Yikes! Odd day out for all the non-elite WildC.A.T. team members.

Continuity Corner:

• The Earth events of “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue #24 occur the day before issue #25 based on Majestic’s naration in issue #25, which means that most of “Deathblow” volume one issue #24 and “Gen13” volume two issues #8 & #9 are all happening at the same time.
• Intentional or not, seeing Deathtrap without the other Mercs at the funeral is showing us the man’s softer side, leading to his eventual doubts about the mercenary lifestyle that he starts to have.
• Arresting Deathtrap must’ve been a real wildcard for Tao. He goes with it, despite not knowing where it will lead. He thinks he makes the most of it when he tricks Hellstrike in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue #25 into taking some spy-tech on to SkyWatch II, but he’s mistaken. Ultimately it is Deathtrap questioning how the whole crime war got started and then putting it together for Cole that Tao is behind it all. If Deathtrap wasn’t at the funeral he would’ve never mentioned that while taunting Cole and then have all the other info spill out. One of the few things Tao couldn’t account for that lead to his undoing.
• I’m going to have to guess that the Daemonites that were coming to join Helspont on “Reunification Day” in “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue #4 were all either hardline supporters of a war centuries over or just homeless Daemonites that didn’t have anything better to do.
• I’ve always been bothered that Jeremy stays in his Maul form this whole run. Not once does he go back to normal nerdy Jeremy Stone self. What’s wrong with looking like that guy on an alien planet, huh?

NEXT: “Deathblow” volume one issue #24 pages 1 through 17 by Brandon Choi, Tom Joyner, Jeff Mariotte, Geof Isherwood, Scott Kolins and Rick Bryant.

“WildC.A.T.s” vol. 1 issues 21 & 22

This entry covers “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issues 21 & 22 by Alan Moore, Travis Charest and Kevin Maguire.

First, I want to point this out, there’ve been a lot of story arcs in the WildStorm Universe up to now that have been pretty damn good. And when they’re not good, they’re fun. And when they’re not fun, they’re interesting. And if they’re not any of those, at least they add to the tapestry that is the WSU. What we have here, with Alan Moore taking on the writing duties of “WildC.A.T.s” is what I see as the first truly GREAT story arc in WildStorm history! I, personally, am very hot and cold on the work of Mr. Moore, but these comics knock it out of the park for me, so let’s get started.

Savant and Mr. Majestic set out to pick up where the original WildC.A.T.s left off, because there’s Daemonites still about, and someone has to stop them, right? Savant manages to get Max Cash to defect from I/O and the mob that he’s working undercover in. If you can’t get Grifter, get Grifter Jr. I guess. Savant also has the smart idea to get a super-powered being from the Optigen lab. Optigen has several options, but only one is catching Savant’s attention, and that is TAO, the tactically augmented organism. Optigen refuses to let him go, but TAO himself uses some trickery to get himself released in order to join the new team. TAO is a sneaky one for sure!

Speaking of TAO being sneaky, he tricks Majestic into helping get a known mass murder onto the team. We’re talking about Maxine Manchester, the one, and only Ladytron. Majestic was aware of the pattern she’s been taking since breaking out of prison, and it is leading to Chicago. He also knows of a major drug deal going down at an American presidential theme restaurant there too. Diamonds to donuts, Maxine will be there for the new WildC.A.T.s to nab. And nab her they do, with the help of several pounds of cocaine, enough to incapacitate a three-ton cyborg.

OMG, final page reveal of issue 21 is that the OG WildC.A.T.s are still alive! Their spaceship didn’t blow up after all! It just made the jump to hyperspace and left what seemed like an explosion in its wake. It’s quickly on its way back home, Khera, A.K.A. Lord Emp and Lady Zannah’s home as well. Neat! After spending time with all these alien’s it is going to be fun seeing their home planet… right?

Hurrah they live! And they have snazzy jumpsuits for this panel… and ONLY this panel.

When the team lands on Khera, things do seem kinda of awesome. I mean Marlowe and Zannah get separated from the rest by their old homies, so that kind of sucks. Jeremy finds out that there are other big purple folks like him, and Pris also gets separated due to being part Daemonite. The worst part is, nobody notices that Pris is gone! No, wait, the real worst part is, she’s stuck in an area that is crawling with Daemonites? This can’t be a good start to their space vacation.

Back on Earth, we find the new WildC.A.T.s team trying to pacify Maxine into being a working member of the team. It doesn’t go well. She electrifies Majestic, shoots up Max and cracks Savant so hard on the head that it possibly kills her. Maxine eventually walks in on TAO watching cartoons and shoots him up as well. TAO, unphased by his body full of bullets, tells her she’ll have to start again. Maxine is confused for a second before getting a hint of deja vu. That’s right, TAO has her in a virtual reality stasis rig, trying to pacify her enough to work with the team. If you can’t beat ’em, get mentally beat into submission to join ’em.

Maxine is just starting to get it…

Continuity Corner:

• Return of the Max! That’s right, Max Proffit AKA Max Cash, Cole’s little brother is back for the first time since his introduction in “Savage Dragon” volume two issue 13.
• Later in the pages of “Sleeper: Season Two” issue 5 we find out that Optigen was partially funded by I/O. TAO considers John Lynch his father of sorts because he signed the authorization papers for his creation. But because Halo is a major investor in Optigen, doesn’t this also make Jacob Marlowe his other father? Can someone commission a piece of TAO, Lynch, and Marlowe posing like the first season DVD cover of “My Two Dads?” I see Lynch as the B.J. McKay dad and Marlowe as the Paul Buchman dad. This is either the best or worst idea I’ve ever had.
• Majestic mentions that he’s followed Maxine’s trek across the country since she’s broken out of prison. While we never see the jail break, I guess what we’re seeing in “Wildcats : Ladytron” is just after her latest prison escape. It must be her recent crime wave with Stanley that made Majestic aware of her.
• We see Marlowe relive the events, from his perspective, of “WildStorm Rising” issue 2, only in nightmare form! Harsh!
• Marlowe has a back-up of Spartan on his person. Fair enough, seems like the kind of forward planning Marlowe would be up to. They get to Khera… and there are Hadrian bodies? And they spoke of them as the upgraded model? Huh? I thought the Hadrian 7 body was bought from Gammora and had the memories of Yohn Kohl uploaded to it and had its body design reminiscent of Kohl. I’m trying to straighten this out in my head, sure Khera had robots, did they always kind of dress like Yohn Kohl? They may have. That could’ve been some kind of standard Kheran uniform. But if Marlowe got the Hadrian 7 body on Earth in the ’90s, why does Kheran have a similar technology? Is it something they always had on Khera and Marlowe had the techies in Gamorra build something similar to what he remembered from when he was there? I dunno, it doesn’t take anything away from the books, but it’s always kind of bugged me.
• For all intents and purposes, the events on Khera take place over a much shorter time that what is happening on Earth. When you account for all the unseen space travel time it probably works out to about the same, and it would be pretty pedantic of me to chop all the Moore “WildC.A.T.s” books in half for timeline reasons when, in the end, it doesn’t matter, and to tell the truth, narrative cohesion actually does matter to me a bit more than strict adherence to the timeline.
• Honestly, I don’t like having the final page reveal for issue 21 before issue 23 of “StormWatch” volume one. I like the readers to be along for the ride with Spartan not knowing that his former teammates are still alive. But “StormWatch” volume one issues 23 – 27 starts during the evening of one day and ending during the morning of the next. When Spartan, Despot, and Jackson are battling it out around the UN building in New York in issue 27 of “StormWatch” we see a panel of the New WildC.A.T.s watching the action. In this panel we see Maxine just chilling with the rest, meaning that her VR experience is over, and she’s fully part of the team, meaning it has to happen after “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 22.
• At one point I was all “Hey, could these issues slot in between issues 24 and 26 of “StormWatch?”” and no, no they can’t. Mainly because “WildC.A.T.s” volume one issue 21 takes place over the course of several days in September, so that really breaks the narrative in ways that are more confusing than anything.

NEXT: “StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 23, 23.5, 24 and the short “Despot and Strafe : Homecoming” by Ron Marz, H.K. Proger, Renato Arlem, Darryl Banks, Robert Jones, John Lowe, Art Thibert and Dan Panosian

“Wildcats : Ladytron”

this entry covers the “Wildcats : Ladytron” one shot

This book, this book is a doozy! By that I mean pretty damn great! I really do love this book! I’m not going to lie, I found out about this book well after it was published. I had no idea that Maxine had her own one shot comic. Once I got ahold of it, I was pretty pleased with myself for tracking it down.

The book opens with Maxine living in some kind of toy factory. She’s got all kinds of crazy little robo-toy friends running around. It’s kind of cute. Looks like Maxine has made a real tiny little life for herself. She’s got a bed, she’s got some friends, what more could a gal want? I mean except to be normal and not half-mechanical of course. Maxine’s self-pity doesn’t last long before those little clockwork rascals pick a fight with her, knock her out and drag to an unknown location.

Said unknown location is the lair of Dr. Khaz. See, he built the little buggers to capture Maxine for him. As it turns out, he’s also the very person that gave Maxine her cyborgian enhancements in the first place. As Maxine is recovering from her injuries we get a glimpse into her life prior to her becoming Ladytron, and how she got to that point.

In the flashbacks we see that Maxine has been bad news since she was a kid. Sure, her family life was pretty rough, so she just made life rough for everyone else, including the children’s home she stayed at. It wasn’t much longer before Maxine was a little more grown, picking up men, having her way with them and then straight up murdering them. In telling her life’s story to a guy at a pool hall he asks if she’d like to join him on a robbing spree. Maxine is game, and after six months they’re trapped in a stand off with the cops. The girl doesn’t want to go out like a chump and she rushes the cops. Maxine catches several bullets and winds up in an emergency room, where somehow Dr. Khaz has the authority to take Maxine from the police and hospital for his experiments.

Whew… now that we know all that we see that Dr. Khaz has her trapped. His main goal is to get her to track down another robotical creation of his. It’s a hulking man-bot by the name of Stanley. Despite how often Dr. Khaz calls him her brother, Maxine can only see him the perfect man for her.

It doesn’t take long for Maxine to find him, and lucky for her, Stanly is also a fan of wanton destruction, as well as it also being love at first sight for him. So Stanley and Maxine team up and are back to her old ways shooting and robbing. The couple manages to get married and celebrate their honeymoon. Here’s where they start talking about how killing innocents just doesn’t have the old thrill that it used to. The hatch a plan to find their “father” Dr. Kahz and kill him, think of the buzz!

Confronting Dr. Khaz doesn’t go so well. He deactivates Stanley, then brings him back online with a mission to “discipline” Maxine for taking so long to bring Stanley back. This doesn’t go so well and in fact, it drives Maxine to kill her one-time love. Good night Stanley, we hardly knew ya. Then Dr. Khaz starts to go all creepy father again ending in Maxine giving him a literal kiss of death before destroying more tiny toy robots and getting the hell out of Khaz’s lair of techno-creepiness.

Talk about Electra Complex! Wait… that’s not what that means? Like at all? Damn reality ruining my lame electricity puns.

Maxine over hears two thugs talking about a big heroin deal going down at a theme restaurant in Chicago, Maxine decides to get involved in it. There’s going to be plenty of cash, and hey, free drugs if that’s your kind of thing!

Continuity Corner:

• This story takes place before, during and technically after some of the events in “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 21. That issue of “WildC.A.T.s” is a series of nested flashbacks setting up the new status quo for that book. Reading “Wildcats: Ladytron” prior to it causes no real problems, and works incredibly well. Hats off to Joe Casey!
• On the last few pages, we see Lucius Simpson discussing the heroin deal that leads Maxine to “Presidents” in “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 21.
• When I first found this book I thought it was going to be contemporary with what was going on in the current “Wildcats” book with some flashbacks. Even when I was reading it I didn’t expect it to be a straight up “Here’s what Maxine was up to before we knew her, and nothing else” kind of a book. Pleasantly surprised when I got to the end.
• A note of extremely minor continuity error is the license plate on the car that Maxine drives away with on the last page. In “Wildcats : Ladytron” it is “QUEN BCH” and in “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 21 it’s “QUN BCH.”
• Another teeny tiny difference between “WildC.A.T.s” volume 1 issue 21 and “Wildcats : Ladytron” is that Majestic mentions that Maxine took 5 shots in the police stand off. When we see this scene play out in “Wildcats : Ladytron” it’s more like fifteen! I mean, it isn’t a big deal in the least, but it’s the kind of thing a blog dedicated to pulling apart and over analyzing the ins and outs of the WildStorm Universe would notice and comment on.
• It’s fair to say that a lot of characters in the WildStorm universe are twists on more famous mainstream characters from comics. Midnighter is WildStorm Batman. Majestic, Apollo and Union can each be looked at as WildStorm Superman. Hell, Maul is very much like the WildStorm version of the Hulk now that I think about it. I bring this up to say this, while there’ve been many cyborgs in comics, there haven’t any like Maxine. In fact, I’ve always seen Maxine more as the WildStorm version of Tank Girl if anything at all. Those two characters even have the same voice in my head. Does this make sense to anyone else?

NEXT: “WildC.A.T.s” Vol. 1 issues 21 and 22 by Alan Moore, Travis Charest, Kevin Maguire, Troy Hubbs, Randy Elliot, Sal Regla, Trevor Scott and Scott Williams.