“Backlash” issues 21 – 23

This entry covers “Backlash” issues 21 through 23 by Sean Ruffner, Brett Booth, JJ Kirby, John Tighe, Saleem Crawford, Mark Irwin, Martin Jimenez, Tad Ehrlich,  and George Davis.

We open with Marc reflecting on his recent past, having just recently found out he has not just a daughter, but a son, and also the death of his pal CyberJack. It’s a heavy load to carry, and it does result in him being a bit snippy at Amanda when she tries to talk to him. He eventually sees what a skell he is being and gives her a smooch and tells her that he’s cool, just a bit of a prick sometimes… you know, when things get heavy and you find you’re suddenly dad. Speaking of being a dad, his daughter Jodi is not only painting and singing Brandy songs, but also spying on her old man kissing his new lady. Jodi’s support of the relationship borders on  hilariously creepy, but more than her pops getting some, Jodi is more interested in the pizza she just ordered, and hot damn the door bell just rang!

Unfortunately for Jodi’s hunger, there is no pizza guy. Instead at the door is Brawl and Homicide of the Chasers, with Gaze and Recoil near by. Brawl seems pretty laid back about it all, but Homicide is ready to go nuts… I mean, what’s in a name right? So of course a fight breaks out with Marc, Amanda, and Jodi defending their house from Homicide, Gaze, and Recoil, while Brawl is rolling his eyes waiting for everyone to just calm the damn down. Why? Because there’s nothing to fight over! Brawl and the Chasers team were sent by the government to offer Amanda her official pardon! It’s a get out of jail free card and the six of them almost brought the house down.

Meanwhile that crazy Egyptian alien lady Lilitu is sending a new group of supercreeps to hunt down Amanda and kill her, after she got a tip off of Amanda heading to DC for her pardon. Also in Dayton, Ohio, a young man named Quinten has just arrived home late, getting in trouble with his mother, and then disappearing in a flash of light… ominous!

But let’s get to Amanda’s pardon! Giovanni sends a helicopter to pick up Marc, Amanda, and Jodi and bring them to the PSI building. What’s PSI? Why it’s the Paranormal Search and Investigation arm of the US government. Their purpose, as driven by Giovanni, is to monitor and find any paranormal activity, or superpowered being, and get them aligned with helping the US public’s well being, or eliminate them. Ultimately this also extends to Marc, Amanda, and Jodi with Giovanni letting them know that the only way he could get Amanda pardoned and Marc out of hot water with the US government for springing Amanda from Purgatory Max in the first place, is to be supervised by him, and come work at PSI. While a bit upset about this at first, Marc comes around, ready to train the new recruits, just like in his old StormWatch days.

Oh, you want to hear about the actual pardon, not just the events leading up to it, and around it? Well, no big shakes. A bunch of government higher-ups start to question Amanda on what she knows about the Cabal as she clears her, and Marc’s, good names. This doesn’t last too long, because those creeps that Lilitu hired break in and start killing people. Eventually Marc breaks in and he helps Amanda save the day. So you know she’s extra pardoned now or whatever.

Now it’s time for a break! Marc, Amanda, and Jodi are headed to Death Valley in Nevada to meet up with some of the workers cleaning up the debris left by the crashed SkyWatch station. He’s on a mission from Giovanni to meet, get some particle accelerator blueprints, grab some stuff from CyberJack’s place and then go back to DC. Well, there’s a couple of hiccups in that plan. The first being a trucker named Brink Gilman hitting on Amanda, the other being Talos. Yeah, THAT Talos!

So while stopping at a truckstop diner to get some gas, food, and coffee, Amanda befriends a stuntman turned trucker named Brink. He’s hitting on Amanda pretty hard, but Jodi is turning it down as quickly as it crops up. See what I said about her being creepily into Marc and Amanda’s relationship? Meanwhile Talos has come to the diner and is attacking the staff! After a punch and a whipping from Marc, a kick from Amanda, and being set on fire by Jodi, Talos is finally taken down by Brink smashing into Talos with his truck. Giovanni suddenly shows up to take everyone home, gets and earful of anger from Marc before telling him that he doesn’t ever “know what a “Talos” is.” which is hilarious. Giovanni is one cold and hilarious guy!

Continuity Corner:

• Marc is mostly reflecting on the events of “Fire from Heaven” at the start of issue 21, while it’s pretty recent, it doesn’t seem like it’s immediately recent, so I gave it a little breathing room between the event and these issues.
• Not sure why Jodi was de-aged so suddenly. She goes from being around 16ish to a solid 12 years old. It was pretty jarring when I was kid reading these for the first time, as I’d just seen her flirt w/ Bobby during “Fire from Heaven” and thinking “awww,”  to now seeing her so much younger and wondering if Bobby should be on a list.
• Giovani drops the name of “The Puritans” as a crazy secret government group for the first time in WildStorm comics! It’ll be a bit of time before we see them in the pages of “WildC.A.T.s” but this was a neat set up!
• We’ll catch back up with Quentin from Dayton, OH in “Backlash” issue 24 as the subject of Marc’s first assignment from PSI.
• At the end of issue 23 we see Brink spying Talos’s helmet thinking that the night was wild, but that he enjoyed it. Also with out a truck he thinks “Hmm.. maybe…” but nothing ever comes of it. Where’s my book w/ Brink running around trying to right wrongs wearing that Talos helmet and using his stuntman training? I’d check that out!
• According to the book it’s only been 3 months since SkyWatch crashed into the desert… uh… that was in issue #25 of volume on of “StormWatch”… even accounting for the time travel that still works out to be more right? “StormWatch” volume one was on issue 39 by now! I know in comics time it’s still compressed from real time, but for it to only have been 3 months? Yeah, I don’t think so. One part of me would have wanted to push this issue out a bit, but the 3 months since SkyWatch crashed thing makes it seem like it’s not soon enough!
• Also, with Jodi being placed in boarding school by issue 23’s end, and the cast being fully relocated to Washington DC, we have set up the new status quo for this book going forward, might as well keep this “re-tooling” arc together.

NEXT: “Grifter” volume two issues 5 – 7 by Steven Grant, Mel Rubi, Michael Ryan, Matt Broome, Richard Friend, Jason Gorder, Sal Regla, Randy Elliot, Norm Rapmund, Peter Guzman, Troy Hubbs, Michael Rockwitz, and Wendy Fouts

Where to Find These Stories

• Comixology: “Backlash” issues 21, 22, 23

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 26 & 27

this entry covers issues 26 and 27 of “StormWatch” volume one including the epilogue in issue 27

Alright, time to find out who the mystery man that shot Despot in the back was! Woo hoo! Aw yeah! And… uh… what? Huh? So turns out that blast didn’t happen? What? We get a full page rerun of Despot yelling at Timespan, word for word, and then… no blast? We even get the same “You may’ve beating Battalion, but you don’t stand a chance against me old man” line but no blast from behind before it is delivered? HUH? REALLY! All the text is line for line replicated but none of the action is!? That’s B.S. man! Ok, now that I’ve said my peace it is time to move on.

Looks like the mystery shooter is Battalion! I mean NOT the mystery shooter because he DIDN’T SHOOT THIS TIME! Ugh! For realz! Yes, I’m still on this! AGH! So, so, so frustrating! Ok, deep breaths… yeah, it’s Jackson King, back from the dead to kick his dad’s ass again. He took what he learned in his past when he was brought to issue 25 and trained in exactly in how to beat Despot. We also learned that Jackson faked his own death so that he could devote all of his time to his new mental training. I’ll admit, it was nice to see Jackson back, but man, I wish it could’ve waited a bit more. Warning, fanboying out time: I wish it was Malcolm finally overcoming his father and being the one to put him down. In issue 25 we saw him break away from Despot for a few minutes when he saw Jackson. I would’ve had Malcolm take down Despot (much the way we see in the comics already) but he’s channeling some unknown source of power. At the end of issue 27 or even later we find out that it is Jackson supplying that power to Malcolm somehow. Special King brother power or something. Jackson knew that he can affect Malcolm to break Despot’s hold, so we have them team up to take him down, only we keep Jackson’s involvement a secret for a few issues because it is way anti-climactic the way it actually ran. Oh, I wonder who the badass that just took out Despot after Jackson left. Oh, it’s Jackson… sigh… OK.

The fight goes on, it’s Despot vs. the New Battalion (he actually calls himself that), and he’s pulling out all the old tricks, getting in his head, using StormWatch and the WarGuard as puppets to bash Jackson up. Standard Despot stuff. Jackson eventually uses his new increased powers in conjunction with the downed SkyWatch circuitry to wrest Despot’s control over everyone near by. Jackson then starts to do a real number on his dear old Pops, right before Henry Bendix teleports in to pop Despot in the back of the head with a standard gun.

A standard gun you say? That’s not going to work on Despot! You fool! But it buys StormWatch enough time to teleport all of their personnel out of there and back to the U.N. building. Not that this is going to stop Despot for long, he gets to NYC from Death Valley, CA pretty quickly for an old guy that just almost got his head blowed up. It’s then that it is decided that Jackson and Spartan, the two StormWatch members that Despot cannot control, are going to fight him to the death. And to the death it is, for Spartan and for Despot. So yeah, that’s it for those two!

Before we leave, Timespan just has to dick around with Jackson again. Jackson is pretty pissed about it all despite it working as well as possible, and better than if he didn’t see exactly how the threat of Despot would rear its head. Before Jackson can give Timespan “what-for,” Nadia, the Traveller, pops in to give Timespan chrono-spankings or whatever. Timespan gives her the slip, then takes Jackson several months into the future and then leaves. If you’re sitting there thinking “WTF?” well buddy, I’m right there with you!

Continuity Corner:

• For all my pissy-pants-ness I’m glad to have Jackson back! I just think it could’ve been handled better/different. When we do get him back he is noticeably less buff than we’re used to, which is how he’ll pretty much look from now on. I wonder if this was intentional or not. Not that he’s not muscular anymore, but he looks more like a regular tough guy than a body builder now.
• In issue 27 we see several people watching the fight between Jackson, Spartan, and Despot on television, which means, I have some reading order rearranging to do!
• Union home with Jill and not fighting, so that has to come after “Union” vol. 2 issue 6.
• We see Slayton and Jack Rhodes watching from one of their safe houses. Since we know that Marc and Jack were staying together when Jodi started to live with them we can assume this is after “Backlash” issue 11 and they just went back to that safe house, no reason not to. We can’t really wait until the end of the next “Backlash” story arc in issue 14 because Marc finds Cray in his kitchen and Jack is on his way to Gamorra. So yeah, this all tracks, go me!
• Cole is just hanging out with the television off. That’s my boy, making it easy on me!
• Gen13 hanging out watching TV, yeah, this works too. As long as they’re in La Jolla, this is a pretty regular sight. Seeing as how they’ll be leaving La Jolla soon to visit Coda Island in “Gen13” Vol. 2 issue 3, this slots right in.
• What kills me is we see the new WildC.A.T.s watching, which means this has to happen after the Ladytron special, “WildC.A.T.s” vol. 1 issue 21, and if we’re going to be fair also issue 22. I hate to push that up only because I like to keep the mystery of the final fate of the original WildC.A.T.s team for as long as possible, but it looks like it can’t be done. Issues 23 – 27 of “StormWatch” vol. 1 take place over the course of a night, while these issues of “WildC.A.T.s” take place over weeks at best. Looks like I’m going to have to push those up, too.
• Whoa, Bendix is ready to take out Despot with a gun to the back of the head! Looks more like the evil bastard we’ll all come to know and loathe in the Ellis run of “StormWatch!”
• With Jackson landing in the future we’re going to have 2 months of… ehh, pretty dull “StormWatch” until he pops back up in issue 30. The best things we get out of them are Flint and Swift.
• Because of the crash of SkyWatch and the fact that we only saw StormWatch members rescued, this leaves a whole lot of evil bastards on the loose that didn’t bite it in that battle. This is why Slayton eventually runs into Talos in “Backlash” issue 23. Did the U.N. just assume everyone they didn’t teleport out died?
• At the end of “WildStorm Rising,” it seemed like StormWatch was taking Helsponts body because they could properly confine it. I guess now we know how he got free to go back in time when we later see him “WildC.A.T.s” vol. 1 issue 45.

NEXT: “Gen13: Ordinary Heroes” issues 1 – 2 by Adam Hughes and Mark Farmer

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issues 11 – 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continuity Corner:

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

Where to read these stories:

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

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