“WetWorks” Vol. 1 issues 1 – 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to find this story:

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

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