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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 11, 2019 14:46:18 GMT -5
Issue #6: or X-tinction, issue #2. The final issue, dealing with everything from Inferno to X-tinction Agenda to Days of Future Past with a few steps backwards. Somebody else can go do Fantastic Four: Grand Design by Tom Scioli when it comes out.
Credits: Ed Piskor, who else?. The Cover: Our center figure is Kitty, the left half in her blue Excalibur costume, the right in the Days of Future Past prisoner garb. The Claremont/Lee X-Men on the left: Cyclops, Jean, Rogue, Jubilee, Asian Psylocke, Archangel and Gambit. On the right, the DoFP version of Wolverine and a lot of gravestones.
Title/credits page: Same title page as in X-tinction #1.
Page 1: Cyclops explains to Logan why Jean is still alive. Things go exactly as they originally did: the Avengers find a cocoon in Jamaica Bay while looking for Namor, the Fantastic Four open the cocoon and find Jean. Jean's body, almost completely destroyed by radiation had been piecing itself together back inside the cocoon. Cyclops asks what happened to Xavier.
Page 2-3: Remember how last issue I said that skipping the trial of Magneto was a pretty big change? Well, here it is. And a lot of differences: No Gaby Haller as attorney this time, Xavier took it upon himself to defend Magneto. The trial of Magneto ignites mutant hatred beyond anything seen before. Xavier receives death threats, but they are dismissed by the authorities. It's acknowledged that Magneto could escape at any time but willfully submits himself to the court. During the proceeding the court room is destroyed by a bomb. No Fenris looking to address their father's defeat at Magneto's hand, instead it's an anonymous janitor. Magneto protects Xavier and the judge with his force-field but all others are killed. Magnus decides to go into exile and rebuilds Asteroid M. Authorities question Xavier to find out what happened, but Xavier changes their minds in his usual way.
Page 4-5:President Kelly answers public outcry by introducing the Mutant Registration Act. The results are grim: in Springfield a mutant woman is murdered, mutant children are barred from public school unless proven to not be a danger and a doctor is declared not guilty after terminating pregnancies of his patients without their consent when they were carrying mutants. Xavier's speech at NY University ends with an attack on him, but he's found and saved by the Morlocks, but the wounds are deeper than the Healer could heal. Xavier discusses his injuries with Lilandra and she suggests contacting the Starjammers. Xavier is taken to the Starjammer for surgery and is healed, but the Starjammer has to flee Deathbird's armada and Xavier is cut off from Earth for the foreseeable future. Notes: Kelly and the mutant registration act differ from the original version, there was talk about it at the time, but Kelly was still a senator. Xavier did get attacked at NYU and was healed by the Morlocks, but it was a different attack during the fight with Fenris that triggered the Starjammers to come and save him. By the way, the captions state that this happens before the Mutant Massacre, so this all happened earlier in the series. Oh and a small difference, but Piskor's version of the Starjammer looks completely different from the Starjammer as drawn before.
Page 6: All new stuff now: Without Xavier to publicly advocate for mutants, nobody openly opposes Kelly (Thanks Richards, Rogers and Stark!): mutants need to be registered, children will be tested and use of powers without authorization is forbidden. Punishment is sterilization and death for violent offenders. Other countries follow America's policy, project Nimrod is started, Sentinels are build and demonstrations are controlled and limited to specific zones. Notes: Pretty much the backstory of what happened in Days of Future Past, now shown in gruesome detail.
Page 7-9: The X-Men offer X-Factor sanctuary at their hidden camp in Australia, but X-Factor refuses and wants to openly fight the new system. The X-Men return home through Gateway's portal. Logan takes a few extra moments to say goodbye to Jean (off-panel) and arrives last in Australia and immediately recognises Pierce's smell. The Reavers shoot Logan. He wakes up, nailed to a cross (or rather an X) and Donald Pierce asks him where the other X-Men fled through the Siege Perilous to. Logan has a flashback to Psylocke leading the entire team through the gate to escape from the Reavers' ambush, but doesn't tell Pierce, who destroys the mirror without knowing what it is. Notes: Several issues condensed into one here: the Australia time was slowly losing members over a longer period of team before Psylocke led the final members through the Siege to escape the Reavers. This time seven members enter the Siege including Storm (who was kidnapped by Nanny in the original), Rogue (who entered the Siege separately during the fight with Nimrod/Mastermold) and Longshot (who left the team to find answers to his past).
Pages 10-12: Tortured, Logan manages to nevertheless escape the cross during the night and is helped into hiding by a young girl. The girl introduces herself as Jubilee and explains how she followed the X-Men through a gate after a shopping trip to an American mall and had been in hiding since. Once he has recovered enough Logan takes revenge on the Reavers and escapes (Jubilee taking out Pierce to save Wolverine). Notes: The capture and save is pretty similar, though the escape is different. Logan and Jubilee never entered into open combat with the Reavers but escaped through Gateway's portal. Also Jubilee thinks that she just knocked out Pierce, but the large pool of blood and Wolverine's words clearly state otherwise. In the original comics, Pierce would only die much later when attacked by Trevor Fitzroy's Sentinels, so that is big change. Also noteworthy, Lady Deathstrike is never seen among the Reavers, while she was always pretty prominent in the original story, even if she had little love for the other Reavers.
Pages 13-14: In a series of panels we are updated on the status of all the X-Men. Instead of just scattered around the world, some of the X-Men are all moved into alternate dimensions. Dazzler ends up in a world where she is still famous and popular as a singer and actress. Colossus enters a world without mutants and becomes a famous painter. Rogue ends up in another Savage Land with Magneto but has no powers and thinks herself a native to this land. Ororo is changed into a child and escapes from a hospital. Psylocke has been found by the Ninja-clan known as the Hand and turned into their assassin, which includes a physical transformation. Havok ends up in Genosha, but is protected still by Roma's spell which hides his mutant gifts from detection by the Genoshan technology. We get a quick introduction to Genosha: a small island of the East-Coast of Africa, whose immense wealth and prosperity is bought by mutant slave labour. Mutants are kept under control by the Magistrates and Alex Summers is now one of them. Notes: As said, the three X-Men ending up in different dimensions is new. It is never said where Longshot ends up. The others end up mostly where they ended up in the original comics (even if not in another dimension). Genosha was by this point already introduced (shortly before Inferno), but it was one of the stories skipped, so Piskor brings us up to speed to what Genosha is. I usually have seen Genosha as near Madagascar, but it's placed higher up North here, near the Seychelles (but a bit of googling does show other comics that placed Genosha at the same place Piskor puts it.
Page 14-18: Forge sees Storm in a vision and contacts Banshee to get help. Banshee believes him and tells him that they have saved Polaris, no longer possessed by Malice and physically changed: larger and stronger than she ever was before. At this point Muir Island is attacked and Forge speeds to rescue them. He arrives late though and Legion already defeated all the attackers: the remaining Reavers. Genoshan refugees arrive at the X-mansion, now home to X-Factor, who greet them and give them shelter. Banshee and Forge arrive later and Jean informs them that the X-Men are indeed alive. Genoshans attack then to take the two refugees back to their nation, but are easily defeated by X-Factor, Banshee and Forge. Notes: Lots of changes here: Polaris transformation was triggered by Zaladane stealing her powers in the original, but Zaladane and the Savage Land never appeared here, so her transformation remains a mystery. The Reavers are more of a threat to Muir Island, because Legion toys with both sides, playing them against each other. Forge evens the scales by bringing Freedom Force with him. In this version, Mystique never turned her Brotherhood into Freedom Force, so Forge arrives alone. Legion never turns on the other people on Muir Island but kills all the Reavers in a way that really disturbs both Polaris and Jamie Madrox (he made all their heads explode). This means that Destiny does not die on Muir and neither does Stonewall (but Stonewall never appeared in this version) or Sunder (also does not appear). The two Genoshan refugees are not Philip Moreau and Jenny Ransome, they are both mutates in this version, the numbers tattooed on them (996 and the other I can't really read. It could be 028 or 928 or 021 or 921 or something else even) don't match Jenny's number (9817) and they end up in the US with X-Factor instead of with the amnesiac Piotr Rasputin. X-Factor is also not staying inside the Celestial Ship, but in Xavier's cellar.
Page 19: Hiding out in Madripoor, Logan is on the look for one of the missing X-Mens, but instead she finds him. Psylocke attacks Wolverine on behalf of the Silver Samurai, but regains her memory when she hits him with her psychic blade. Notes: Some differences here. The setting is Madripoor, in the original it was Hong Kong. Psylocke works for the Silver Samurai here, in the original it was the Mandarin. This does save Piskor time and space to introduce/explain the Mandarin. No Hand Ninjas, Matsuo Tsurabaya and Mandarin here to interfere in the battle, neither are there Logan's hallucinations of Carol Danvers and Nick Fury. The Hand are lucky this time; they are not getting punked by Jubilee.
Page 20: Kelly complains to Hodge that they now have Genoshan troops in custody for attacking people on American soil. Hodge is in his human head on a huge cybernetic body form. Kelly releases the Genoshan troops back to their home country. Beast and Iceman understand the Genosha will not face any consequences for their actions. Notes: With Hodge decapitation happening in X-Factor, it's completely ignored in this series, but did happen off-screen (in some way or another). So readers of only this title will wonder why Cameron Hodge suddenly is 95% robotic monster. Then again, is anybody reading this who didn't read X-Men before?
to be continued next post.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 11, 2019 10:27:59 GMT -5
Here's one that's fairly recent: How did Jason Todd come back to life? I know that it originally had something to do with an alternate Superboy punching reality really, really hard, but if that Crisis event is no longer in play, what's the new explanation? Lazarus Pit? Lazarus Pit, also explained why he went a bit crazy for a while.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 8, 2019 7:58:25 GMT -5
I wonder if Damage Control's appearance in the Spider-Man movie had something to do with the TV-series getting scrapped or if their appearance was supposed to tie in with the planned TV-series.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 8, 2019 7:55:15 GMT -5
Going with most disappointing as in a title I was actually really excited about and really disappointed by the execution, the ones that come to mind first(probably due to having done the Wildstorm thread on these boards recently) are Morrison's Wildcats and Authority.
Wildcats just came off a very strong, though very unpopular run (due to DC marketing having no clue how to market the title.) To recap: Wildcats volume 1: Image comics, Jim Lee and his pal Brandon Choi create a superhero team in the vein of X-Men with the twist that the heroes and villains are members of two alien races at war who crashed on Earth centuries ago and inspired myths and legends. Choi is not a great writer, so Lee hired James Robinson, Chris Claremont and later Alan Moore to improve that part of the title. Wildcats volume 2: DC, started as a vehicle to showcase Travis Charest art, but quickly turned into one of many Joe Casey/Sean Philips coops. The alien war has ended, the heroes have doubts whether they were even on the right side of that war and now have to move on. The series deals with cleaning up the fallout of the war. Wildcats volume 3: One of my favourites. The remaining Wildcats decide to use their alien technology to improve humanity starting with producing batteries that will last forever. A small invention that has large consequences.
WIldcats volume 4: Morrison writes a single issue that is incoherent, reverts a lot of things back to issue #1, has a couple of pages that have messed up colouring (which may have been intentional or not) and gets bad reviews. Morrison throws a hissy fit and drops the series after a single issue.
Authority: After Ellis left, this was another series that was looking for an identity. Millar was interesting if too invested in shock. Brubaker was interesting. Morrison had the amazing Gene Ha on art and spend the first issue with a guy making breakfast with his estranged wife. Reception and response were pretty much the same as for Wildcats (though I think he actually did write a second issue here). This at least was more coherent than the first, though the main premise "What if Superheroes were in the real world?" seems to as uninspired as you can get.
Fast forward 10-15 years (which includes Wildstorm editorial that has no clue what's happening in their own titles leading to massive continuity errors between various titles at the same time, followed by rebooting the whole series as a post-apocalyptic setting, which has a Wildcats by Gage which was ... fine, moving the Authority to the DC new 52 universe as Stormwatch, an actually great Midnighter (and Apollo) series by Orlando) and we get Ellis getting things back on track (let's see if they can keep things there. The first spin-off was not very promising.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 7, 2019 11:45:21 GMT -5
And the final issue is here. I may continue with Wildcats in this thread depending on how Ellis is going to write that title. If it's like this, annotations might be useful. If it's like Michael Cray, not so much. This issue was really annoying to recap by the way, the previous issues all had scenes beginning and ending at the beginning of a page and the end of another page. Here every scene is starting halfway through a page and ending halfway through another page. Probably a conscious choice to present the chaos and everything that is all happening at once.
The Wildstorm #24 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato and John Kalisz (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: A tiny engineer flying up in the sky to block a giant fireball from incinerating New York.
Page 1: Jackie King is coordinating defense against the superhumans attacking New York. Miles Craven is going crazy and Ivana is mocking him.
Page 2-5: Michael Cray uses the mayhem to enter IO (noting that Craven should have let Santine change the codes). I agree: Really, Craven? One of your top operatives is going rogue and you don't change the passwords? John Lynch is watching the whole attack on the enws and is enjoying himself immensely. A superhuman with blue, crysatline skill is attacking the police, but Midnighter and Apollo stop him. The Doctor kills a flying superhuman that attacks them and Hawksmoor turns a building into a giant creature to kill another superhuman. Engineer shoots a woman throwing lightning bolts around. As far as I can tell none of these nameless superhumans are based on any previous Wildstorm characters.
Page 6: The Engineer notices that the lightning woman was attacking a car which passengers she recognises: it's Miles Craven's husband and his bodyguards. Angie tells them to get out. Another superhuman, with a Wolverine type claw coming from his arm tries to sneak up on her, but is killed by Voodoo whose arm turns into a claw. She changes back into normal before Angie notices. Turning into a half-daemonite form was one of her powers in the original universe, but it's unclear how much she knows about what she is and what she just has done. Probably to be continued in Wildcats.
Page 7-10: Bendix tells Lauren to drop a "big stick"on New York. Slayton is killing all of Miles bodyguards and is about to kill Craven himself when Michael Cray enters and disintegrates half of Slayton's body. He tells Miles that he is sparing his life and to walk away. Craven snaps and shoots Cray from behind as he leaves. Craven has completely lost it and now thinks Jackie has betrayed him.
Page 10-13: Apollo and Engineer notice the "Big Stick" dropping towards them. Apollo, like his inspiration Superman, has enhanced vision, so he can see what it is, but he also thinks that he is not powerful enough to stop it. Using their telepathic link, Angie shows Jenny the projectile and Jenny recognises it as a Skywatch weapon. Angie has an idea; Jenny contacts Jackie King and asks her to repeat the bot attack on Skywatch they did before. Jackie agrees, when Miles enter (Ivana sneaks in after Miles). Jackie ignores him and starts the attack, blaming Miles incompetence for this whole mess. As Miles tries to shoot her, she disintegrates him with the Battalion device.
Page 13-17: Angie asks Apollo to act as a booster rocket for her. Jenny sends her the coordinates of Skywatch, which is no longer hidden due to I.O.'s bot attack. Shen sends a Door through Angie and the Big Stick goes through the Door and hits Skywatch, destroying about half the space station.
Page 18: Angie falls to Earth, but her rockets kick in before she hits the ground. Jenny watches the chaos inside Skywatch from the main screen; both Lauren and Bendix are still alive. Apollo and Midnighter meet up and during their talk they decide that their first names sound weird to them, so they'll keep calling each other Midnighter and Apollo.
Page 19-20: Ivana sees an opportunity to seize power and tries to get Jackie arrested by security for killing Craven, but Jackie plants the Battalion device on her and tells the guards that Ivana has a weapon on her. The guards obey her and Jackie takes control over I.O.
Page 21: Lauren does a status update to Bendix: they lost about half of Skywatch's resources and they are no longer hidden. Jenny appears on the big screen and warns them that she is watching them. The Daily Planet publishes two articles: one about the unknown space station that everybody can see and the other is about a document dump on I.O. The secret powers in the world are no longer secret.
Page 22: Shen and Jenny are talking outside a cafe about what this all meant. Jenny decides that it was all about Angie learning how to save the world.
And that's where we end for now. A 6-issue Wildcats Limited Series is coming in August. (Probably taking place around the same time as these last issues, as they were pretty much absent at the end here). Not many references in these final few issues, so I'm wondering what we can expect from Wildcats.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 18, 2019 6:53:06 GMT -5
I will add a reminder to my outlook in the hope that I'll get around to participate this time.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 13, 2019 14:56:50 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #23 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Interesting cover: this is a callback to the cover of issue #1. In Issue #1 Zealot, Voodoo and Michael Cray walk out of a subway exit. This time, Jenny, Jackie and Michael Cray walk out of the same subway exit. Everything is covered in glass, there is smoke and the car behind them and the sign above the exit are now all damaged. Jenny is powered up, Jackie and Michael are armed. In the background, there is fourth figure this time: Marc Slayton, also powered up. Interesting enough is that Michael Cray has switch places: Jackie is in the place he was in in issue #1, now he's taken Voodoo's place. Jenny takes Zealot's place. The most interesting about this, in my personal opinion, is that this is issue 23, not the final issue. If it was issue 1 and issue 24 they would work as bookends, but no there is another cover after this one.
Page 1-4: The Authority is still fighting Skywatch. Jack Hawksmoor is able to use the small town to fight off one of the flying saucers, his previous version was unable to do anything in a town that small.
Page 5: Bendix and Lauren have lost contact with their troops on earth, so Bendix orders Helspont to activate Hawksmoor, Apollo and Midnighter and have them destroy New York City.
Page 6-10: Apollo and Midnighter get activated and fly off to New york City. Jack just got a big headache, but Shen's actions in his head made him resistant. Jenny orders Jack to New York to defend it while she guides Shen and Angie to intercept them. They jump several times before they are able to touch them. Shen's touch is enough to restore their memories and turn off Helspont's command: Apollo's name is Alex Petrakis, Midnighter is Lucas Trent. In the original comics, neither Apollo nor Midnighter ever knew their real names, their identities erased when they became part of Stormwatch. Midnighter was told that his real name was Lucas Trent, but it turned out to be a fake. He occasionally used it as an alias. In the New52 DC Universe, Midnighter called himself Lucas Trent, but revealed later on that this too was a fake alias, this time one he had made for himself to appear more normal to Apollo. In the New52 Apollo was known as Andrew Pulaski. His name here certainly looks a lot like it, but it went from Polish to Greek. A decision by Ellis to make a connection to his codename as a Greek God? That's the only reason I can think of. The name Petrakis seems to mean "Small Stone", which doesn't really fit with the light god image, but it can fit with his tendency to plow through larger objects at high speeds.
Page 11: Jackie didn't run after all, she returned to IO HQ. She does not talk about the attempt on her life (but her body language makes it clear to me that she knows exactly who ordered the hit), instead she tells Miles about Skywatch craft being seen in Utah and Miles decides that they will destroy every Skywatch supply station in North America.
Page 12-13: Shen gives Apollo and Midnighter a quick recap of everything that happened: 60 tiny panels that show scenes summing everything that happened in the series so far. Apollo and Midnighter are most occupied with the fact that Shen, Angie, Jenny and Jack all had sex together and they make it clear that they are in a monogamous relationship.
Page 13-18: Angie enters and shows them images of bombings of all Skywatch supply depots. IO HQ is attacked at the same time by another Skywatch experiment, a firebreathing man whose lower jaw is split in two. Angie concludes that Skywatch has sent all their experiments on Earth at IO. She tries to call in help from Marlowe, but Marlowe decides that this does not affect his own plan and he doesn't want IO on the trail of Cole. The Authority decide that only they can save New York; IO will only be concerned with their own survival. Midnighter is sceptical, but Apollo convinces him that this is the right thing to do and that IO needs to exist as counter to Skywatch.
Page 19-22 Several fires are seen in New York, one of them is caused by a superhuman smashing a police car and throwing it around. Slayton arrives in New York and uses the chaos to enter IO and kills the guard at the entrance. The superhuman has red skin and bone-like structures growing on his body. I do not recognise him (or the firebreathing guy above) as a preexisting character.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 13, 2019 14:15:45 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #22 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Teamshot of the entire Authority, now with Apollo and Midnighter on the team.
Page 1-6: Jackie leaves I.O. offices, her bus is cancelled so she decides to walk home. On her way, in a dark alley, Ben tries to take his shot, apologizing to her and promising to take care of her cat, but blue lightning shoots from Jackie's head and tears Ben apart. She takes the small disc from her temple, the source of her new power. She turns the "Battalion" device off and runs away. In the original universe, Jackson King had potent telepathic and telekinetic powers, but needed technology to channel his powers in a focused manner. He had the codename Battalion. The Battalion device in this version replicates those powers, but the tech is the source of the powers this time.
Page 7-13: The Authority feel Skywatch moving to eliminate Apollo and Midnighter and meet up with them. Apollo and Midnighter do not trust them, but are interrupted by Skywatch troops arriving. Jack confirms that he can't survive outside cities just like the original, though he does last a while in the small village, while the original would go into shock pretty soon when taken out of a city.
Page 14: Bendix and Lauren see the Authority for the first time. They know Apollo, Midnighter and Jack. The recognise Angie, but have no idea who Jenny and Shen are. Jenny is a blur on Skywatch's cameras. Bendix is not impressed, tech to hide from cameras is ubiquitous in this universe and orders Lauren to kill them.
Page 15-22: The Authority fight Skywatch, Jenny impresses the others by turning into a giant made of lighting.
Again, not much to comment about this issue.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 13, 2019 13:57:46 GMT -5
The final issues so far are pretty action oriented with no new characters introduced, so these now tend to go a lot faster:
The Wildstorm #21 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Apollo and Midnighter in the midst of battle. I actually don't like this costume for Midnighter, because of the full face mask. For Midnighter I always find it important that his mouth is visible, so his opponents can see him smiling/laughing during fights.
Page 1-5: Jenny wakes up the others and tells them that she managed to infiltrate Skywatch and what happened. Jack realizes that Skywatch want to make more like him. Jenny antagonizes Angie, but then confesses that she thinks the current situations is her own fault: she is supposed to protect the world, but went away for 20 years to hide. This pretty much is what happened to the original Jenny as well.
Page 6: Miles Craven asks Ivana to create a coverstory. Ivana doesn't let on, but suspects that something is up. She calls an unknown party, saying the other party that "We may have a situation." I have no real idea who the other party is. Jackie is busy elsewhere on the next few pages. It could be Lynch, but Ivana and Lynch were enemies in the original version.
Page 7-8: Jackie is going through Angie's lab and finds a wrench that seems to be made of nanites. Her special scanner is able to identify that the material is invisible to security scanners and this must have been the way Angie smuggled her equipment outside. Jackie then finds a closed bag, which Angie marked as "this is scary." Jackie scans the contents, a small, black coin/disc and the scan result is enough to surprise or shock her. She keeps the disc.
Page 9-12: Bendix is admiring his weapons of mass destruction. Lauren tells him that she doesn't care about the people on Earth and she is very disappointed by their need for secrecy limiting their own options, but in the end she does not want Earth to burn, because they need the supplies, but she thinks that Bendix does need to do something about I.O.
Page 13-15: Apollo flies into orbit to charge himself with solar energy. He meets back up with Midnighter on Earth and tells him how much he wants to walk on the Moon one day.
Page 16-19:Angie gives the rest of the Authority earbugs that allow them to communicate telepathically.
Page 20: Ben Santini is going through his days: taking a walk with his baby child, kissing his wife, drinking a coffee, giving some money to a homeless person, drinking with a freind, buying a toy for his kid and flowers for his wife... and preparing to kill Jackie. In the original universe, Ben was married to Victoria Ngengi, the Stormwatch member known as Flint. His wife here is black as well, but Victoria already appeared in the Michael Cray series, so this can't be her.
Page 21-22: Jenny has figured out by now what was done to Michael Cray and why he set off the alarms in Marlowe's office, which set off this open war between IO and Skywatch.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 3, 2019 13:07:48 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #20 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: A Skywatch flying saucer abducts a truck from Dr. Midnite, the brand of cigarettes in the new Wildstorm Universe that we already have seen before.
Page 1-2: Miles Craven briefs Ben Santini on their current issues: the missing Angie Spica, Michael Cray deserting. Bendix attacks. Santine tells him that they should kill people. Miles tells Ben that hey may also need to "retire" Jackie King and Ivana Baiul. Ben has no problem with it, but is curious to know why. Miles sees both of them as threats to his position. Ben was mentioned before, but I think this is his first appearance in the series on page. He has white hair and the right side of his face is scarred. Like most characters in the new Wild Storm, he seems to have less problems with killing people for minor reasons, while the original had black hair, prosthetic knees and was a very by-the-book type. Page 3-10: Little text here: Skywatch tries to abduct another small town, but run into resistance in the form of Midnighter and Apollo. Apollo feels bad that he has to kill them, but he knows they won't leave the people in town alone otherwise and starts the attack, taking out some Skywatch infantry, then flying through a tank, removing the engine which he uses as a projectile against one of the flying saucers.
Page 11:Inside one saucer, Skywatch personnel are arguing. One wants to attack Apollo, the other wants to call for help and opens the emergency channel. The first opens fire on Apollo. The woman recognises Apollo, telling the other that she was on supply runs for one of the Skywatch black sites (the previous issue Apollo mentions Midnighter hitting one of these type of sites), so she was probably a survivor of that attack.
Page 12-15: The Saucer's attacks don't seem to harm Apollo that much. Midnighter gives the remaining Skywatch infantry 10 seconds to surrender before engaging them. They don't comply and he kills them with ease.
Page 16: The woman on board of the saucer broadcasts an emergency to Skywatch, telling them that they are under attack by Apollo. The signal is unencrypted and Jenny Sparks wakes up immediately, using the signal to transport herself directly to Skywatch. Bendix wonders why somebody is broadcasting in the clear, not noticing Jenny appearing on the screen behind him.
Page 17-22: Apollo and Midnighter finish up, they confirm that no innocents were hurt and leave before the civilians even know what happened. Leaving behind some very confused people. A closeup of Apollo's eyes show that there are mechanisms within to power his laser vision. Like the original, his powers seem to be cybernetic in nature.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 3, 2019 12:46:16 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #19 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: Jenny Sparks on board a spaceship (presumably the Mars Expedition of 1955, as her Mars Expedition lighter is floating in fron of her). Also floating around, a classic raygun and a glass of whisk(e)y. And as always, Jenny is smoking.
Page 1: Jenny tells the others about her history, arriving at the point of the 1955 Mars Expedition, mentioning that she had a bit of a hazy period before that, blaming either increased radio interference or Albert Hoffman's experiments on her. She also vaguely remembers sleeping with both Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, though not at the same time. Angie is sceptical that the Skywatch saucers could make it to Mars. Jack is amazed that they are only at 1955, Jenny has been talking for 13 hours. Not really a Wildstorm annotation, but the names Jenny drops are all real people. I think most people on this board will know them, but this is one for the kids: Albert Hoffman is the scientist who discovered LSD. Rita Hayworth is of course one of the most famous Golden Age Hollywood actresses and Orson Welles is probably best known for (co-)writing, starring and directing Citizen Kane. Page 2-8: Flashback to 1955, several large spacecraft arrive near Mars and release the Skywatch flying saucers. A trip back then took 39 days. Today their record is 41 hours. The Martian base needed to be build underground as protection against the radiation. Many people died off radiation during the building of the base and Jenny left Skywatch after returning to Earth, thinking that the whole organisation was filled with maniacs and that it got worse when Bendix took control. His plans to colonize the solar system are only halted by I.O. and the need for secrecy.
Page 9: Several news channels are seen: the Daily Planet has articles on Angie's Engineer suit being seen and disappearing, a serial killer called the Highway Ripper (with a picture of the car that Mark Slayton cut in half) and an interview with Voodoo about her influences, she claims that a voice in her head is her inspiration (something the Greeks called a Daemon). WGBS has articles on a freak meteorite stike that affects the weather (not sure if it's the effect of one of Bendix little sticks or Stephen Rainmaker) and an interview with a scientist that believes in a secret space program in parallel to the Apollo program. Action News has an article on the urban legend of a girl ghost haunting billboards (Jenny Sparks) and a town being abducted (Skywatch work). The parallel space program is obviously Skywatch, but in the original Wildstorm it's also the origin of the villains in Planetary, the Four. The abduction of the town is compared to a movie, "Infinite Crisis" (which is described as Darkseid's children go to Central City). I never read Infinite Crisis, but it was a DC Comics crossover. Darkseid is one of DC's major villains and Central City is home to the Flash in the DC universe. Oh and the Daily Planet is obviously a newspaper in the DC universe. Home to star reporter Lois Lane.
Page 10-11: Apollo and Midnighter, now fully visible, together in bed, watch the report on the abductions. Both immediately suspect Skywatch, though Midnighter does not think that they would be that obvious. Midnighter does not want to check it out, seeing it as too much of a threat, but Apollo is happily listing all the times Midnighter interfered while they should have been laying low. Midnighter does worry about the operation being at nighttime, Apollo being solar powered, but Apollo thinks that he just needs to charge the day before. Apollo is a Superman analogue, but his dependency on sunlight has always been greater, so it makes sense that Midnighter is worried. This is the first time we see the two out of the shadows in this universe. Midnighter is a black man (in the original he's usually depicted as a blond, white man). Apollo has black hair, the original version had white hair. Personality-wise they are pretty much the same people they always were.
Page 12: Jackie is trying to figure out how Angie got all her equipment out of the building. She tells her team to prepare another attack on Skywatch.
Page 13-22: The Doctor asks the previous Doctors to tell her all about aliens living on Earth. Her body is asleep back on Earth in her bed. The same bed Jenny, Jack and Angie are sleeping in. One of the doctors, a Japanese woman, shows her how thousands of years ago an expedition from Khera was sent to Earth. She explains the Gaian Bottleneck to Shen (it was already mentioned earlier, but to recap: most forms of life die out rather than evolve. The Kherans want a slave race to help them escape this universe to a better one where life is easier and more plentiful. The Doctors don't know how exactly this is supposed to work, but it requires a planet full of sentient beings who willingly submit to the Kherans. The Japanese Doctor's source was John Colt and she shows what Earth would look like after the Kheran's succeed: a barren world with giant firepits. Arriving on Earth, the Kherans discover that their antagonists, the Other (also known as Daemonites) are already on Earth. The Daemonites use a Shaper Engine to empower the indigenous species to protect the Earth (Jenny Sparks being an example). Emp turned against the Kherans and scuttled their vessel, his new mission to combine Kheran and human technology to uplift humanity as a species, becoming an equal to the Kherans instead of a subservient species. The Doctor thinks Emp's intentions are good, but there is information he lacks. The Japanese Doctor tells Shen that she's right that there are dark times approaching and reminds her of her task. A whole lot of recap of the last 18 issues. Jenny's bedspread has the Wonder Woman icon on it. The burned out Earth that the Doctor shows to Shen as the way the world would look after the Kherans were done with it, looks pretty much like Apokalips, Darkseid's world in the DC Universe. It can be unintended though, how many ways are there to show barren, burned out planets without making it look like Apokalips? The Shaper Engines in the original Wildstorm universe where devices used by the Kheran's ancestors to seed planets with Kheran-like life to make colonization easier millions of years later. The device here seems to be a lot more benevolent.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 3, 2019 11:50:06 GMT -5
Probably the longest draft in the history of this board. I had most of this post saved in my browser for months before finally getting around to picking this up again. Issue 18 felt like the issue to set up all future plotlines and spin-offs. A lot of characters only get 1 page, but it sets up their current direction.
The Wildstorm #18 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
The Cover: For a change I got the variant cover by Daniel Warren Johnson and Michael Spicer, but the subject is still the same: John Lynch and Marc Slayton fighting. In the Jon Davis-Hunt version Lynch is entangled in Slayton's whips/tentacles. In this version Slayton is on the roof of Lynch's pickup truck hitting the truck with his whip, while John shoots through the roof. (Art does have a small mistake in it, Slayton is holding the handle of the whip instead of the whip growing from his arm).
Page 1-2: Jackie King confronts Miles Craven with her findings: there is a third party working against both Skywatch and I.O. Craven does not care, he wants Skywatch gone and Jackie tells Craven straight to his face that she is not impressed at all with his leadership. Page 3-5: On Skywatch, Bendix meets up with Dr. Helspont, Skywatch's Chief Scientist. Helspont is old and irreverent, knowing his genius is too important for Bendix to do anything about his insolence. We get confirmation that Michael Cray's powers have the same source as those of project Thunderbook; Helspont used to work for I.O. on Thunderbook. Also the reason of so many superpowered individuals running around unchecked on Earth: Skywatch has been experimenting on them, but Bendix is smart enough not to keep powerful beings on a space station where they could kill everybody with a simple attack. Down on Earth they are no threat and somebody else's problem. There have been 3 different versions of control that Skywatch has been using on their subjects. Only the last version, developed by Helspont is flawless. Earlier versions cause damage to the subject or only allow limited commands. Helspont is very different from the original version: in the original Wildstorm, Helspont is a Daemonite Warlord, archenemy of Majestros. Here he is a human (as far as we can tell) scientist working for I.O. and Skywatch.
Page 6-7 Jack Hawksmoor is getting dressed, Shen tells Jenny that there was something in his brain that was causing his mental problems (presumably Skywatch's mind-control version 1). Jenny doubts Jack's abilities in the field, but Jack is eager to join the fight against the people who abused him.
Page 8-14: Little text here: John Lynch is driving around on an abandoned mountain road and finds his way blocked by Slayton. Slayton tries to kill him, but Lynch has come prepared and his skills and weapons are enough to gain the advantage. Lynch doesn't finish Slayton off though and tells him to go to New York and deal with I.O., the real threat to him. The Kheran inside Slayton's head agrees with Lynch. Lynch leaves after telling Slayton to kill Miles Craven.
Page 15-17: Angie leaves Marlowe's safe house through one of Shen's magic doors, leaving a note to thank the Wild C.A.T. Angie is introduced to Jack and Jenny also enters. Angie shows them the image of the Daemonite that told her to seek them out. He calls them "the authority". A nod that does not need any explaining, but I;'ll do it anyway. The team Jenny is gathering is this universe's version of the Authority, the off-shoot of Stormwatch in the original Wildstorm Universe.
Page 18: Michael Cray is returning to New York (and displays more personality and charm in 1 page than in his whole solo-series combined). The Kheran inside his head (the manifestation of his powers is visible in the window of the train.
Page 19: Marlowe reads Angie's farewell later, but comforts Adrianna that she loves her. They have no time to look for her, Kanesha has found an IO research project that is an immediate threat and Adrianna teleports the C.A.T.
Page 20: Two drunk Daemonites are sitting in a bar... the Daemonite that appeared to Angie is complaining how bad and stilted his English was when he talked to Angie. They both agree that French is the better language by far. Zannah walks past them, but one of the Daemonites is shielding them to be invisible. We get a bit of backstory: Emp scuttled the Kheran spaceship deliberately to prevent Earth from turning into a Kheran slave camp. Zannah disagrees with him and takes off on her own. So the Daemonites now have to balance I.O., Skywatch and two different factions of Kheran just to give the planet a chance. The most interesting part here: The Daemonites, now hidden from everybody else and among their own, look exactly like Kherans do, which opens up a lot of questions. From the way they refer to Kherans, they don't see themselves as Kherans. Are they another clade? An earlier offshoot? Zannah being the loyalist while Emp being concerned with other species as well, fit with their relationship in the original WildC.A.T.s (Zannah improved a lot over the years though).
Page 21-22: Bendix meets up with Lauren and plans for the future. Bendix considers abducting people so that Helspont can turn them into a new army for them. Bendix sings that he's happy, while looking out the window of the space-station at Earth, contemplating the imminent destruction of I.O.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 31, 2019 4:19:33 GMT -5
Always appreciate the annotations, although I have a definite preference for superhero comics that don't require annotations. I'm all about thematic depth and incorporating other disciplines Grant Morrison style but I tend to think self referentialism is a bad look. "I'm creating a superhero comic! My influence is superhero comics! I am not clever!" Which is to say I really liked the design of this book - I got an oversize collection of the first two issues - but don't remember much about the content. Hip Hop Family Tree was a perfect cross section of my interests (comics, books about music) so I had to like it. I'm really glad to see anything from Marvel that deviates this radically from the current Marvel house style, though. They don't require it. (Neither does Wildstorm). I'm just the worst kind of person, because I do these things because I enjoy comparing source material with new versions.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 31, 2019 1:09:55 GMT -5
Good luck getting through it! I blew through the first 14 issues of Avengers. Enjoying it more than I did the last time I tried. Some good character moments, a big 'ol Avengers team (which I appreciate.) I have no investment in the larger plot at this point, the villains are "generic portentous evil guy" cities are getting attacked all "What if we re-wrote the Authority except didn't frame this to any sort of human scale and with worse art" the book assumes I care DEEPLY about Starbrand and Nightmask of the New Universe (HA!) and I remember New Avengers (the companion book) being a lot worse. Also is this the Superior Spider-Man because if it's regular Spider-Man we are waaaaay out of character. Still, could be worse. Solid "C" so far. Depends on where you are in the series, but it was Octavius for quite a bit during that time.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 31, 2019 1:06:28 GMT -5
The pages are even tinted tan to simulate the effect of aged newsprint. The style is a bit Crumby perhaps. It seems like a labor of love, but I hope it sees enough commercial success to continue.
I don't think there is much to continue here. The series wil be 6 issues. Issue 5 came out. It's based on Ed's love of the X-Men as a child and he stopped reading around the time that Claremont left (that's why it will run to X-tinction/Muir Island Saga and then skip directly to Days of Future Past).
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