The Wildstorm Universe has gone though a major upheaval of late. It began building a while back. The trades following this major beat down are as follows: WILDSTORM ARMAGEDDON, WILDSTORM REVELATIONS, NUMBER OF THE BEAST and the aftermath in WILDCATS WORLD’S END, THE AUTHORITY WORLD’S END, GEN 13 WORLD’S END and STORMWATCH PHD WORLD’S END.
I’ve been following the Wildstorm Universe for a while, I really enjoy the characters and the sharper edge they seem to have. It wasn’t much of a leap of faith for me to pick up this latest run of titles.
Our story starts in WILDSTORM ARMAGEDDON. Various characters were visited by sometime Wildcats member Void. Jackson Dane of Wetworks, Officer John Doran of Stormwatch PHD, Caitlin Fairchild from Gen13, Maximum Man from Welcome to Tranquility, Midnighter of The Authority and Nemsis, who has connections to Wildcats were all brought to a not so distant future. Time travel stories are always fun, but this proved to be frustrating for our characters, a future with the Earth decimated by a catastrophe of unknown origins. Each of the characters sees their teams in various states of chaos dealing with the aftermath. They are battling rogue super powered beings, trying to save as many people as they can and if they are lucky, spare a little time to find out what the Hell happened and try and fix things. For the most part no one really found out anything as they got caught up in the trouble their teams were in. Essentially Void failed.
Except we discover that Nemesis may have a clue and she, along with Backlash and Savant try to find clues to the upcoming chaos in WILDSTORM REVELATIONS. In the process they manage to break into various head quarters and really piss off everyone who could be an ally. There are some wonderful fight scenes and I love the way the three characters bond along the way. The book also really does a nice job of fleshing out these characters. But all the fighting and sneaking around gets them pretty much nowhere. Ultimately what good they could do is too little too late.
At this point we enter NUMBER OF THE BEAST. This is where things strat to get really fun. Turns out the good ‘ol US Government had a problem with the number of super powered beings and they found a way to get them off the playing field at the end of WWII. With the us of some alien technology they put all the heroes and villains they could find into a form of suspended animation. However, they were still able to dream. In fact, they share a common dream of constant fighting and trying to save the world. Eventually a character known as THE ONE is found in bits and pieces and dropped into one of the tubes. He regenerates and eventually they figure out what is happening. Escape, bedlam and really pissed off folks soon provide some great fun for the reader. Unfortunately for the Wildstorm universe, it also ends in a major earth wide event that pretty much screws up everything and everybody.
Now we have a series of books under the heading of WORLD’S END. Each of the different teams is dealing with the future they had a glimpse of.
The Wildcats are in LA. Their building is secure, to a point and they are rescuing who they can. Majestic proves to be a bit of a problem as he is turning Hawaii into his version of paradise and wants tech and the survivors. Wildcats also have to deal with Deamonites running loose, a strange forest in Nevada and a number of inner squabbles among the team.
The Authority were hit bad. Their ship left the Bleed and crashed on London. Jenny Sparks took the baby universe and split, the doctor is AWOL, The Engineer is at maybe 40% power and Hawksmoor is just screwed since the cities are all in ruin. Apollo is staying in space since he can’t get sunlight on Earth and Swift took an injury top the wings and is pretty ineffective. Midnighter is the only one who seems to be in any shape to fight, and he’s doing a lot of fighting. The team is rescuing people and trying to protect them on the ship. They are trying to keep monsters away and keep people healthy. It’s a pretty far place to be from the idea of building a better world.
The Gen13 kids are on the run in a world they don’t recognize. They are used to being on the run and fighting constantly but this escalation is nuts. It may be more than the team can take.
Stormwatch PHD sees some radical changes as regular humans are a pretty rare commodity these days. Regular Stormwatch is stepping in to do what they can and the space station seems safe. But some big changes are coming.
I’m really loving the way this is going. I’m curious to see if this is going to lead to a major reboot of the whole Wildstorm universe or if these poor characters are going to keep being tortured by the writers! Whatever happens, I’m along for the ride all the way to the last stop.
Buy Wildstorm: Armageddon
Buy WILDSTORM: REVELATIONS
Buy Number of The Beast
Buy Wildcats: World’s End
Buy Authority: World’s End (Authority (Graphic Novels))
Buy Gen13: World’s End
Buy Stormwatch PHD: World’s End
