Review: Stormwatch (1997) Vol. 5: Final Orbit trade paperback (Wildstorm/DC Comics)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

One of the biggest appeals of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise is that to use the Xenomorphs, you don’t have to explain what they’ve been up to since their last appearance. There are millions (if not billions) of them spread out throughout the universe, and their motive is simple: they want to breed. They just happen to require the bodies of living creatures to do so. As a result, you can take the Xenomorphs and cross them over with other characters without requiring a lot of backstory. They’ve met Batman, Superman, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Judge Dredd, Witchblade, and even the Terminator (although, surprisingly, not Robocop, despite that franchise crossing over with The Terminator).

Because of the inter-company crossover nature of those stories, they aren’t canon. Few stories of that stripe can be, apart from JLA/Avengers. The Stormwatch: Final Orbit trade contains another exception: the infamous WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, which will unfortunately not be reprinted in the upcoming Stormwatch: Vol. 2. But publishing rights aren’t the only reason why it won’t be in that volume. As it turns out, the Stormwatch team doesn’t really appear in WildC.A.T.S./Aliens at all. Only a few living members factor into it; the majority of the Stormwatch cast are slaughtered before the WildC.A.T.S. even arrive on Stormwatch’s orbital headquarters.

Warren Ellis famously used WildC.A.T.S./Aliens to change the entire Wildstorm status quo so that he could introduce The Authority. Under the aegis of Jackson King, the Weatherman, Stormwatch protected the Earth and beyond in a fairly standard superheroic manner. This kind of guardianship wouldn’t be conducive to the Authority’s antics, so they had to go; why not do it in the most gruesome and publicity-grabbing way possible? It helps that they got Chris Sprouse and Kevin Nowlan to draw the crossover. As much as I like Jim Lee, his slick style of art wouldn’t have worked for a mass-slaughtering horror story.

As for the WildC.A.T.S. themselves, I know about them mostly from their appearances in the New 52 titles and -- just to show my age -- their short-lived animated series. Mind you, I can’t really name any of them off-hand apart from Grifter and Maul. The WildC.A.T.S. may be the only team with two warriors wearing their hair in high-off-the-head ponytails. Zealot and Warblade are sometimes indistinguishable due to the dark coloring; I’m happy that they identified Zealot in this book very quickly, because otherwise I would have pegged her as Glory. The team was going through rough times during this story’s publication, so there’s a lot of arguing, with ex-lovers Grifter and Zealot doing the bulk of the sniping. They also have a manager patterned after Justice League International’s Oberon, which I didn’t remember the team having on the cartoon.

So if Stormwatch isn’t the focus of WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, then why is this a Stormwatch trade? Well, the trade includes issues #10 and 11 of Ellis’ tenure on the title, which take place before and after the crossover one-shot. Wisely, the trade was designed to sandwich the one-shot between these two issues, so that you can read them in the proper order. I decided to do a little test: could I understand what happened to Stormwatch by reading just those issues without WildC.A.T.S./Aliens? You can certainly do that, but the end result is anti-climactic. The Xenomorphs aren’t shown in the Stormwatch issues; when their asteroid ship appears in issue #10, it’s at the end, so there’s a cliffhanger about what will happen with the heroes. In issue #11, the Stormwatch members are already dead and buried, and we’re not told the details of how; the WildC.A.T.S. aren’t even shown!

Going into this, I knew a little more about Stormwatch than I did about WildC.A.T.S., mostly because of The Authority and DC’s current Stormwatch ongoing. None of the killed-off members have made appearances in the New 52 as far as I can tell, since DC’s Stormwatch is essentially The Authority plus Jackson King and the Martian Manhunter. Honestly, reading these issues after reading The Authority really does feel like I’m taking a step backwards. The Stormwatch heroes are visually rather bland, and King’s struggles with funding just aren’t that interesting of a story. When the UN decommissions Stormwatch, it feels like what would have happened even if the Xenomorphs didn’t attack.

At the very end of Stormwatch: Final Orbit, Jenny Sparks, Swift, and Jack Hawksmoor come out of hiding and brutally attack recurring villain Henry Bendix. This is the true start of The Authority, especially because the art is by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary. Parts of both issues were drawn by Michael Ryan, and his art is a little less detailed but still high-quality, but the final pages were by Hitch and Neary specifically to flow right from Stormwatch into The Authority.

There are many ways to clear out a comic’s status quo, from dismissing members in conversation (like in Avengers: Avengers World) to just rebooting the universe entirely (like in Justice League: Origin). Warren Ellis would have likely killed off most of Stormwatch anyway, so the fact that he was able to use the Xenomorphs to do so is just a bonus. The presence of the WildC.A.T.S. is intrusive, and if it had been Stormwatch fighting for their lives against such a powerful threat versus just dying off-panel, then I think this would have been a much better story.

If you’re just a fan of Aliens, there’s not much here for you. That said, Ellis puts some good work into this crossover, aided by Sprouse and Hitch’s artwork. Since it might not be reprinted any time soon, if you’re a fan of The Authority, you can just pick up the one-shot if you can get it at your LCS. Alternately, since comiXology hosts most issues of WildC.A.T.S., there’s a possibility that WildC.A.T.S./Aliens might one day be put up there. Otherwise, Stormwatch: Final Orbit is a decent buy, cataloging the fall of early 1990s extreme comics and the rise of the more mature era of the late '90s.

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Review: The Authority: Relentless trade paperback (Wildstorm/DC Comics)

[Guest review by Doug Glassman.]

There’s a trope called “Seinfeld Is Unfunny," in which a groundbreaking work seems less groundbreaking due to what’s come afterwards. In my review of X-Men: Phoenix Rising, I mentioned that it seemed a little old-hat due to the many major retcons that have happened since then. This book, The Authority: Relentless, does the same for rampant violence in comics. Back in 1999, the actions of the book’s “heroes” were shocking. Today, something similar might happen in the pages of a particularly grim issue of Secret Avengers.

However, as we all know from TV Tropes, tropes are not bad, and Relentless shouldn’t be judged by what came after it. This is Warren Ellis at his crazy finest. When Ellis is at the top of his game, he comes up with memorable characters and, more importantly, complex villainous schemes. Of the two stories in here, one is a world-conquering plan ramped up to an incredible degree, while the other is an invasion from a parallel world. Each is led by a dynamic plotter -- the former by pre-existing Wildstorm villain Kaizen Gamorra, the latter by Yngvi, ruler of a blue-skinned alien race.

Like Infinity Gauntlet, Relentless is another book that leads on from other major events. In this case, it’s the crumbling of the Wildstorm universe after the destruction of Stormwatch, which was also written by Ellis. If you’re not aware, the majority of Stormwatch was killed off in WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, making it the intercompany crossover with the most lasting effects in comic books. The remnants are brought together by Jenny Sparks, a “century baby” who literally personifies the twentieth century. Her cursing, smoking, drinking and overt sexuality say a lot about how Wildstorm in particular and comics in general perceived the then-present day.

On its surface, the Authority follows many of the normal superhero team dynamics. You have the Superman analogue in Apollo and the Batman analogue in the Midnighter. Swift is the almost obligatory winged character, while the Engineer has the technical edge. The Doctor has the equivalent of a Green Lantern ring with his magical powers. Jenny Sparks’ electrical powers have a precedent with Black Lightning and Living Lightning. Even Jack Hawksmoor’s ability to “talk to cities” gives him control over the ground, like Geo-Force, and telepathy, like the Martian Manhunter. Add in a growing or shrinking character and a maybe a god and you’re set. The team almost seems a little underpowered, with Apollo being the only strongman.

What makes the team truly powerful is its coordination. Warren Ellis has a talent for taking unusual teams and making them incredibly effective by using their powers in unusual ways. He did it again in his Secret Avengers run. Jenny keeps the team under her firm control, although she knows when to let some of her soldiers run loose. One unusual element of the team is a lack of arguments over leadership [and then we saw such arguments in spades in Paul Cornell's first DC New 52 Stormwatch volume. -- ed.]. She has to compensate for some of their personalities, such as the new and self-doubting Doctor and the almost lethally headstrong Apollo. But due to the sheer scale of the villains they face, they almost immediately throw their weight behind Jenny to lead. As someone who gets annoyed when team books devolve into internal squabbles, like The Ultimates or Justice League: Cry for Justice, it’s almost refreshing.

As far as the team member personalities go, Jack and Swift get less of a focus. As they were part of a team with Jenny previous to The Authority, Ellis probably wanted to concentrate on the newer members, which was likely the right move. Swift in particular seems to not be as effective as the others. Hawkman and Hawkgirl work because they are portrayed as powerful warriors -- almost barbarians at times. The tiny Swift, though, doesn’t carry the same weight in a literal sense. Jack’s powers are just strange, and I can imagine that he’s hard to use in a story, but Ellis does his best.

Let’s talk about the violence. Make no mistake: even by modern standards, there’s a lot of blood. But compare it to, say, the fight between Superboy Prime and the Teen Titans in Infinite Crisis and the feel is similar. That fight was even more macabre than some of the fights in Relentless. Editorial and storytelling standards have simply changed, making blood and gore more acceptable to both readers and publishers. The sexual content is also limited in this book. There is a lot of discussion about rape, for instance, as the alien society is dying out and is propagated by turning entire countries into “rape camps.” But Ellis wisely decides to not actually show anyone getting raped, which is a disappointing relief -- disappointing because we do have to be concerned these days about that kind of graphic content in other books.

Though he worked with Warren Ellis on Stormwatch, The Authority: Relentless helped Bryan Hitch get widespread attention. He even got to design the Cybermen for the current series of Doctor Who, which is an impressive feat. Hitch’s artwork is absolutely gorgeous. Most pages are broken down into three large panels, and he uses this space to create intricate backgrounds and detailed characters. I especially like the designs of the alien Shift-Ships, which resemble the Predator drone. Even the Engineer, who is simply a metal woman, has a great design. I also enjoy his dynamic and varied covers; Hitch has some innovative group shots, which is an impressive feat.

With the New 52 version of Stormwatch out there, I would highly suggest looking at its roots. The Authority: Relentless has strong storytelling and great art and, despite being dulled a bit by age, it holds up well.

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