Stormwatch #1 by writer Paul Cornell and artist Miguel Sepulveda is the most eagerly anticipated title on my top 19 list of DC relaunch titles. The book brings together the previously segregated (or so we thought) Wildstorm and DC Universes prior to the DC Comics Relaunch.
We know that the book will be a key book in the new DCU. As Paul Cornell had indicated earlier, Stormwatch would be the book where the integration of the Wildstorm universe with the DC universe would be explained.
This book is very much the face of the new DCU and has most of the macro universe-setting questions, deserved or not, hanging around it. Paul Cornell has established himself as a capable writer able to showcase non-traditional characters like Lex Luthor and make him a compelling lead in a multi-faceted narrative that made the last year of Action Comics some of the best in its storied history. In Paul I trust.
All that said, Paul Cornell has elaborated on Stormwatch, his September 7th shipping title.
The Wildstorm characters were part of the DC Universe all along? Or not? Or something else?
Stormwatch has always been part of the DC Universe…
…In terms of our world, no, that was a separate universe. In terms of the new DC Universe, Stormwatch has always been a part of the DC Universe. They haven’t suddenly arrived in a blaze of energy. They’ve always been here. And when I say, always, I mean, way, way back. There are all sorts of interesting historical things here.
I think that it’s really interesting that Superman and Batman are now in the same universe as Apollo and Midnighter because part of the energy of the old “Authority” books was that these were pastiches or other versions, and what we have here is that they can actually work as real characters themselves. They play off their opposite numbers a bit in that we are clearly going to see them think about that but the Midnighter and Batman are not actually the same. And neither are, certainly the way they go about things or the people they are or even actually their power set, Apollo and Superman. It’s going to be interesting.
The waves made by this book arriving in the DC Universe, as it were, and how the universe changes because it is in it, I think is really interesting.
How did Martian Manhunter end up on Stormwatch?
It was a suggestion that they made when they came to me with the team, and it really kind of works for what the book’s going to be, which is what you guys haven’t heard yet and I can’t say and that’s what the mission statement is. Stormwatch aren’t superheroes. They’re not a superhero team. And they don’t do superhero things. They do something in particular, and the Martian Manhunter being there really suits that. But at the same time, he puts a bit of a cog in the works because as people have already started saying, he and Stormwatch have different ways of going about things. And they do.
…I really liked the version of him used in “Justice League” back in the day, but that’s not where we’re going with him. He got very cuddly and… he’s not meant to be cuddly.
