So obviously I haven’t been around for awhile but to my defense the Nexus forums went quiet for a bit. Well hopefully that is about to change since we have a very new very interesting tournament coming up, but more about that later. I wanted to put together an article with some of the forum people’s thoughts on the deatn of the Wildstorm imprint. Now let me get this out of the way first. I personally have not followed anything from that line except for Ex Machina in recent years. I have Ellis’ Stormwatch and Authority trades which I love. I also have all the trades for Planetary except for the last on but I have all those single issues anyway. I loved what I have read from the Wildstorm universe but I just haven’t read that much of it. So I am going to let some others say things that will be much better than what I could write myself. 1st off from Dhaise the ever present bright and positive light of the forums (you know it’s true):
“I had just re-read the World’s end arc of the Authority and Wildcats 3.0 this weekend. While the quality has been up and down, there was a time when wildstorm was superior to EVERYTHING DC proper put out.”
If you know Dhaise like we all do on the forums you will understand for him to make this kind of statement he damn well means it. Of course he can’t always be puppies and unicorns so we also have this:
“I just read about the perils of a soft market and the exciting plans Geoff Johns has for the wildstorm characters down the line inside the regular DC imprint. Bleh.”
Bleh indeed. Grizzle put in his two cents.
“I wouldn’t say that, Gail’s Gen13 was fun, and DnA’s Authority was inspired. Not to mention that about half of Giffen’s Authority (I don’t like crediting Morrison with books he didn’t really write) was pretty good. Stormwatch PHD was great.
The problem was that DC was trying too hard to differentiate it from the DCU and they wound up creating a mess that nobody knew what to do with. Then, while I know they have writers who are more than able to have made something out of it, they gave it to Beechan and his kiss of death.
It’s hard to put focus on a secondary superhero line when you’re putting all of it into the primary one, and it really started to show. Wildstorm went from A and B list writers to C and D listers. It became more about video game, movie, and tv based books then the titles that had made the imprint a name worth knowing.”
Well said sir. From here it goes into a little of back in forth for a few more posts but you can read it all right here:
https://insidepulse.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=349155#Post349155
I put a nice quote about all of this from the awesome Warren Ellis in the thread as well so you should also check that out. Now the discussion spilled over into another thread a little. Now for alot of people on the forum there is a title called Wildcats 3.0 which is beloved above almost everything. The main guy that spearheads the love for the title had this to say:
“The writing’s been on the wall for some time though.
First we have our “soft market” as various Wildstorm characters are positioned around a Third string DCU Character (captain atom) nobody cares about leading into an event that has him do pretty much nothing (Final Crisis).
Then we have the Grant/Lee hoopla over the REINVIGORATED DCU WILDSTORM…that equated into absolutely nothing.
There hasn’t been a positive buzz over this imprint for some time now. Worlds End has generally been enjoyable, but it’s not a monthly fix in the sales department, and for titles like Gen 13, it’s actually been a detriment. Guys who used to be mainstays on the wildstorm artwork have now been moved to batman, and Jim Lee has done more concept art for DC Online then he has supporting his once owned comic line.
I would be incredibly excited to see Grifter join the outsiders, and Halo Corporation to dwarf Wayne and Luthor’s fortunes, but if the Wildstorm characters are integrated like the Milestone characters or archie characters have been, I won’t even notice them.”
Oh hey there Dhaise…looks like you may be the #1 quoted guy for this article. After this it goes into the normal gushing about 3.0 so you can read all of that here:
https://insidepulse.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=86136&page=9
Now I only copied the last page of the thread but seriously go and read all of it if you want to here about fans talk about this series. I personally have not read it and believe me they chastise me for that all the time.
Now as for the new tournament and draft I spoke of earlier it is still in the planning stage with more news to come soon but i will give you the basic ground rules so far. Plus hey look….it’s from Dhaise:
“How it goes:
7 characters are drafted to your ultimate JLA Team. Zuda, Minx, Helix,Archie heroes, Milestone,Wildstorm,and vertigo lines are also included…ditto elseworlds.wide open. This is your dream team, if DC owns them,you can draft them.
From there, the entire bundle will be judged by the other players in a variety of categories, however this go around we will not be having prolonged vote offs of individual members.”
ANYONE EVER? Oh yes this could get very interesting. Go check out all the preliminary talk back here:
https://insidepulse.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=349201#Post349201
Well that is it for me. As always there is the usual discussion about what all of us on the forum are reading whether we like it or dislike it.
