Credits: Written by Drew Bittner, pencils by Renato Arlem, inks by Jose Pimentel and edited by Mike Heisler.
Cast: Sword, his creatures (Rake, Hardball, Jade and One-Eyed Jack), Jackson ‘Batallion’ King, Jackson Dane, Taboo, Flashpoint, Fahrenheit, Cannon, Marc ‘Backlash’ Slayton, Cybernary, Burnout, Crimson, Aries, Christine ‘Synergy’ Trelane, Henry ‘The Weatherman’ Bendix, Brutus, Razor and the rest of Wetworks.
Plot: On the moon, the Sword of Damocles leads an interdimensional army of all kinds of weird and wacky creatures (including a cigar chomping rabbit man) to seize Tranquillity base for their lord and master. Once the base is secure and only some of the captives are murdered, a cannon is set up.
Back on Gamorra, the two guys called Jackson face off with each other. Taboo stands with Jackson Dane, opposing them is Jackson King, also known as Battalion of StormWatch. Battalion uses his psychic powers against Dane, only to realise that Dane has his own, the remnants of the Gen-Factor that he refers to as his Mojo. As Battalion tries to gain the upper hand, Taboo seems to lose control and savagely attacks Battalion as her sort of organic armour looking set up starts talking to her, referring to itself as Calobis, the vampire lord. Yeah, that’s a thing that’s happening and we get zero context for that, so I assume that this is an ongoing subplot in Backlash’s title. As Dane has to hold her partner back, Battalion finds his advantage and stuns them both and notifies the rest of the StormWatch officers that two more have been taken into custody. The other three (Cannon, Fahrenheit and Flashpoint then head off towards field HQ.
Nearby Backlash is being led through the jungle by Cybernary who enlists his help in her rebellion against Kaizen Gamorra, since that fits with his own agenda, he agrees. Burnout and Crimson (along with their captive Aries) come across a hidden lab, several of Gamorra’s cyborg guards lying dead around it. Displaying a degree of intelligence, Burnout pushes Aries ahead of him, expecting whatever danger is inside to either respond to him, or kill him rather than risk his or Crimson’s safety.
In near Earth orbit is the UN Space Station SkyWatch.is being christened. This second SkyWatcch is under the command of the Weatherman after taking command back from Synergy, but the Weatherman tells her that she did her best and she says that it doesn’t help her sleep at night. From the moon there is a flash of light and then from the newly installed cannon, a blast comes from the surface and smashes into the space station. Weatherman takes charge ordering status reports and demanding people sound so he knows who is hurt. The first consequence of this is communications are offline, StormWatch’s field officers are on their own.
In Keen’s tavern in Gamoora, Flashpoint is accosted by Brutus, a merc whom he has battled before. Flashpoint is in no mood for this and attacks him, obliterating his right hand. Razer, one of Brutus’ teammates steps up to Flashpoint and it soon transpires they have a personal relationship, Flashpoint then tells Razer he needs to see the boss. Finally at the field HQ, Battalion, Cannon and Fahrenheit are keeping Taboo and Dane in place and Dane is muttering under his breath. Taboo wishes he was talking to someone as it would make her feel better. We then learn that somehow he is and on the shore of Gamorra island, Wetworks have arrived in search of their commanding officer.
Notes: While the flagship title of Wildstorm comics was W.I.L.D.Cats, it was very much an X-Men pastiche with a few interesting ideas stapled on. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was X-Men lite. StormWatch felt like it’s own thing. It was a military based superhuman team, they were special forces, not superheroes and it was interesting. Weatherman led the team, a nice mix between Sir Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean Luc Picard and John Hollis’ Lobot with a stern demeanour and a huge responsibility. The teams were small units that had a lot of firepower for it and it was brightly coloured, but didn’t depend on the secret identity and simplistic cops and robbers formula. I lost track after the first year, but I remember how well it started and the great international feel it had, so was pleased to see this title involved.
I wish that optimism held.
We only see 6 of the team here, Battalion, Cannon, Fahrenheit and Flashpoint on the ground and Weatherman and Synergy in space and both groups have their own stuff going on. It takes all of Battalion’s skill and a bit of luck for him to deal with Taboo and Dane (who at this point is dying) and it does seem like Flashpoint is playing both sides here. The story is moved forward in places and we also get to see SkyWatch being re-opened for the first time, minutes before someone punches a hole in it. So far so Deep Space 9. But it plays well and it reminded me how much I enjoyed this mix of genres and with the upcoming betrayal and Wetworks arriving, it promises that it’s only going to get better.
Verdict: Writing 3 out of 5 – It’s an up and down sort of issue. Some moments are interesting and further the plot, others just leave you cold. Much of the characterisation is quite thin and it leaves the vast majority of characters as interchangeable. When you have this many different characters in a story, differentiating them from one another in terms of words is as important as doing so through appearance. Problem is, there’s no bad here. The fight between Jacksons is well handled and the attack on SkyWatch is done good enough. But that’s it, it’s at best average.
Art 2 out of 5: It’s very bland 90’s art. No one looks worth looking at, though no one looks too far off model, but there’s something of the bargain basement about it that takes a lot of the shine off a lot of the title.
Overall 5 out of 10:: While entertaining in places, this comic is very much average. It’s not good, it’s not really bad, so sort of tepid in my reaction and I’m happy to be moving on from this knowing that for StormWatch, the best is yet to come.
Next Time: The Smoke clears after the Man of Steel has fallen.
My Marvel Life 