“The Flash” issue 750

Written by Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:

Since the blog that inspired me, Weathering Wildstorm, came back, I figured it was fitting for me to do a new post as well!

In Flash #750, coming off the series “Flash Forward”, Flash Wally West sits in the Metron Chair, an object from the New Gods that grants him omnipresence. With it, he’s able to see every Earth and timeline from the past and present, and upon seeing the Wildstorm Earth, he mentions its heroes are “more wild and unpredictable than he could imagine.”

That’s it for this one-panel cameo, though there are a few things that bear commenting: For one, Deathblow was mistakenly coloured black. Could this be caused by his new black incarnation in the pages of “The Wild Storm”? Secondly, this is the first time we’ve seen Union and Backlash since the end of the old WSU in 2011, and Backlash is, of course, drawn by his legendary artist Brett Booth.

Side note: Some of you might have wondered if there were some Wildstorm cameos in “Doomsday Clock” issue 12. The answer, sadly, is no. Just copycats. This isn’t Zealot:

And this isn’t Fuji:

“Convergence: Superman: The Man of Steel” issues 1 – 2

Written by Louise Simonson

Wildstorm Concepts: 

As with every Convergence story, Telos forces two groups to fight: From Metropolis’ side, representing DC, you have Steel and his niece and nephew. On San Diego’s side, representing Wildstorm, you have Gen13. The kids have been hanging out ever since San Diego was trapped in a giant dome and they lost their powers, but when the fights are announced they get their abilities back. But trouble is added to the mix when supervillain Parasite breaks out of prison!

Since Wildstorm characters are psychopaths (sigh) Burnout attacks Steel directly instead of worrying about ethics or trying to talk. Being five against one, they manage to overpower the old man, but then his nephew Natasha gets in the way. Trying to save her, Steel gets his suit destroyed. Right at the same time, Parasite shows up, and without Steel it’s just a bunch of inexperienced kids against him… At first the Gen kids think the monster is working with Steel and attack him all at once, but all they manage is for Parasite to steal all their powers! The only way I see this being justified is because the Gen kids were taken from their dimension at the start of their run, when they were newbies, even though the writer lacks the skills to have them use appropriate slang. While they’re distracting Parasite, Natasha grabs his uncle and gets out of there.

Steel ends up bedridden and with his back broken. While his niece and nephew go rejoin the fight, Steel tries a risky transfusion of techno-organic nano-particles from the dome that will invade and replace his damaged tissue and give him a new suit. Meanwhile, his niece and nephew watch as the Gen13 kids fight hopelessly with the Parasite, having their powers drained. However, Caitlin’s leadership skills come through in the end and they manage to combine their powers to capture the monster. While they’re softened up, Steel’s kids attack, and they start moping the floor with the Gene-actives. Just about then, Steel shows up with his new powers, and the fight begins all over again.

But one doesn’t join the fight: Caitlin. She starts thinking the whole thing is dumb; they were told it was kill or be killed and acted on instinct, without thinking. But now she’s starting to wonder why they’re going along with whoever’s behind all that. As they fight, even Roxy realizes Steel and his family aren’t bad guys, they’re heroes. Both sides decide to stop the fight and work together to stop the real bad guy, and after three stories just like this this ending is getting cliché’d. However, there’s a twist. When Steel tries to bring the fight to the entity and hits they very city they’re standing on, a portal opens and sucks the Gen 13 kids away. There are no clear winners this time.

Next: “Convergence” issues 3 – 8, written by Jeff King & Scott Lobdell.

“Supergirl” Vol.6 issue 33 backup

Written by Frank Barbiere

Wildstorm Concepts:

There’s not a lot I can say about this 2-pager backup. It was meant to set up a future Gen13 series, going back to their roots (if they don’t wear their original costumes inside, they do on the cover) and forgetting all the weird New52 developments. In this story we see a Caitlin, which looks like our old and REAL Caitlin, destroying all the New52 clones we had seen of her. She says hopefully the rest of her team can finish off “the kryptonians”, suggesting they’re in the middle of a fight involving the Superman family. Finally, we see a roll call with all the other Gen13 kids, back to being their old selves — Freefall, Burnout, Rainmaker wears her old costume, Grunge is not a villain anymore and he’s alive — plus there’s one more member: Superboy. This makes sense, considering Superboy and Caitlin have been entangled since the beginning of the New52. Caitlin also mentions “finishing off that clone” implying the Caitlin we have seen in previous comics was just a fake one, and not the real Caitlin. Sadly, we never got to know what this backup meant, because this hints never went anywhere, and this series didn’t come to happen. The writer gets one more shot at writing the Gen 13 in Future’s End, which will be the final “try-out” issue for this hypothetical book.

Next: “Justice League of America” Vol.3 issue 7.3

“The Movement” issues 1 – 12 and “Batgirl” Vol.4 issue 34

Written by Gail Simone

Wildstorm Concepts:    

“The Movement” depicts another attempt to be more socially minded from DC, showing a group of homeless kids and activists banding together to fight against the corruption from their city, Coral City. Among their troubles are corrupt cops, serial killers and traitors in their midst. As with most books featuring mostly original characters, the book was a commercial failure. It did manage to introduce another Wildstorm character into DC: Rainmaker. Gail Simone wrote the Gen13 for Wildstorm before, and Sarah’s LGBT background is not forgotten; she gets to date the book’s main character, Virtue.

In this new universe, Rainmaker also works as an activist who helps homeless kids. In her turf, she’s known as the no-nonsense “witch”, and her attitude and distrust of outsiders is famous around the city, gaining loyalty through fear. Rumors ran amok, some saying she’s got two heads.

A serial killer with weather powers has been killing people, so The Movement enters the witch’s territory to ask what she knows. They come uninvited and unannounced, so a fight with Sarah’s followers breaks out. Sarah stops the fight, showing off her elemental powers like a force of nature. The misunderstanding is quickly over, and Rainmaker doesn’t mind sharing the serial killer’s identity to help clear her name. The Movement asks for Sarah and her people to join them, but she’s not ready. She’s been looking out only for herself for too long; she just wants her people to be left alone. Still, she gives Virtue her phone number.

Not long after, the two gals start dating, but Virtue’s turbulent homeless life leads to having to cancel their first date at a fancy restaurant. Their second attempt is humbler, just buying casual coffee. Rainmaker feels insecure that it might be too cheap of a date, and the poor environment not romantic enough, but that’s where Virtue feels more at home. The girls share their first kiss. This is about the last we see of her, but it’s fair to assume she got over her selfishness and distrust of outsiders and started helping out The Movement.

Rainmaker comes back from the same writer in the pages of “Batgirl”. Batgirl is facing supervillain Knightfall, who initiates “Operation Rebirth”: a project to hire dozens of superhumans to commit murderous vigilantism and kill all of Gotham City’s criminals in one night. Batgirl is forced to call all of her female metahuman friends to stop Knightfall’s plan (because like black people, all female heroines know each other), and Rainmaker and Caitlin are among the superheroines who answer the call.

Next: “Supergirl” Vol.6 issue 33, written by Frank Barbiere.

“Ravagers” issues 10 – 12

Written by Michael Alan Nelson and Tony Bedard

Wildstorm concepts:

This is the Ravager’s final story as the book got cancelled. As co-writer Tony Bedard (“Team 7”) joins the book, the links to the Wildstorm universe grow stronger.

In the colony, Deathstroke gets tasked with retrieving all of the escaped kids to Harvest. Deathstroke agrees on the condition that he gets to take his daughter, Rose, with him, plus one kid of his choice. Harvest is okay with these conditions, but he warns Deathstroke that Rose might be about to die… Harvest has sent troopers and robots out to hunt Warblade and Rose after they failed him in their last adventure. The duo manages to overcome their hunters, but they know more will come. If they want to survive, they need to regain Harvest’s favour – by bringing back his runaway kids.

Back in their safehouse, Caitlin and the kids are laughing about their shared memories of the Colony. Caitlin feels realized; she’s finally given them a place where they can feel safe, a place they can call home. She’s made this happen.

Wait, wasn’t she torn about the kids’ destructive nature just a couple of issues ago? This jump on character development is due to the book’s cancellation, things need to be hurried up. All kinds of good things suddenly start happening; Thunder gets over the loss of his sister, Ridge loses his mutant form and becomes human again, Terra and Beast Boy confess their mutual attraction. Niles realizes Thunder’s migraines are caused by his sister’s absence, so he uses him as a sort of quantum anchor and brings her back. Lightning is back! It’s almost too good to be true… Indeed, all this happiness is the calm before the storm.

That night, when everyone’s gone to bed, Deathstroke breaks into the place. Using Harvest’s special Abeo Blade, his first victim is Ridge, who turns to ashes after being stabbed with the knife. At the same moment, Warblade and Rose sneak inside. Rose visits Caitlin in her room, where’s she’s caught by Niles’ cameras, so he activates his security protocol. Just afterwards, though, Deathstroke attacks Niles from behind and turns him to ashes as well.

Meanwhile, Caitlin starts fighting Rose and the fight takes them to the hallway, where they meet the rest of the kids, who were fighting Warblade. The whole cast is surprised by Deathstroke, whose reputation precedes him. Both the kids and the Ravagers understand that they must work together if they want any chance of surviving Deathstroke. Right when the brawl is about to start, though, Niles’ security protocol comes crashing from the ground: The animal-vegetable-mineral man.

This science experiment starts crashing the place, destroying everything in his path. Caitlin attempts to escape, to reach the control room to open an exit for everyone. Rose goes after her, but she’s chased by her father. Getting in the middle, Warblade attempts to buy Rose some time – but he’s no match for Deathstroke. He switches from the Abeo blade to his usual sword, and promptly beheads Warblade. Rest in peace, Reno. You were but a victim of Harvest’s machinations.

Meanwhile, Rose and Caitlin agree that they must join their efforts against the animal-vegetable-mineral man if they want to survive the day. The two of them and the kids join efforts, and everyone throws a combined blow that causes the monster to crumble to dust. When the kids are ready to turn against Rose, everyone is surprised by Warbade’s severed head. Panicked, Rose grabs Caitlin and guides her inside the installations; she knows Niles held something in there that could stop her father.

She’s referring to the cloning room, where Niles grew several bodies for Caitlin. Cait is horrified and confused; why would anyone clone her? Little does she know, she’s not even the original Cait; the original one died in 2006 after Spartan took control of her body, in the “Team 7” book. Rose laughs at Cait’s confusion, taking pleasure in torturing her. The two of them begin to fight, but they fall into the cloning chambers and cause the clone Caitlins to wake up. Soon, all the Cait’s begin fighting each other. But the clones are unfinished, unstable; they keep melting into green goo. The girls get overwhelmed by the number of clones and thrown back into the hallway, where Deathstroke is waiting for them. He’s already stabbed everyone else with the Abeon blade, turning them to ashes. Everyone except for Beast Boy, who was knocked over by a pile of rubble and is presumed dead.

Not wasting any time, Deathstroke stabs his own daughter and then Caitlin, but not without letting her know she isn’t the original Cait. He would know- he killed the original.

After all’s said and done, it is revealed the Abeo blade was nothing but a advanced teleportation device that Harvest had brought from the future; Deathstroke was sending all of the kids back to Harvest’s grasp. In return he gets his daughter, and Terra, and the three of them leave the Colony. Without Beast Boy, there’s nothing to keep Terra in there, anyway. Except Deathstroke’s wrong; Beast Boy didn’t die, he simply passed out. His future will be seen in “Teen Titans”.

So this is where all of the kid’s efforts and struggles led them. To be caught again by Harvest. What happens to Harvest and the kids? The end of their adventure and saga can be seen in “Teen Titans Annual” issue #3, but it doesn’t concern any Wildstorm characters. Bottom line is, Harvest is defeated and every kid is set free, including Caitlin, even if we don’t see her.

Next: Deathstroke Vol.2 issues 19 – 20, written by Justin Jordan.

“Ravagers” issues 8 – 9

Written by Michael Alan Nelson

Wildstorm concepts:  

We’re joined by new writer Michael Nelson, whose background was mostly horror stories, so he’ll try to get the characters into darker situations. It’s fitting then than his first story focuses on Warblade and Rose, the villains. They arrive in the little town of Hartsville, Colorado, chasing a fellow Ravager, Adam. He’s lost control of his powers and he’s out of control, so he ends up imploding in the middle of town. The radiation released infects everyone except for the Ravagers, whose metahumans status makes them impervious to radiation. Now every normal person there is infected and about to go off as well! Warblade and Rose must quarantine the place, or the explosive epidemic will spread like a plague and destroy the world.

If you’re confused, don’t worry. It does feel like we’re thrown in the middle of the story – for example, we never get any explanations of who Adam was. Anyhow, playing the good guy goes against Warblade’s nature – in fact, he considers the term “good guy” outright offensive. He needs to constantly keep his murderous tendencies in check; were it up to him, he’d “quarantine” the town by killing everyone in it. He handles closing off the city limits, bringing down the mountains on the roads so that no one can drive out.

The people start exploding, so the duo must become even more heroic, even running into a burning house to save kids after an explosion set it on fire. As Warblade gets more and more uncomfortable, the unexpected happens – Rose discovers she’s infected! But that should be impossible! Right at the same time, the book’s main cast arrives into town: Caitlin and the kids. They’re looking for Adam, the guy who exploded at the beginning. No, I still don’t know what was his deal. He’s an entirely off-screen character. Caitlin overpowers Rose, who doesn’t have any fight in her since she discovered she’s marked for death. Warblade and the town’s sheriff try to explain – the Ravagers are the good guys! Now Caitlin and the kids made themselves look like the bad guys.

The sheriff has enough of misunderstandings and delivers orders: Warblade is to take care of the town’s jail, where one of the inmates is infected and about to explode. Caitlin is to take care of rose, and the rest have to go fetch the sheriff’s daughter, who drove off in an attempt to escape town. While Rose’s being given morphine, Caitlin attempts to reason with her: Why is she working under a monster like Harvest? But Rose simply laughs. The monster is Caitlin, who abandoned Superboy and Rose back then. The girls passed the point of making amends long ago.

Meanwhile, Warblade is happy to comply to his orders, since he wanted someone infected to examine; he’s looking for some way to save Rose. He finds that the inmate gained control of the radiation filling him and obtained super-powers, at least until he blows up. A fight lashes out.

At the same time, the kids catch the sheriff’s daughter, right when Thunder starts having an attack. It seems ever since he lost his sister he’s been off, getting sicker by the moment. The girl tells the heroes a secret: Her brother is also a meta-human.

Warblade finds out about this firsthand, as his fight with the inmate gets interrupted by the kid. He creates an air bubble around the inmate’s head, depriving him of oxygen and bringing him to his knees. Warblade takes care of the rest, beheading the criminal. He had what he had come there for, anyway; a sampling of the radiation to study. With it, Warblade manages to figure out how to cure the infection! It seems he’s some kind of scientific genius in this timeline.

Everyone returns to the sheriff, and we get a nice moment where the colourist mixes up Rose with Terra. Poor Terra, she and the colourists have a terrible relationship. Anyway, the sheriff’s daughter catches the radiation, so it’s time for Warblade to test out his cure. Now, how he puts it to practice isn’t clear, but apparently he uses fifteen people as a lightning rod for the explosion to go to, so that it is sent flying to the sky and doesn’t hurt the victim. The town is saved… but the sheriff died during the experiment. Oh, well, Warblade hasn’t actually learned anything from this experience, so he doesn’t care.

In the end, the Ravagers decide to leave without fighting Caitlin and her team, since they’re too weakened, and Rose is still high on morphine. They just hope Harvest doesn’t learn about the mess they caused… problem is, Harvest already knows.

Next: Deathstroke Vol.2 issue 18 and the “present” part of Team 7 Vol.2 issue 5, written by Justin Jordan.

“Legion Lost” Vol.2 issues 14 – 16

Written by Tom DeFalco

Wildstorm concepts:  

These issues are the Legion’s final adventure, a story so big they need to call in the Ravagers as special guests. That means more Caitlin, and Harvest and his Ravagers also appear, so we get more Warblade!

A member of the Legion was sent to investigate a death-scream from a distant planet, but he came back to Earth in bad shape, followed by a mysterious assailant, Daggor. He works for his Conqueror Supreme, a being that he hopes to summon. At the same time, the Legion had been visited by Captain Adym, a superior from their future on the 31st century. He was drawn to the past because there was a breakpoint – a critical juncture in space/time that threatens the very fabric of reality.

Since the entire team seems to not be enough to take on Daggor and his mounted animal, Thraxx, Captain Adym calls on reinforcements; he calls Detective Jocelyn Lure, another native from the 31st century. However, this distress call is also picked up by Harvest and his Ravagers.

Back in Arizona, where the Legion is battling, Daggor unleashes some sort of probe onto the ground; he then releases an army of robots which grow from a microscopic size to being human-sized. Right when the Legion starts being overwhelmed, Harvest arrives at the place. He carries three Ravagers with him: Psykill, Warblade and Leash. Harvest knows he can’t mould the world to his liking if it is annihilated by aliens, so he declares a truce with the Legion and starts helping them.

Meanwhile, Jocelyn visits Superboy, who’s staying with Caitlin and the kids who escaped from The Colony. She helped Superboy find Caitlin, so now in return she wants his help. Only Caitlin and Ridge manage to make it past the portal, following Superboy, before it’s closed. So four new players enter the playground. Superboy isn’t interested in helping anyone; he loses focus of everything once he sees Harvest, and rushes to him to know more about his origins. Too busy to talk, Harvest activates a subliminal trigger in Superboy, turning him berserk with just a few words. Driven mad, Superboy starts punching anything in his way, finally helping in the battle and destroying dozens of evil robots. Warblade tries to make fun of him, calling him out on finally living up to his full potential of being a destroying machine for Harvest. But Superboy has been driven berserk, not dumb. Warblade promptly earns a good punch that throws him flying.

Caitlin is more willing to help the Legion, remembering that they owe them one from the Culling. Suddenly, the ground starts breaking open, forming a huge crater from the spot where Daggor launched a probe. A huge weapon appears from the crater, and Gates from the Legion recognizes it as a world-killer!

Meanwhile, the rest of the heroes continue fighting the army of robots. Ridge finds himself back-to-back with Warblade, fighting together just like in their old days in the Ravagers. Warblade says Harvest is willing to forgive Ridge from leaving his team, and that he can come back in exchange from one small favour… Never mind, though, we never hear that favour. It was supposedly going to be revealed in the “Ravagers” book, but it got cancelled, so whatever.

Captain Adym is scared; this whole event isn’t supposed to happen according to the future he comes from. If they don’t win the day, not only Earth will be destroyed, but also the quintillions of lives who will be born in the future! But the Legionaries don’t want to help him detonate a bomb which could obliterate half the continent; they don’t want to sacrifice millions to save quintillions. Harvest IS willing to help, though. He sends Adym into the past and orders his men to leave; now that they did what they came there to do they don’t mind leaving the rest to die in battle.

Ultimately, the day is saved when Gates opens a door to the nearest black hole, and he takes Daggor, his beast Thraxx, the world-killer and Adym’s bomb away. This is the end of the Legion’s adventures, but Long Live the Legion!

Next: Ravagers issues 8 – 9, written by Michael Alan Nelson.

“Ravagers” issues 5 – 7

Written by Howard Mackie

Wildstorm concepts:  

Our story begins two days after we left off, with the kids having a tour of the safehouse they’re now staying at. They couldn’t do it before because they were busy cleaning up their wounds from Brother Blood. All the while, Superboy waited anxiously, dying to get a chance to talk with Caitlin and maybe learn something about his origins.

Niles Caulder, who owns the place and seems to know Caitlin intimately, guides the tour; he takes the kids to an arena where they’ll be able to train and improve their abilities. This is uncomfortably similar to what they did in The Colony, so everyone get mad and leave. Caitlin tries to insult Niles, but he says the kids need to be treated like weapons. If Caitlin didn’t think that, she wouldn’t have brought them to him. When Niles leaves, Cait is angered, so Superboy basically picks a bad moment to try to have a heart-to-heart with her. When he touches her, Cait reacts by throwing him at a wall.

Superboy understands that Cait simply needs to work out her frustration on someone, so they agree to brawl while discussing what Superboy wanted. As they fight each other, Cait explains she didn’t enter N.O.W.H.E.R.E. because of Superboy; she can’t shed any light on his origins. She entered the organization to know about herself, because she knows less about herself than she does about Superboy.

Right when Superboy is starting to lose it at the realization that no one can really help him, they’re interrupted by an alarm claiming Code Alpha. Apparently Thunder lost control of his powers and they need to sedate him. Even though they manage to calm him down, he keeps convulsing and passes out. Caitlin and Niles, using their knowledge as doctors, realize there’s an implant in his brain; a kill-switch that has been activated. Now that they know this they manage to find a counter-signal to slow it down. Problem is, removing it would probably kill Lightning, and if Harvest put it there then the rest must have kill-switches too. And that’s not all; the microscopic device read “Colony #18,” like there’s many other Colonies out there. This closes the deal for the kids, who don’t want anyone else out there to suffer their fate. They rush to the arena, anxious to train and improve, finally having become a team. Superboy is accepted into the team temporarily, as he really needs somewhere to belong to.

Now that the team finally has their origin story out of the way, the following issue starts as they train in the arena, in a virtual scenario very much like the danger room of the X-Men. Niles is talking with Red Robin of the Teen Titans, who assures Niles the Teen Titans will have his back if his kids ever lose control. Niles still sees the kids as weapons, encouraging them to embrace their training in The Colony, to become fearful warriors. He wants to keep up the training, but Caitlin, ever the sensible one, says enough is enough and takes out the kids for a day out. They visit Venice Beach, California, where the weird is norm and a monster like Ridge won’t bat an eye. It’s the perfect spot, except they don’t get a lot of time to hang out, because they’re called in for a mission.

Caitlin immediately starts arguing with Niles that the kids aren’t ready to go out into the field, and some gifts aren’t going to change that; Niles has bought them brand new costumes and a high-performance ship. But they must go through with the mission; Niles has got intel on N.O.W.H.E.R.E. making a move on another young kid, so they can’t let that happen.

The team promptly travels to Brooklyn, NY. They need to look for a girl named Lisa – but they’re met by Brighteyes and Windshear, who had been captured back in issue #1. Apparently, Keeper brainwashed them, turning them into Ravagers for Harvest. Capturing the girl, Lisa, is meant to be their first solo mission. A fight ensues. Working together, the good kids manage to beat the Ravagers, but there’s a problem. Rookie Ravagers on their first mission never go unsupervised! Warblade and Rose are right there, and the kids can’t run away this time.

All the while, Lisa has been watching the spectacle, hidden behind a tree. As it turns out, she has the power of seeing possible futures in visions of what might happen. As the Ravagers start attacking the kids, Lisa sees that Caitlin is the key to whether they’re going to live or die. When Cait is thrown near her, Lisa takes the chance and touches her head; this allows Cait to see the visions. Cait witnesses what could happen: She sees the kids getting captured, brainwashed into working for N.O.W.H.E.R.E. She sees Harvest fulfilling his plans of amassing an army of teenage superheroes, thanks to having Lisa in his power and allowing him to see the future. Cait sees the army taking over the world… All of that is what’s at stake that night.

Caitlin doesn’t need any more convincing that she needs to help the kids. Once the vision is over, Cait rushes to the action. She notices Terra isn’t helping, paralyzed by the sight of the Ravagers who tortured her so much. Caitlin motivates her to join the fight, to prove the Ravagers aren’t in control anymore – but Terra takes it as a chance to get revenge. She lets herself go for the first time, unleashing her powers and lifting the whole ground at once. She manages to knock out the Ravagers, but she wants more. Terra wants to kill them. Even though Beast Boy tries to change her mind, nobody manages to get through to her, who impales Warblade through the chest.

But Warblade simply starts laughing. He can morph his body in the strangest ways, a chunk of rock through the chest is nothing to him. He congratulates Terra on having attempted to kill, the first step in becoming a true Ravager. Lisa freaks out: Caitlin was supposed to help the kids, not unleash their cruelty. She runs away, asking not to be followed. And while the kids were distracted the Ravagers escaped too. All in all, an awful night for our heroes.

Caitlin returns to the base shaken to the core, feeling that Niles had been right all along: The kids are potential weapons. The vision showed Cait just how much destruction they can make, and Terra showed her that they can’t be controlled. She’s having a crisis of faith.

Meanwhile, someone is watching the recordings of what happened in Brooklyn: Deathstroke! The last time he saw Caitlin was when he was a member of Team 7, and Caitlin died. So how can she be back? He’s officially interested in the case.

Next: Legion Lost Vol.2 issues 14 – 16, written by Tom DeFalco.

“Ravagers” issues 1 – 4 and “Superboy” Vol.6 issue 13

“Ravagers” written by Howard Mackie; “Superboy” written by Tom DeFalco.

Wildstorm Concepts:  

 

Woo! Caitlin gets a front cover!

Ravager starts right after the ending of The Culling, with Caitlin helping several kids escape from The Colony. These kids were trained to kill and fight for survival across several years, so she’s worried whether she can help them rediscover their humanity. They need to complete their escape first, though. They’re in the middle of Antarctica, chased by the Ravagers and exhausted. The groups is composed by Caitlin, Beast Boy (morphs into animals), Terra (controls earth), Ridge (was mutated into a super strong monster), Thunder and Lightning (twins with electric powers). Windshear and Brighteyes also escape with them, but they don’t stay with the group for long. By the way, Terra’s hair is a curious thing. It looks blond during the first issues of The Culling, but it turns purple in the final chapter. Then it looks brown during this set of issues, but afterwards it turns to blond again. It’s just curious.

The conflicts start immediately: Windshear and Brighteyes don’t trust Caitlin after she infiltrated N.O.W.H.E.R.E., because that means she worked for the organization. Windshear can fly — and apparently that’s his only power — so he takes Brighteyes and they take off. Terra and Beast Boy feel they don’t own anyone nothing, so they also go away. The rest decide to trust Caitlin for now; she promises she can fix them. They’ve been so messed up they don’t even remember their lives before The Colony, but Caitlin has seen their files before they were taken, so perhaps she has a shot at making things right.

Anyway, the Ravagers Rose Wilson and Warblade hunt down Windshear and Brighteyes. Windshear’s power is flying and Brighteye’s power is blinding people with a flash of light from her eyes, so yeah, they’re captured.

Meanwhile, Caitlin’s group runs into a security detail from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., but they aren’t there to hunt the kids down. They never wanted to work for the organization; they were just following orders. They try to surrender, but Thunder won’t have any of it. She’s too mad at anyone from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., and also she’s a psychopath after all her time in The Colony, so she convinces her brother Lightning to help her attack the unarmed men. Soon all the other kids join in the punching action. Caitlin is about to power up to stop her kids- but she defuses the situation using her words, and convinces the kids to not become the killers their captors wanted them to be. After that, Caitlin manages to hack a ship, but it gets taken down by the Ravagers. Warblade and Rose start slaughtering the children around them – Warblade is savage like that! Some of the children were surrendering — and then they start going towards Caitlin’s group. Caitlin is forced to think fast. She uses Thunder’s power of shooting a ray beam from his chest to break the ground around them and separate them from the Ravagers, but this causes the good guys to drop down towards Antarctica’s frozen waters!

Luckily, they all land safely. Ridge’s monster body can breathe underwater, so he uses his tail as a rudder to propel the chunk of ice the group is on, and they head towards a ship. Meanwhile, Harvest wastes no time and sets up a new base in the Hhentii mountains, Mongolia. While Warblade and Rose bring in their captures Windshear and Brighteyes, they discuss how Harvest has plans within plans. It seems he planned everything, from his Culling failing to the kids escaping to ordering the Ravagers to capture them back. He wants to test his kids in the real world, kind of like that time Ivana took the DV8 to New York. The Ravagers take the kids to “Keeper” — a guy who look like a robot with a baby protruding from his chest who seems to control the adult body. He tells them the capture of Caitlin has been assigned to Shadow Walker, Harvest’s first recruit. We keep seeing new people in Harvest’s team. Harvest explains he wants Caitlin to spread his children across the globe, but he doesn’t want her to guide them to the path of goodness and ruin his plans.

Back with the heroes – when the ship’s crew notices they have intruders they point guns at Lightning, and this drives Thunder crazy so all the kids start attacking back. They end up almost sinking the ship they were depending on. After all that’s over, they travel for seven hours to Seattle. Caitlin scolds the kids for going crazy, so Thunder and Lightning get mad and run away. They only know things as they were on the Colony – you either killed or got killed.

Being on their own, the brothers become easy pickings for Shadow Walker. He reveals he hid a piece of his shadow body within all the kids from The Colony, so he can track any of them. Caitlin doesn’t have a piece, though, so Shadow Walker tells Lightning she must lead him to Cait if she wants to see her brother again. She agrees, walks up to Caitlin and Ridge and backstabs them. When she’s taken to Thunder, though, he doesn’t want to escape.

He says they aren’t going anywhere without their teammates. Lightning “sees the light” and apologizes for betraying them, just in time for Shadow Walker to explain he can influence and manipulate anyone with a piece of his shadow in them. This convenient explanation frees Lightning of any guilt: she was controlled! Filled with a desire for vengeance, Lightning supercharges Shadow Walker and makes him explode. Damn, that’s brutal. Caitlin starts fearing perhaps the release of the kids was part of a plan to unleash them upon an unsuspecting world.

The Culling

This entry covers the entire “The Culling” crossover, in this order:

• Superboy Vol.6 issue 7
• Teen Titans Vol.4 issues 7 – 8
• Superboy Vol.6 issue 8
• Legion Lost Vol.2 issue 8
• Teen Titans Vol.4 Annual 1
• Superboy Vol.6 issue 9
• Legion Lost Vol.2 issue 9 and
• Teen Titans Vol.4 issue 9

written by Scott Lobdell and Tom Defalco.

Wildstorm concepts:

The Culling is a long crossover between the series of Superboy, Teen Titans and Legion Lost, bringing together the storylines these books had been developing since the beginning.

Picking up where we left off, Superboy gets tired of all the mysteries and secrecy around him and starts trashing N.O.W.H.E.R.E. again. He’s stopped by Rose Wilson, a mercenary tasked with taking Superboy down if he ever lost control. What these two don’t know is they’re are also prime Ravagers candidates. Rose is also the daughter of Deathstroke, the Team 7 member, and although it isn’t revealed yet, she’s a metahuman. She has the ability to dampen other people’s powers, making her the perfect candidate for stopping Superboy, should the need ever come.

After Superboy’s outburst the organization deems him a failed project and decides to dispose of him, but the Teen Titans break into the place to rescue him. This was exactly what Harvest needed; to have all these youngling together for their capture. The big boss appears and stops the Titans, dealing with all of them at once. He sends the Titans to The Colony to be tested against all the other captured teenagers, but he leaves Superboy in the laboratories. He decides to give him another chance at becoming an effective weapon under the tutelage of one of his Ravagers: Grunge!

The Grunge of this timeline is like a dark, twisted version of our old Percival. This Grunge hates to be treated like a joke, reacting violently to it, as if he hated to be reminded of what he used to be in the old universe. Like the original, he used to need to touch things to gain their properties, but after he won a Culling and became a Ravager, N.O.W.H.E.R.E. filled his body with technological implants to amplify his abilities. By the time he meets Superboy he’s a full-fledged metamorph, capable of turning into anything just by thinking about it.

Superboy isn’t too thrilled about learning how to be a stone cold killer, so he fights against Grudge and the brawl turns so violent that he’s forced to kill Grunge to survive. Harvest is impressed; it seems Superboy wasn’t such a failed project after all. He decides to send Superboy to The Colony with the Titans, and to let Rose occupy the new vacancy in the Ravagers. At the same time, Caitlin wakes up in the hospital after N.O.W.H.E.R.E. captured her and fired her. Still worried about all the kids in danger, he rushes to The Colony, hoping to make it in time.

The Legion of Superheroes is captured shortly after, when Harvest sends seven members of the Ravagers to retrieve them. Now that all the teenagers are in The Colony, this year’s Culling is ready to begin. It is a very convoluted story with a ridiculous amount of characters, so here’s the breakdown:

Teen Titans	The Legion	Kids from the Colony	The Ravagers (also called The Thirteen)
Red Robin (leader) Skitter Wonder Girl Kid Flash Solstice Superboy Bunker	Tyroc (leader) Gates Dawnstar Timber Wolf Tellus Wildfire Chameleon Girl	First Point Thunder Lightning Beast Boy Terra Artemis	Warblade (leader) Fuji Crush Misbelief Hammersmith Rose Wilson Windstrom Psykill Omen Leash Templar Ridge Centerhall

 

Yeah, it’s a cast of 33 characters, and that’s not even counting Harvest and Caitlin. It seems very random that they would include two Wildstorm characters among the Ravagers, especially considering they don’t retain anything about their old personalities or backgrounds. Fuji doesn’t even get any dialogue and Warblade doesn’t look at all like his WSU version, and that’s strange when you consider he was specially designed by Jim Lee.

Despite the amount of characters and dialogue throughout the story, things develop in a fairly traditional way. Harvest sends the Teen Titans against the Legion of Superheroes, but after an initial conflict both teams decide to work together against their shared enemy. The Ravagers are sent after them, but the heroes manage to triumph. As it turns out, Harvest didn’t send all of his men – we’ll see in following books that he kept several powerful agents under his sleeve. He actually planned for The Culling to fail! Indeed, the Legion sabotages the facility’s power core, so the place starts crumbling down. While Caitlin helps all the kidnapped kids escape, the main cast faces Harvest, but he’s so powerful that they end up having to flee away.

Caitlin knows all of the freed metahumans won’t have an easy time learning how to survive in the real world after so many years in the Colony, so she decides to help them. This leads to a new series, “Ravagers”.

Next: Ravagers issues 1 – 4 and Superboy Vol.6 issue 13, written by Howard Mackie and Tom DeFalco.