“Supergirl” vol 7 issue 18

Written by Steve Orlando

Wildstorm concepts:

There’s not much I can say about this one. It’s a single panel’s mention of Kherubs as part of the species who are in Earth… Which is expected from Orlando, the main guy who was interested in Wildstorm between DCYou and Infinite Frontier. But hey, I have to chronicle all instances of Wildstorm in DC!

Next: “Batman: Urban Legends” issues 1-5, written by Matthew Rosenberg.

Also, because I’m tired of articles claiming “DC is now bringing their Wildstorm characters into their universe” after 10 years of that happening, I hereby introduce my new Wildstorm appearances in the DC universe counter.

Wildstorm appearances in the DC Universe: #379

“Future State: Superman: Worlds of War” issues 1 and 2

Written by Brandon Easton, Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad

Wildstorm concepts:

This story takes place in 2030, five years after “Grifters“, and ten years after the current day, so to say we’re dropped “in media res” would be an understatement. However, here’s a few things we can surmise from current comics: Superman has created a new Authority team with Midnighter and Apollo, who are married again!

In 2030, Midnighter finds himself in Warworld, home to alien tyrant Mongul. He was meant to save Superman, who was trapped in its colliseum, but an electronic bug drops a package for him sent by Midnighter from 2021. Inside, there’s a communicator with which current-day Midnighter explains Trojan Solutions is developing an isotope similar to Kryptonite called Nirodhium to erradicate all organic life and leave only robots. Future State’s Midnighter’s job is to deliver a payload to the Chrysalis Collider, a satellite orbiting the planet which is refining the slag of Warworld into Nirodhium. Midnighter isn’t used to taking orders, but his supercomputer isn’t pinging on any deception, so on he goes. Leaving Warworld, Midnighter bumps into Mr. Miracle, and tells him to send a subspace message to The Authority (First mention in DC!) or the JLA for backup; things are about to hit the fan and Superman can use all the help he could get.

After using a door, entering triggers a silent alarm, and the proximity to the collider is short-circuiting his supercomputer, but Middy deals with the cyborg guards easily. As he runs towards the spot where he must drop his payload, he struggles against more cyborgs and killer robots as he must fight without his supercomputer and even the voice in his head goes offline. Finally, he meets the station’s boss: Apollo! Unphased, Middy shoots him, revealling it’s just a robot that looks like Apollo. Middy didn’t need his supercomputer to know that: he knows his husband. That’s right, the power couple is married again!

The fake Apollo introduces himself as Andej Trojan, founder and CEO of Trojan Solutions. He explains he used an implant in his brain similar to Midnighter’s to amass wealth, and he concluded human suffering is rooted in their flesh, so he’ll free them, starting with killing Superman. He’s surprised by Midnighter’s communicator, noting it’s stolen Trojan tech. He also explains his collider bends space-time to age the slag waste of Warworld milennia in minutes. That’s great for Midnighter, since he can’t kill Trojan’s body, so he opens the nexus and unleashes spacetime. Middy is aged down to a child, then he begins aging rapidly – when he’s about to die of old age, he finally delivers the payload. This allows 2021 Midnighter to arrive, destroy the machine and Trojan, who begins a self-destruction sequence. Young Middy gives Old Middy the Nirodhium and Trojan’s head and sends him through a door, explaining they’re in a time loop and now it’s his turn to give the next Middy directions.

In the present, Middy has two immediate objectives: to find a way to escape the time-loop and to repair his implant. He decides to start on the latter by borrowing Trojan’s CPU–and then he plans to visit the young, fleshy Trojan and have some words with him.

Next: “The Next Batman: Second Son” issues 1-2, “Batman” issue 101, and “Infinite Frontier” issue 0, written by James Tynion IV and John Ridley.

Savage dawn

This entry covers the entire “Savage Dawn” crossover, which includes “Superman” Vol.3 Annual 3 and issues 48 – 50, “Action Comics” Vol.3 issues 48 – 50, and “Superman/Wonder Woman” issues 25 – 27, written by Greg Pak, Gene Luen Yang, Peter Tomasi and Aaron Kuder

Wildstorm concepts:

This is a 2016 Superman crossover I missed back in the day, and it misteriously features the Carrier, but no Stormwatch members.

Time for a fun Stormwatch and The Carrier timeline!

In the New 52, Stormwatch was founded by the Shadow Lords, extradimensional beings who foresaw the coming of the evil god Brainiac and inspired the wizard Merlin, who was born with the Big Bang, to prepare a team. The team was brought together in the middle ages by the threat of the coming Daemonite aliens, which caused red skies, so they named themselves “StormWatch.” However, a prophecy stated the team would eventually fall due to brother fighting against brother; this happened in 2013 after The Engineer was infected by a virus that made her evil. The fight caused an explosion that alerted the Kollektive, a group of EVIL interdimensional aliens who went back in time, killed Merlin and changed the timeline. A few weeks later, StormWatch was able to turn things back to normal, but when they came back from the altered timeline, their ship “Eye of the Storm” had turned into the Carrier from Wildstorm. However, it wasn’t powered by a tiny universe, but by “Magnitude Engines”, which consumed and converted multiversal energy from the bleed into fuel. In 2016, Midnighter left the team on leave after breaking up with Apollo due to Middy having faked having a real name to appear more human. Around this time, the event of this post happens, where supervillain Vandal Savage steals the Carrier and eventually causes it to self destruct. Stormwatch isn’t seen again until the year 2050, so what happened to them? Did they all disband when Midnighter left? Did they disband after the Carrier was destroyed? We have no answers. In 2018, the Carrier appeared again being used by a group of evil Batmen from the Dark Multiverse, carrying a baby universe unlike the Carrier that got destroyed. Did this Carrier come from the Dark Multiverse, perhaps? After the evil Batmen were defeated, the Carrier was next seen in 2020, used by Justice Incarnate, a team of superheroes from all across the Multiverse, and that’s the last we’ve seen of it. In that story, the Carrier is barely making it, but all damage and destruction is undone by the end of the crisis.

So that’s a history lesson for you! Now, what’s “Savage Dawn” about, other than what I’ve already mentioned?

As it turns out, not much. Vandal Savage steals the Carrier somehow, through unseen means, and crashes it against the Justice League’s watchtower. Vandal’s first move was to steal Superman’s power, and now he does it to the rest of the League. Born in the times of cavemen, Vandal is attacking with help of his descendants, Wrath, Puzzler, Salvaxe and Hordr, as well as a brainwashed Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. Vandal launches a million lasers against Metropolis, totalling it, and then disperses Black Masses, a virus that triggers superpowers in any other dormant Vandal descendants. He hopes to overthrow the world with an army of his relatives. After stealing the Carrier and the Justice League watchtower, he steals Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and fuses them all. When Superman powers himself up by using Kryptonite to burn the cells that were blocking his powers, he and his allies rescue the kidnapped Leaguers. Cornered, Vandal Savage makes the Carrier self destruct! After this, Superman falls into his Fortress, which gives him back his powers and allows him to defeat Vandal.

Next: “Future State: Superman: Worlds of War” issues 1 and 2

“DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration” issue 1 and “DC Pride” issue 1

Written by Steve Orlando and Andrew Wheeler

Wildstorm concepts:

Is anyone else really frustated by how WordPress keeps pushing their dumb “block” system while I just want to keep using the classic method?

Anyway…

Note that these two comics take place after “Infinite Frontier” but their respective Wildstorm stories must take plalce before it. “Festival of Heroes” doesn’t feature any Wildstorm stories, per se, but there are two Grunge pin-ups, for the completitionists out there: he appears in the cover, drawn by no other than Jim Lee, and in a Jim Cheung illustration. I love Jim Lee, but the way he hides every character’s feet in both of these post’s covers is kind of hilarious.

In “DC Pride” Midnighter regular Steve Orlando writes a story set “years ago” in which Midnighter goes on a date with Extraño, famously DC’s first gay superhero. Now, I take some issue with this. It’s true that Midnighter followed Apollo for over a year before deciding to reveal himself by intervening in Stormwatch’s recruitment attempt, so he had a window of time where he could date others, but Orlando’s own Midnighter series establishes in issue 1 that “[Midnighter] had never been with anyone before [Apollo].” Another explanation could be that “years ago” actually means “back in 2015” when Apollo had briefly broken up with Middy after learning Lucas wasn’t his real name. Either way, let’s move onto the plot, which is pretty insane. Extraño and Middy are after Count Berlin, a neo-nazi vampire who stole the bones of Patroclus to rewrite the ancient warrior’s story with a spell so that he and Achilles weren’t lovers, but cousins. The couple storms the villain’s castle, and while Extraño undoes the spell, Middy smashes Count Berlin’s skull over and over. As it turns out, he can regenerate indefinitely as long as they don’t use some classic vampire weakness like garlic, wooden stakes or silver, but that just adds to Midnighter’s fun, who promises the vampire will be begging for sunrise by the time he’s done with him.

After a gorgeous pinup featuring Apollo and Midnighter, they share a story written by Andrew Wheeler. In it, the villanous Eclipso rains on a Pride Parade – literally, sending a cursed rain that summons everyone’s rage and anxiety to the surface for him to feed on the pain. Syl, a young magician who was accompanying gay hero Aqualad, summons his teacher to help, Extraño, and he brings with him a horde of queer superheroes, whom he names Justice League Queer. These are Extraño, Apollo, Midnighter, The Aerie, Batwoman, Bunker, Crush, The Ray, Shining Knight, Steel, Tasmanian Devil, Traci Thirteen, Tremor and Wink. Together they send Eclipso through a portal, and celebrate their pride.

Next: The entire “Savage Dawn” crossover, which includes “Superman” Vol.3 Annual 3 and issues 48 – 50, “Action Comics” Vol.3 issues 48 – 50, and “Superman/Wonder Woman” issues 25 – 27, written by Greg Pak, Gene Luen Yang, Peter Tomasi and Aaron Kuder.

“Future State: Dark Detective” issues 1 and 3

Written by Matthew Rosenberg

Wildstorm concepts:

The “Future State” event, showcasing an alternate possible future, serves as a sampler for a new era of Wildstorm stories throughout the year. In Midnighter’s case, his Future State story is a direct prelude to what will happen in the present through time travel, but Grifter’s story is more of a tone setter and won’t be referenced when we get back to present day. What matters is we get a feel for Matthew Rosenberg’s style on Cole, which is a bit too irreverent and playing the character for a loser for my taste, but I recognise and admire his Wildstorm passion as he imaginatively self promotes his Grifter stories on social media week after week. He had already written about Wildstorm in an issue of Black Canary, so we’ve known he’s a fan for a while.

This story begins with Grifter playing cards in a sleazy Gotham bar in the year 2025, a future where the city is under control of the para-militeary force known as the Magistrate, who have outlawed all masks, and claim to have killed the Batman. Although Cole is using a fake name, he’s still Cole, so gets caught cheating; but he promptly resolves the situation via a knife hidden in his sleeve. What bugs me about this opening is Cole reflects on how nobody would have called him a hero, he just got shit done. I’m not sure I agree with this – Cole was a baddass, but he still was altruistic since the first issue of Wildcats. But regardless. Cole is visited by Police, who expose his real identity and cause everyone in the bar to attack him. Cole flees, which turns the simple police bussiness into Magistrate bussiness, who arrest Cole for being an ex-mask, just to finish their round-up. Cole ends up in the back of a car with Luke Fox, ex-Batwing. Luke pleads Cole to use his contacts and find him a way out of the city, saying he owes the Fox family for what he did to his father. What happened between Cole and Lucius Fox? We’ll learn that in a couple of issues in the present day, in “Batman: Urban Legends.” Cole wants to refuse, but can’t say no to an access card to an untraceable account with fifty thousand dollars. So they escape, but they stumble upon a gang, the Black Mask Syndicate, to whom Cole owes money. Escaping again, Cole reaches his contact who can help Luke escape: Huntress of the Bat-Family! Problem is, Cole was followed by the magistrate, so, again– escape time! This would get repetitive if the dialogue wasn’t so comedic. Huntress’ secret escape route out of Gotham is through the docks, using the Black Mask Syndicate as transportation there. However, they’re so pissed off with Cole that the only way of convincing them is for Cole to hand in his money. This convinces Luke that he’s a good man, and Cole admits he did it for whatever happened with Luke’s father–Lucius–but it’s not nearly enough to pay the debt. When they finally reach the dock, they find an undetectable submarine. However, that’s when they’re raided by the magistrate: turns out it was all an act from Luke to get Huntress arrested! Luke can’t help himself and lets Cole escape to the submarine, but Cole prefers to stay and help Huntress escape, instead. He’s doomed to a life of imprisonment in Blackgate, now, but his conscience is clean. And hey, it’s better than his fate in the Flashpoint alternate future…

Next: “DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration” issue 1 and “DC Pride” issue 1

“Dark Nights: Death Metal Multiverse’s End” issue 1 and “Dark Nights: Death Metal Rise of the New God” issue 1

Written by James Tynion IV and Bryan Hill

Wildstorm concepts: 

This one’s a doozy! It’s very hard to sum up this event, or this issue, really, but it fulfills the same function as last event’s “Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt”.  Essentially, the multiverse’s coming down, and a team of heroes from different Earths assemble on a Carrier to save all of reality. In this case, the Carrier is used by Justice Incarnate, a team introduced in Grant Morrison’s Multiversity, with help of the Green Lantern Corps. They battle an assortment of evil Earths, including the Vampire Earth, Nazi Earth, Bizarro Earth, Crime Syndicate Earth, and Justice Lords Earth.

In the “Rise of the New God” backup, we see the Carrier reach Earth, with every Lantern having to band together to make it through the barrier, with the Carrier barely making it. Whether it’s destroyed is a matter of debate – on one hand, at the end of this event all destruction and damages are undone, but on the other, I’ve always had the feeling the Carrier carries over through reboots and universe shifts, like we’re still seeing the original Authority Carrier. We’ll see.

Next: “Future State: Dark Detective” issues 1 and 3, written by Matthew Rosenberg.

“Electric Warriors” issue 6

Written by Steve Orlando

Wildstorm concepts:

This was a very small, unexpected cameo: The series “Electric Warriors” takes place after “Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth”, a 70’s series that showed Earth ravaged by a mysterious Great Disaster. In Electric Warriors  we catch a glimpse of the past before the Disaster: supervillain extraordinary Lex Luthor predicted it, so he gathered a cabal of the most prominent supervillains to warn them. Among them, surprisingly, is Helspont. He doesn’t get any lines or anything, but we’re told he didn’t believe Luthor, and that caused his demise.

 

“Dark Knights Rising – The Wild Hunt” issue 1

Written by Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson.
Wildstorm concepts:

This one was a surprising connection to Wildstorm, but unfortunately it took place in the middle of the bloated, convoluted and messy Metal crossover. To make a long story short, heroes Flash, Cyborg and Raven are aboard the monitor shiftship Ultima Thule as they travel through bleed space on their way to the House of Heroes, an old Monitor satellite being used to house heroes from all over the Multiverse. The main DC Earth is being attacked by evil versions of Batman from the Dark Multiverse, all serving their dark lord Barbatos – so the heroes are looking for help.

The Ultima Thule is chased by the evil Batmen, who are riding… the Carrier! Only they call it The Wild Hunt. There’s no comment on how they obtained it or where their previous owners, Stormwatch, might be. They mention Ultima Thule is dodging their blasts, but as a songship, its tune is weak; the Carrier’s drumbeat carries a darker “Authority” (wink, wink). Meanwhile, the heroes find out the Carrier is powered by a caged baby universe with which they can track them anywhere. They call this “monitor-scale nanotech.” Final Crisis back in 2008 established the connection between shiftships and Monitors, but this is the first time it’s been explored in regards to the Carrier. Since the baby universe is rich with cosmic potential, pulled straight from the World Forge, they heroes decide to free it to stop the Carrier in its tracks.

As the shiftships arrive in Earth-31, the heroes engage with the evil Batmen, and Raven gets the upper hand by summoning Doors. Flash boards the Carrier and reaches the baby universe. It’s guarded by The Merciless, a Batman inspired by Wonder Woman, but Flash frees the universe in-between blinks. Red Death, a Batman inspired by Flash, arrives to late to stop it, and the baby universe unleashes a wave of positive energy of creation. The energy reverses Red Death, turning him good. The Carrier is slowed down, but Red Death knows they’ll just capture the baby universe again; he must stay behind to keep it expanding until it’s too big to capture. Even if being so near to that kind of energy kills him, he must stop the evil Batmen; they’ve charged the Carrier with energy of the Dark Multiverse, so every world they touch turns into horror. If the infection spreads the very concept of “hero” will disappear. Things seem to be going well, but defeat is more bitter when there’s a taste of hope; the positive energy rips Red Death apart, and the Ultima Thule is crippled as each of the missiles sent by the Carrier carried a Dark baby universe handpicked by Barbatos. Too late, the heroes realize the Batmen weren’t hunting them; they were aiming them at the heart of the Multiverse so it would be poisoned. The Multiverse begins to fall into the darkness. Don’t worry, all of this gets solved in “Dark Nights: Metal” issue 6.

Next: ???

So this is it, we’ve finally reached the end of the published Wildstorm appearances in the merged DC Universe. However, I will keep on the lookout for any new ones, and feature them in this blog.

“New Suicide Squad” issues 17 – 21

Written by Tim Seeley
Wildstorm Concepts:

The Suicide Squad is sent to Honk Kong to act as bodyguards for a politician. They were expecting the mission, as the Squad’s members are working with the Horus organization to escape from the goverment’s clutch. Horus works to defend human rights and they find a Squad using inmates as assassins is wrong. Once the Squad is in Honk Kong, Horus hires a group of faceless superhumans who look tough enough to take the Squad on — the Mercs from Wildstorm. The Mercs inject the Squad with life-sign hacking-nano-projectiles, so the Squad seems dead to the computers and they’re able to escape.

At first it looks like the Squad and the Mercs are going to clash due to their strong personalities, but it turns out the Mercs are the Squad’s biggest fans. While they’re waiting for the heat to blow over, Deathtrap sings a Rose Tattoo poem; the patron saint of killers. He tells her story to Deadshot; Rose is a spirit born the moment one person took another’s life. Suddenly, their boss from Horus kills his girlfriend; it turns out he was an agent from The Fist of Cain, and he begins a tournament where assassins from The Fist are going to compete to kill the Mercs and the Squad. Brutus dies on the opening shot. Razer goes next, and then Kilgore. D-List characters don’t have the best odds compared to the main characters.
Meanwhile, Deathtrap teams up with Deadshot and they protect each other as Deathtrap uses his power to create guns from the walls around them. The two reunite with the rest of the Squad.

Things go bad when the girlfriend of the boss of Horus who was killed turns into Rose Tattoo. The spirit smelled blood, so many killers in one place. She meets Slayer, who does not survive the encounter. As the surviving characters freak out about Rose, things look grim, but a backup team arrives with three Suicide Squad members. Rose catches up to them and kills Hunky Punk, but Cheetah engages her to let the others escape

Meanwhile, Deathtrap and Deadshot get cornered by the big boss. Deathtrap could kill the boss, but he would be killing him before he becomes shepherd of the Fist of Cain. Deathtrap is obsessed with cementing his legacy, so he shoots Deadshot instead. But he used a fake rose bullet, so Deadshot survives and turns things around. The boss is killed.
Back with Rose, Cheetah is losing the fight. El Diablo knows Rose will kill everyone if she’s allowed to walk the earth again, so he decides to use his underworld fire powers to open a door there and take Rose back. He succeeds, but he’s sadly absorbed as well.

Everyone reunites, but even without their boss the Fist of Cain thinks the game is on. Deathtrap decides to stay behind and buy the others a escape – he uses his powers to turn the entire place into a gun, bringing it down. The Mercs got to star in a story that was beautifully illustrated, but none of them got to survive.

Next: “Midnighter and Apollo” issues 1 – 6, written by Steve Orlando.

“Teen Titans” Vol.5 issues 1 – 4

Written by Will Pfeifer
Wildstorm Concepts: 

In this series of issues we see the Teen Titans face supervillain Algorithm, which we’ve previously covered in Teen Titans: Future’s End. Yes, even though she doesn’t look like it, Algorithm is supposed to be another name for Ladytron, making her the second iteration (and not last) of the character in this universe.
Algorithm works for Manchester Black, a technological terrorist. Under his orders, she breaks into S.T.A.R. Labs’ under-construction state-of-the-art laboratory. She takes over the building with two scientists hostage and causes an explosion. The Teen Titans arrive on the scene, but they’ve gotta hurry – if the flames reach the project that’s being worked on, the blast could take Manhattan out. Bunker faces Algorithm, but after realising she’s a robot he simply creates boxes inside her brain and blows her head off. The Titans save the day, but Algorithm rebuilds herself elsewhere, thanks to S.T.A.R. Nanotech. Manchester Black is using her threat to convince S.T.A.R. Labs to relocate away from Manhattan, but they aren’t sure yet – Black wants to raise the stakes, make the city demand S.T.A.R. Labs move out. Algorithm thinks Black loves her; he rambles on about the rise of artificial intelligence, the coming of the singularity, and Algorithm thinks she IS the singularity, the next step in humanity.
While Teen Titan member Raven is in a night club, Algorithm strikes again. Raven calls reinforcements, and once again, after finding out she’s a robot the Titans are able to cut loose and tear her apart. Robin suspects that it was easy — too easy. He heads to S.T.A.R. Labs and begins pocking in the computers, attracting Algorithm’s attention. She beats Robin, but Manchester Black won’t let her kill the boy — she’s outlived her usefulness. She thought she was independent, but all along she just followed her code; that’s why Black named her Algorithm. She loses her mind and heads over to Black, wanting to kill him. Robin shows up in the nick of time and saves Black, just like he was counting on – he recorded the whole thing to make himself look like an innocent victim.

Next: “Black Canary” Vol.4 issue 9, written by Matthew Rosenberg.