“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 ” issues 3 – 8

Written by Jeff King and Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:

So Telos is making cities from all over the multiverse fight each other, but don’t be mean to him. He’s just a poor brainwashed slave; he used to be called Arak, and he gave his life to save his loved ones from Brainiac’s wrath. Wow, it’s the exact same origin as Silver Surfer. Anyway, the real villain in the story is Deimos, the villain from “Warlord”. He’s using a bunch of time travellers and stealing their “time energy” to get unlimited power. However, Hal Jordan-Parallax kills him and ends up releasing that “time energy” which starts causing reality to break. This turns the planet into a bullet that would “shatter the Multiverse,” so the Time Masters have to free Brainiac. The God redeems himself and decides to use the “time energy” to send all the domed cities back to their own realities and planets. But the original “Crisis on Infinite Earths” is preventing him from sending back those characters, acting like a wall. So a bunch of heroes go back in time to the Crisis to prevent the destruction of the multiverse so that Brainiac can send the other cities back. This way they manage to save the Multiverse, and then Brainiac sends everyone home, except for the Earth-2 heroes who get the Convergence planet as their new home. Scattered here and there are some Wildstorm cameos… Wow, this sucked..

Next: “Grayson” issues 1 – 8, written by Tim Seeley and Tom King.

“Convergence” issues 0 – 2

Written by Dan Jurgens, Jeff King and Scott Lobdell.

Wildstorm Concepts: 

Convergence is a mess. It’s a sequel to various things… “Future’s End”, “Earth 2: World’s End”, “Superman: Doomed”… it’s completely inaccessible. After the pre-Flashpoint Brainiac survived the reboot, he was filled with a desire to become more, so he travelled to the edge of The Source and beyond it, looking into the Multiverse to witness its story. Reaching through the Multiverse – and through time – in an effort to evolve as the Monitors had, he was mutated by the effects of “crisis” events such as the First Crisis and Infinite Crisis before re-emerging transformed into a god-like being. In “Booster Gold: Future’s End” issue 1 Brainiac captured the time travelling hero Booster Gold and tortured him to find out the location of Vanishing Point. Vanishing Point is place that exists during the last possible moment in the universe from where you can access the complete history of the multiverse. He took it upon himself to save a city from each doomed universe, picking them up right before their destruction and collecting them, creating a giant zoo of 40 cities. Among them– the original Wildstorm timeline. To collect them he invaded a planet called Skartaris, the same from Mike Grell’s “The Warlord”, and took over it to create a planet-sized spaceship he called The Blood Moon. He grabbed one of the planet’s inhabitants, Arak, and brainwashed him to think he was actually the planet’s artificial intelligence: Telos.

However, in one venture to collect a city Brainiac was trapped by Future’s End’s heroes, so taking care of his collection of cities falls to Telos. Left on his own, Telos decides to have the captive cities of the Multiverse into fighting each other to deem the one survivor worthy. And so begins the reappearance of classic Wildstorm characters. It’s a basic premise, or at least it should be, but it’s bogged down by how convoluted everything is.

Next: “Convergence: Aquaman” issues 1 – 2, written by Tony Bedard.

 

“Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol.1 Annual 2” and “Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol.1” issues 39 – 40

Written by Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:  

Helspont’s final tale begins with a little Annual in which the Outlaws are trapped inside a mental vision where they’re children in Christmas. The Outlaws are formed by Red Hood (Jason Todd), Arsenal (Roy Harper) and Starfire (Koriand’r). In reality, all of the vision was caused by a Psion alien who failed his master Helspont, so he was exiled to Earth’s North Pole. He used his vision powers to attract Red Hood and the Outlaws because he knew they were bad boys who would kill him swiftly. Poor Psion had been tortured enough already, he just wanted the sweet release of death. Red Hood agrees and shoots the poor devil, and after that he sends a warning to Helspont – “if you ever come to Earth, I’m going to be waiting here with a bullet with your name on it.” After that, Helspont decides the Outlaws are his business now…

Shortly afterwards, Helspont sets his plan in motion. He uses his agent Blackfire, Starfire’s sister, to kidnap Starfire. After a few weeks of searching, the rest of the Outlaws and their friend Crux track her to a forest, but their ship is promptly destroyed. They meet Rose Wilson, professional assassin, who was also tracking Starfire because she has a price on her head. Their motives may vary, but they all want Starfire, so they start searching together.

As it turns out, Blackfire is not pure evil; she still loves her sister so she sets her free. Problem is, she can’t let Helspont’s know, nor the Citadel alien armies he’s amassing there on Earth.

Starfire meets with the rest, but they stumble upon Helspont. The five antiheroes start attacking all together, but they don’t even hurt him. They’re quickly captured, and Starfire is heart-broken to see her sister work for Helspont, or at least pretend to. Blackfire argues that Helspont is about to conquer everything, so as ruler of her people she’s obliged to side with the ultimate victor. It’s a desperate deal so that her people will remain a relative freedom. Helspont hates Earth, so he’s not about to offer the same deal to them. His daemonite agents failed to take it, so now he’s going to destroy it.

Things look bleak, but fortunately Crux is an expert on alien civilizations. He knows the Citadel’s armors are all wired to each other, so they could take down the entire army just by flipping a switch. The plan is set in motion when Blackfire asks for mercy for her sister, but Helspont disagrees. This pushes Blackfire over the edge, and she reveals her betrayal by attacking Helspont. Angry, Helspont responds by knocking her unconscious! At the same time, the Outlaws fight with the Citadel soldiers until Crux manages to get his hand onto one of their amours. After some work, he’s able to disable the entire army. Helspont is even angrier now – as he prepares to kill Red Hood, he warns them their victory is a hollow one – there’s more armies where that one came from.

And that’s when it happens. By operating one of the giant guns set by the Citadel, Arsenal shoots Helspont on the back and turns him to dust. Helspont is dead, in what is probably THE lowest moment for all of Wildstorm in DC’s New 52.

Soon afterwards, the Outlaws disband, as life sets them in different paths. But this isn’t the final time Red Hood will create a team. Anyhow, that’s a story for a different time.

Next: Suicide Squad Vol.4 issues 21 – 23

 

 

“Superman Vol.3” issues 27-29

  Written by Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:  

While Superman battles the Parasyte on Earth, Helspont hears reports about Earth in the former crown seat of the Dremo empire homeworld. Sitting on a throne of skulls, last time we saw Helspont he was decided to building an empire big enough to unify the galaxy, and it seems he’s still bent on that. He heads for Earth, but this triggers the proximity alarms of The Outlaws, so team member Starfire heads to meet with Superman. Supes has caught a daemonite hiding inside a gang member, but he doesn’t know it’s an alien. Starfire wants to kill it, but explaining everything to Superman is too much of a hassle and so the two inevitably start fighting. After the alien reveals its true form, Starfire kills it, and she reveals the daemonite’s plan to take over Earth has changed – now they get human volunteers for them to take their bodies. The daemonites have been spreading alien weapons, secretly designed to inject daemonite DNA into anyone who wields them.

Superman is able to track a signal in the guns to a warehouse, where they find even more weapons and a daemonite. He says all the planets they have conquered has been with permission of the original inhabitants; that they all agree to become part of the daemonites to become stronger. After this, he self-destructs; it turns out it wasn’t a full planet invasion, just a few select daemonites specifically wanting to attract Superman’s attention. In fact, it was all planned by Helspont using one of his conquered agents – Starfire’s sister, Blackfire! The two sisters will clash in the pages of “Outlaws”, where we’ll meet Helspont’s final fate.

Next: “Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol.1 Annual 2” and “Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol.1” issues 39 – 40, written by Scott Lobdell.

“Flash” Vol.4 issue 4, “Teen Titans” Vol.4 issue 16 and “Sword of Sorcery” issues 0-3

Flash written by Brian Buccellato; Teen Titans written by Scott Lobdell; Sword of Sorcery written by Tony Bedard

Wildstorm Concepts:

These issues feature early appearances of Basilisk throughout the DC universe and set up Regulus’ bigger plan. To catch up: Regulus is secretly Kaizen Gamorra, who was fused with Dean Higgins in Team 7’s final mission. After experiencing what superhumans can do when Team 7 employed Majestic to stop him, Regulus decided he was going to stop all of the superhumans, and that’s the new direction he set for Basilisk, his organization. Regulus predicts there’s a war coming between normal people and “supers”, and he doesn’t plan on letting supers win.

The first arc in “Flash” is centred on Manuel Lago, a childhood friend of our hero Flash. He disappeared from the Flash’s life when his father was killed by terrorists, so Manuel joined the CIA in hopes of finding the killers. He put himself through top-secret projects who gave him regenerative powers, and this helped him become the very best agent. Eventually he uncovered the names of his father’s killers: The Basilisk organization. Manuel went rogue and started killing them off one by one, but eventually they proved too much for just one man. He was captured and tortured. When Basilisk discovered that he could regenerate, they took advantage of this, torturing him by cutting off his body parts, and then cutting them off again when they grew back. It went on like that for quite some time until suddenly, the severed parts began to grow into full, separate bodies; doubles of Manuel with their own personalities. Together, they helped Manuel escape. The rest of this story involves Flash dealing with his friend, but the only part concerning Wildstorm Fans is this Basilisk bit. Chronologically, this is actually the first mention of Basilisk, before we knew its backstory.

Meanwhile, in “Teen Titans”: After being brought back to life, Kurt Lance from the Team 7 was assigned to watch over the Teen Titans by Amanda Waller. He had to track them down and bring them into custody before they hurt themselves or someone else. However, Basilisk also has an interest in the kids. Kurt gets ambushed and high-ranking Basilisk operative Grey Lora knocks him out. Regulus will retrieve Kurt in the pages of “Suicide Squad”.

“Sword of Sorcery” is relevant due to its back-up stories, featuring Beowulf. They take place in possible future in which the war between men and supermen predicted by Basilisk ended up happening, and normal people struck with nukes that ended up destroying the world. Basilisk’s efforts to empower ordinary men created a super-soldier program that spawned the hero Beowulf, who now lives in this post-apocalyptic earth. Essentially, this character is the living proof that Regulus’ fears are very real.

Next: Suicide Squad Vol.4 issues 4, 8, 10 to 13, and 16 to 19, written by Adam Glass.

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.

 

“Teen Titans” Vol.4 issues 1 – 2 and “Superboy” Vol.6 issues 1 – 5

Written by Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:

We start a new chapter in the unexplored and obscure second Wildstorm universe! The Titans and Superboy are teenagers manipulated by big corporations into becoming super beings, but they manage to escape and be heroes in their own right. Sounds familiar? If this origin story reminds you of Gen13, it’s not coincidental, and it’s no surprise many Gen13 characters appear.

The story is based around Harvest, a man from the 30^th century. In his future, metahumans had declared war on normal humans and killed most of them, including Harvest’s son. Superman and Lois Lane had had a child called Jor, so Harvest travels to the past and kidnaps the kid, raising him as his own. He teaches this kid to hate all other metahumans so that Jor would help his cause, but eventually a genetic incompatibility between his human and kryptonian genes causes the kid to die. Harvest is overcome by grief after losing both of his sons, so he keeps travelling back in time to find a cure; but he keeps failing and eventually his chronal energy runs out. Now he’s stranded in our present time; If he is to stop the superhumans he needs to do it there, or nowhere at all. He creates the organization N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to continue his efforts to prevent the meta infestation. He can witness the first generation of metas now; he plans to use their own children to kill them. He begins attempting to recreate his son Jor; in this time he can have access to Superman’s and Lois Lane’s genes. The cloning project is called project Superboy.

Harvest sees himself as a hero; he might be harming thousands of teenagers, but it is for the safety of millions. He works for five years in kidnapping all the teenager superheroes he can find, but he needs a place where he can train his young army for his son when he’s able to lead them. He throws the kidnapped kids into The Colony, a huge underground complex under Antarctica where he leaves the younglings alone to survive. The place is filled with volcanic rock, lava and minimum food; it’s a ghetto of despair in which the dozens of teenagers are forced to fight to survive. It’s a place where he will be able to harvest the young warriors he’ll use to build a better future. Every year there is a Culling — a process of thinning the herd. He selects the best inhabitants of the Colony and sends them to The Crucible, a high-tech arena in which everyone must participate in a battle royal where it’s “kill or be killed.” The survivors go on to serve Harvest as his Ravagers.

N.O.W.H.E.R.E. not only kidnaps heroes, it also creates them. Harvest facilitates the creation of the Teen Titans through manipulation and summons the Legion of Superheroes from the future. Meanwhile, project Superboy keeps on growing until he’s a teenager; he’s kept in controlled environments for the entirety of his upbringing, surrounded by scientists and hardly experiencing any affection. The only person who seems to be on his side is a friendly redhead scientist, none other than an adult Caitlin Fairchild.

Wait, hadn’t she died in “Team 7”? As we’ll find out in the pages of “Ravagers”, she’s been cloned time and time again, brought back to life every time she dies. They aren’t exact clones, though, since they added in powers: now she can switch between her normal body and a huge body with super-strength and resistance, even though every time she powers up she risks losing control, and she can’t keep it up for long. It’s like she can only be the Caitlin from the old universe temporarily. She’s very different to the old Cait; she’s an adult and a legit doctor now.

Caitlin infiltrated the organization because she heard about the kidnapped teenagers, so she wants to save them. Also, she holds no memories of her past after being cloned, so she hopes she might find something about her own origins.

However, Superboy has no clue about all these agendas, so he’s never sure if he can trust anyone. He’s sent into a field mission before he’s properly prepared, so he barely survives. When he makes it back to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. he’s pissed off. He takes it out with Caitlin, starting to fight her and forcing her to reveal her super-strength. This blows her cover, so N.O.W.H.E.R.E. takes her away, and Superboy doesn’t even understand if he’s done the right thing. However, he can’t forget about Caitlin’s kindness, so he hijacks the truck transporting her outside the installation and hands her to Detective Jocelyn Lure. Jocelyn takes Caitlin to a good hospital outside of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s reach.

Meanwhile, the Teen Titans start forming when Red Robin finds out the kidnapped teenage heroes, so he decides to get to them before the corporation. Little do they know, they’re playing straight into Harvest’s hand, becoming proper heroes for his Culling.

It’s worth noting Teen Titans is drawn by Brett Booth, Wildstorm regular.

Next: We go over the entire Culling crossover, which includes Superboy Vol.6 issues 7 – 9, Teen Titans Vol.4 issues 7 – 9 and Annual 1, and Legion Lost Vol.2 issues 8 – 9, written by Scott Lobdell and Tom Defalco.

“Red Hood and the Outlaws” Vol.1 issues 12 – 14

Written by Scott Lobdell

Wildstorm Concepts:

This is another of the remnants that were left of the big story the Wildstorm books were leading to before the crossover was cancelled. While the first two issues don’t have anything to do with Wildstorm and focus on some unrelated cosmic story, they make mention of the upcoming threat of “The Thirteen.” These are the Thirteen Scions of Salvation, the cosmic council that Helspont hopes to assemble. Basically, these issues show us that many galactic civilizations are getting notice of Helspont’s efforts.

Issue #14 picks up right after the “Superman Annual”. Worried about his meeting with Helspont, Superman visits Starfire, wanting to know if Helspont tried to enlist her too. They’re both aliens residing on Earth, after all. She admits he did, as we could see on the Annual. However, Starfire and her team are less than willing to cooperate with Superman. They don’t like his massive power levels, distrusting him. Besides, they’re outlaws, so they can’t feel comfortable around a member of the Justice League. In the end, they can’t offer any help to Superman, besides promising that they’ll contact him if they hear of any developments. It’s a pretty pointless issue, and it fills most of its pages with pointless fights as the characters think Superman has come to fight with them instead of to talk. Once the misunderstanding is over, there are about two pages of plot.

Not to worry, however. Helspont’s hanging thread will be solved in Part 5.

Next: A new chapter for the WSU in Teen Titans Vol.4 issues 1 – 2, also written by Scott Lobdell.

“Superman” Vol.3 Annual 1

Plot by Scott Lobdell, dialogue by Fabian Nicieza

Wildstorm Concepts:

 

This is it, the big issue that brings all the storylines together. After recovering the Blue Flame from “Voodoo”, Helspont makes his ship visible over Metropolis, defying Superman to come face him. He shows him his true abilities now, including a new and sleeker suit created with the remains from several alien species. Helspont throws Superman against the moon with a single punch; no big deal for him, he has killed Kryptonians before. His old crew starts spreading out around the globe, searching for alien races to recruit. They are his most faithful men, those with whom Helspont shared his Blue Flame powers so many years ago: Salu, Biomass (a titanothrope; NOT the same Biomass from the “Majestic” series), Quom (not to be confused with Quon?), an unnamed old lady and Lord Defile, with his Worldstorm look. Helspont plans to build the “Union of the Thirteen Scions of Salvation”, a council of species which used to be a fairy tale in which the universe was led properly and fairly.

Salu finds the Martian Manhunter, Quom finds Starfire and Defile meets Hawkman; they tell them about the idea before Helspont summons his men to regroup.

When Superman wakes up from his beating, he finds himself inside Grifter’s escape pod, right after Cole and Deathblow escaped from Helspont. I suppose this means Helspont changed costumes in less than five minutes. The three heroes are intercepted by Biomass, so Superman fights him and throws him into Helspont’s ship. Helspont is amused to see the kryptonian, and he orders his troops to kill as many daemonites from Earth as they can. This is the great “alien extinction” heralded in the issue’s cover. Most daemonites on Earth die, and their invasion plans are destroyed. It’s also safe to assume Myev died too. Helspont sends their pain straight to Superman’s mind, subjugating him; Superman is merely an amusement to him. He explains that Superman is actually helping his plans through his constant protection of Earth, since Helspont wouldn’t want his future kingdom to be destroyed.

He leaves him after these words, leaving Superman confused and helpless; even when he’s just doing the right thing he’s still helping Helspont. And he doesn’t know when Helspont will decide to begin his harvest. With all the invading daemonites killed off by Helspont, things come to a pause; this feels like the ending to the first chapter of Wildstorm’s narrative in the new DC Universe.

Next: Voodoo Vol.2 issue 0 and Grifter Vol.2 issues 13 – 16, written by Joshua Williamson, Rob Liefeld and Frank Tieri.