The 10 Best WildStorm Comics of All Time
Main Art by Bryan Hitch
Last week, Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt kicked off The Wild Storm, a 24-issue maxi-series that reboots the occupants of the former WildStorm universe into a fresh new status quo, unrestrained by previous continuity or a mandate to exist alongside the core DCU. WildStorm, which officially folded in 2010 before the New 52 began, was always an unusual beast: breakout X-Men artist Jim Lee founded the imprint in 1992 as part of the Image exodus, only to sell it off to DC Comics in 1999 and become, at least for a time, as vital a part of DC’s diverse publishing plan as the famed Vertigo imprint. Superheroes were always core to WildStorm’s DNA, but with the move to DC, the imprint reinvented itself as a vanguard for innovation in cape comics, thanks largely to Warren Ellis’ boundary-pushing work on titles like The Authority with Bryan Hitch and Planetary with John Cassaday.
When WildStorm’s shared-universe concepts started to lag, Ellis and other creators like a then-rising Brian K. Vaughan continued to push the envelope with high-concept work outside of the WildC.A.T.S./Gen 13/Stormwatch continuity, including books like Ex Machina that continue to stay in print under a retroactive Vertigo branding. Upon the advent of the New 52, attempts were made to fold WildStorm’s original superhero characters in alongside Batman, Superman and all the rest—attempts that fell flat beyond imports Midnighter and Apollo. The Wild Storm, Ellis and Davis-Hunt’s enigmatic new sci-fi thriller, already echoes the primary draw of WildStorm’s best books: it doesn’t feel quite like any other superhero book on stands, and it’s striving to set the pace rather than follow a trend. In honor of the first issue’s release last week, Paste counted down ten of the now-defunct imprint’s greatest comics of all time. Sound off on Facebook or Twitter if we left off any of your favorites.
10. Gen 13
Writer: Adam Warren
Artists: Adam Warren, Rick Mays, Yanick Paquette
Gen 13 promised a whirlwind of ‘90s teen stereotypes torn between hormones and rebellion, but only embraced that promise of spunky irreverence when American manga disciple Adam Warren stepped in. The Empowered cartoonist took characters with names like Grunge and reveled in their sheer ridiculousness, starting with a story arc that features the boneheaded teen fantasizing a hyper-violent, X-rated blockbuster that ends with a tornado-propelled straw skewering a villain.
More importantly, Warren transformed the generic concept of genetically altered teens fleeing the government into something startlingly ambitious. He nailed the horny, listless bewilderment of teenhood, fitting in one-offs about sentient songs and a finale that packs a huge twist with more than a few tears. The art never quite caught up to Warren’s ideas unless he executed it himself, but this run offered one of the most unique and colorful corners of superhero comics for a brief moment. Sean Edgar
9. Stormwatch
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artists: Tom Raney, Bryan Hitch
This may be hard to believe at the advent of Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt’s The Wild Storm, but Stormwatch was once a series defined by aggressively superficial ‘90s cyber-machismo. Much like its cousin WildC.A.T.s—another stereotypically ‘90s book that Jim Lee probably came up with while petting a cat—it took the hiring of an esteemed writer (“The Original Writer,” some might say) to gain some form of relevance. And much like the pre-Alan Moore WildC.A.T.S., Stormwatch was filled to the brim with hyper-muscular men in battle armor indiscriminately firing energy weapons into the air (while somehow littering the ground with metal shell casings) and scantily clad femme fatales bending their bodies in impossible ways.
But when Warren Ellis and Tom Raney took over the book with Stormwatch #37, things took a turn, and Ellis’ ascendancy in the WildStorm Universe was set in motion. Ellis co-created characters like Midnighter and Apollo, who currently enjoy a modicum of prominence in the DC Universe; there was also Jack Hawksmoor, a.k.a. the “God of Cities,” and Jenny Sparks, “The Spirit of the 20th Century,” as quintessential an Ellis character as Spider Jerusalem or Elijah Snow. Stormwatch is notable for several reasons, but chief among those reasons is that it laid the groundwork for The Authority, a book that would knock on the door of the 21st Century and usher in a whole new style of comic-book storytelling. Jakob Free
8. Dv8: Gods and Monsters
Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Rebekah Isaacs
Dv8: God and Monsters stormed the stands like some unholy union between a Greek philosophy manifesto, a sociology text and a traditional superhero comic. The titular team—a group of dysfunctional villains who often fought the Gen 13 gang—time travels to hunter-gatherer pre-history, where each member serves as a deity to a tribe. Under the pen and design of Brian Wood, some members erect brutal military cultures, others slink into drug-and-sex communes and let’s just take a moment to appreciate that this sophisticated batshit comic even existed. The mini-series was The Wicked The Divine before The Wicked The Divine, articulated through the soft, considered realism of Rebekah Isaac’s art and stunning, minimalist covers from a pre-Saga Fiona Staples. It’s the definition of a hidden gem, and also encountered the same low-sales tragedy that greeted many other entries on this list. Warren Ellis may have accomplished huge strides in redefining the superhero during WildStorm’s early years, but works like this show a gorgeous drive to innovate in the imprint’s final days as well. Sean Edgar