The Wild Storm #4

This is the only sexual position I can orgasm in.

• I bet the only way Steve Buccellato can orgasm is when he gets the news he's going to be working with Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt.

• At the end of the last issue, Grifter was in a real pickle. He was about to be blown up by some Black Razor agents hitting their self-destruct buttons. But at the beginning of this issue, he figures out a way to survive!

In the terrible old days, 80% of this page would be covered in Grifter's thoughts.

• You might be thinking, "How did Grifter kill those guys without flipping upside down first?" Okay fine. That's what I'm thinking. I just like to imagine that other people think the same things I think so I feel like I'm part of a community that probably really doesn't want anything to do with me.

• Speaking of the comic book loving community I'm ashamed to be a part of, I received a message about Wonder Woman from a person calling themselves HentaiBorg. Now there's a name that really evokes some boner inducing images! I'm picturing a poster by H.R. Giger if he were attempting to parody an M.C. Escher print of an orgy. Anyway, HentaiBorg had this to say about the Wonder Woman comic book:

I would buy a WonderWoman book with Frank Cho to the art.
Having Cho
at the writing would garanty there would be no feminism in the book,
which would be an improvement but I would prefer a more experienced
writer.
Diana need to be rewritten Geoff Johns, bring the characters
back to the core and expand. It worked great on Green Lantern so maybe
there is a chance.

I'm guessing, due to the format, that his comment was supposed to be a poem. It's cute how he thinks a Wonder Woman book could be written without feminism. Either HentaiBorg doesn't understand feminism or he thinks anything that stars a woman who isn't naked or putting a sexy lamp in her butt is feminism. "If a woman in a comic book is seen as an actual person and not as something for me to masturbate to, it's Goddamned feminism! I'm sick of it!" For some reason while writing that, I was hearing it in a Canadian accent. Sorry Canadians!

• Grifter apparently doesn't aim as well as he expected himself to aim while looking as cool as possible because he completely missed the brain of one of the Black Razors he shot in the head. The guy pulls the self-destruct pin to kill them all. But the Wild CATs escape into The Bleed before they blow up. Dammit.

• I probably shouldn't be disappointed that Grifter survived. As I've noted, this Grifter is much better than every other Grifter that has ever appeared in any comic book previously because he keeps his bland thoughts to himself.

• Miles Craven tries to figure out how to stop shitting himself after realizing there might be a Wild Covert Action Team out there going against his interests. Another reason he can't turn off the shit storm (which is probably what this series is named after) is the realization that Henry Bendix is going to see all of the Engineer footage and think, "That piece of shit stole my technology! And he's doing stuff with it in public! Before I could do stuff with it in public! Not that I wanted to do stuff with it in public. But the recognition would be nice, you know?"

• Speaking of Henry Bendix, it turns out about 99% of his public persona is all for show. He'd rather be doing heroin while reading Frank Cho Wonder Woman comic books while sticking his dick in a glory hole that leads to The Bleed. You know, he's that guy! We all know that guy! He's the guy who, after a day at the flea market on LSD, takes you to a cocaine party where they have a piñate full of sex toys and people hopped up on coke going full paranoid over you because you're happy to sit there people watching on the acid while sipping soda pop. Man. That guy!

Man. I miss having this guy in my life! Too bad my "this guy" was blown up by a bomb in Iraq, nearly died, began suffering from survivor's guilt and PTSD, began watching nothing but FOX News, and became Christian! Now he tells bad jokes whose punch lines all consist of "I've been burned over a large portion of my body! Brazingo!"

• I don't not hang out with my "that guy" anymore because of the things I listed. I don't really interact with him because my general nature — my cynicism and atheism and facetiousness — run counter to healing and well-being. He needs to believe a bunch of things that I'm fairly certain are absolute bullshit and he doesn't need me smirking at everything he says. • I didn't scan the panel where Bendix says "the idiot in the Jump Room was having some kind of crippling technical problem with his vagina" because that makes him sound like me and I'm not the "that guy" I was trying to compare him to. Maybe I love Henry because I see a reflection of myself in him. Maybe...maybe I am other people's "that guy!" Holy shit! I rule!

And the noise! Don't forget the Goddamned noise! The bouncing basketballs and the industrial sized wind chimes and the music played loud enough so that other people can hear it and know the people playing it are cool (the audio version of marking your territory to scare off or impress rivals) and the traffic and the birds, oh the fucking birds! You do know you don't have to chirp and warble all fucking morning, right?!

• Like Rorschach and Lobo, Bendix might be one of those characters that was created to be thoroughly unlikeable but then was embraced and loved by the fans in a way that made the creator throw their hands up in the air and kick a puppy but I love him anyway.

• Because Bendix is so very likeable even though he's probably not supposed to be, Ellis also makes him racist and homophobic. Probably because he knew he was making Bendix way too charming. He needed to make sure people know Bendix is supposed to be the worst and that if they like him (which how could they not after this introduction to his real self?), they're gross and problematic. Well, I guess that's me then! Because Henry is the best!

• Anyway, a few last things happen. Some woman wanders down the freeway on foot. Deathblow or Deadpunch or Dieslap talks about his brain tumor while Miles offers him a job to keep his mind off of dying. And that's about it for what is possibly the most interesting and well-written comic book currently published by DC. It's almost like this is an Image comic book which is ironic since when this was an Image comic book, it also seemed like an Image comic book. What I mean by that is that Image sucked when it began but now it publishes the best stuff. That's because people save their best ideas for the shit they get to own outright. DC and Marvel will never again have truly great stories because nobody is going to offer up the best parts of themselves for contract work. Unless you have so much good writing in you that you can't help but write great stories. You know, like Warren Ellis.

The Wild Storm #3

If I'm reading all of the subtle clues correctly, Jenny Sparks will be introduced this issue. Hooray!

Previously in The Wild Storm, several corporations who are also black ops organizations have sent death squads and CATs to murder nipple-free Angie Spica. I had to look up her last name because I wanted to type "Spica" but I kept thinking, "That can't be right. That's racist, isn't it?" It's not racist. What is racist is my brain that is always so terribly worried about appearing racist that it winds up overcompensating in certain situations, thus proving it's totally fucking racist. Thanks, Global Media! It's your fault I'm so concerned with how I appear instead of just being myself (which totally isn't racist, by the way! I mean, probably not that racist. Thinking Italians are annoying extroverts isn't racist, right?).

Speaking of annoying extroverts, I passed a guy on Hawthorne Boulevard today holding up a sign that said, "I need weed." Fucking people whose entire identity is wrapped up in the fact that they smoke weed can all go to hell. I don't care if people smoke weed. That doesn't bother me at all. But people who make it their entire shtick can go fuck themselves. I suppose my biggest problem with it is how people can bond over such superficial and shallow similarities. I bet being stoned makes it hard to realize that the person you're getting stoned with is a complete and utter bland asshat whose most exciting conversation is about Project Cloverleaf, which they bring up every time they get stoned. I get that meeting people with similar interests is a bit of a gateway to maybe making friends. But it seems that when weed is involved, people are far less discriminating in the friends they make. Sure, I'd probably hang out with some other people who like comic books for at least one afternoon. But they're going to have to bring a lot more to the table than their knowledge of every death of every Robin and every woman Peter Parker has almost fucked. I need to know what they think of Montuak, the Orgone Box, and Project Cloverleaf as well! Also have they ever seen a Chupacabra?! If so, it was probably a raccoon with mange.

The main problem with this comic book is how many corporations there are. I also have to keep track of which CEOs work for which corporations and what covert agencies are tied to those corporations and which CATs belong to which covert corporations! And this is just the start of the comic book! Pretty soon, I'm going to have to keep track of which of them are Daemonites too!

I would read this comic book. Especially since it looks like it was written and drawn by Chris Ware.

As you can see from the above scan, The Wild Storm takes place on an alternate Earth. DC Comics exists on that Earth and that's where all the mainstream superheroes currently reside (also on television shows like The Doom Patrol. Why isn't that a CW show? The Wildstorm Universe's television programs are way better. I'm stuck with Arrow when I could have The Doom Patrol?!). But all of the businesses and newspapers and cities that you expect to find in the DC Universe, you'll find here. Like The Daily Planet and Kord Industries and the Galaxy Network and probably Lex Industries and almost certainly Wayne Corp.

Currently, Jenny Sparks is wandering through all of the media platforms scattered around our daily lives. She's also probably thinking about snogging me! She's also a bit more like John Constantine than in her previous incarnations when she was only mildly like John Constantine.

Thank the Maker (the Creepy Crawlies Maker, my one and only God) for Jenny Sparks and her Wall of Tying Things Together!

Up in Montuak, the first wave of People Pursuing Angela Spica appear before her from out of The Bleed. It's Grifter, Savant, and the other one. Also, I'm not totally sure about Savant. I'm trusting Jenny Sparks' Wall of Tying Things Together to be accurate! They're Jacob Marlowe's CAT. I really want to type "CAT team" but that would be like typing "ATM Mouth." Anyway, they want to offer Angie safety from International Operations (also from Skywatch although Angie might not understand that she not only stole from IO but also from Skywatch by means of the transitive property (my brain often keeps things from me and I couldn't remember the term "transitive" so I had to Google "a = b = c then a = c") because she saved Marlowe's life. She pretty much doesn't have any choice but to except or else somebody with dead or death in their name is going to come kill her.

Before Angie can say she accepts their offer, the door blows off the vault and three Black Razors march in. Luckily Grifter is here to think, "I can move guns with my mind and also shoot things really good! I will use those abilities to save the life of this woman who seems to not have any nipples. But first I must put on this ridiculous mask that I can somehow constantly see through and it somehow hangs off my face just so. It probably has something to do with my Daemonite blood. That's right! I have Daemonite blood, I think to myself as if I need to explain that to myself!"

For some reason, Grifter doesn't produce one Narration Box at all! What's wrong with him?! This new Grifter just isn't the same. Grifter without Narration Boxes is like The Engineer without nipples.

Have I mentioned how much I miss Angie's nipples enough?

Savant blows up one of the Black Razors with an exploding bullet while Grifter spends the majority of the fight doing flips while shooting upside down. Meanwhile, the Other One (Adriana, the robot one that can send people through The Bleed) took some shrapnel in the face and is now bleeding tears. She's also speaking Greek.

The IO control team begin trying to assess the situation and what went wrong.

That's always been my biggest fear too since I read WildC.A.T.s #1.

The IO lead (I forget his name, okay?! Miles Craven, maybe?) tells the Black Razors to self-destruct and destroy everything around them since they're apparently a bunch of losers. Meanwhile, Angie flies through the roof to escape. Savant, Grifter, and the Other One are left behind to be destroyed. Probably. I can't see how they'll survive the demolition!

The Ranking!
+2! This is really fucking good! It's like the exact opposite of storytelling back when Image first started!

The Wild Storm #2

This comic book just got terrible.

The issue begins with The Engineer flying off to investigate a government compound in Montauk, New York, because now that she's a superhero, she can investigate all the cool conspiracy theories. Maybe after she discovers evidence of time travel experiments in Montauk, she'll investigate the sexy properties of a vintage Orgone Accumulator. Something has to happen to get Angie's nipples constantly hard. It won't feel like a proper Wildstorm universe until that happens.

Angie heads into the basement, picks an electronic lock with her nanotech fingertips, grabs an ass-old bottle of water, sits on a magnetic Montauk Couch (it's more comfortable than a Montauk Chair), and cries. This scene will probably make more sense later when the reader has gotten more context. Or it already makes sense for people who are familiar with The Wildstorm universe. I call them "people" because I don't want to offend any of them with my real feelings toward anybody who read WildC.A.T.s. #1 and thought, "I need more of this!" Also, some people probably became fans of Wildstorm later through comics that didn't feel like you just paid a few dollars for a crumpled up script fished out of a garbage can and used for the basis of the biggest movement in comic books since The Thing shit on Alicia Master's chest because she asked for it. Miles Craven and whatever Covert Ops slash Business Venture he operates is trying to figure out how fucked up his life will soon become thanks to The Engineer stealing his company's stealth nanotech which his company stole from Skywatch. That's one of the reasons his life is fucked. The other big reason is that his company just failed to assassinate Jacob Marlowe, the CEO of rival company Halo. They make phones or something. So as you can see, the Wildstorm Universe is totally unlike our universe where businesses aren't just corporations but secret covert military operations vying for ultimate power over the masses. Also they're probably all Daemonites or something.

But don't worry (if you're worried about Miles Craven which I'm not sure why you would be. Because the story seems to ask it from you, maybe?)! Miles Craven has a plan!

I hope it's not wild! Or at least not written by Brandon Choi!

Jacob Marlowe also has a CAT to protect him. I bet half of the members of the CATs have names with "death" or "dead" in them! I bet they all have weird body dysmorphias as well! Maybe Warren Ellis will create a story element that explains why all of the early Image characters looked so fucked up.

The guy leading Marlowe's CAT is named Cash. I know that name! That name gives me flashbacks to having to read the worst New 52 comic book ever written (in a different way than The Ravagers was terribly written): Grifter! Although the pages with Cash on them aren't filled with barely intelligible Narration Boxes, so maybe it's Cole's brother, Not Cole Cash. Or Jeremy. Or something. More probably, Cash doesn't do the incessant Narration Boxing until he puts the colored toilet paper over his face and begins growling, "Call me Grifter."

Some person named Kenesha determines that The Engineer has probably gone to hiding in Camp Hero in Montauk. I don't know who Kenesha is but she's probably a member of Cole's CAT. She knows things!

Rufus Wainwright?! He's a tit man! I mean, he used to be!

Kenesha remembers everything she ever saw. That would be so great for masturbation. Also it would be so terrible for masturbation. I mean, I've looked at a lot of my own shits in my lifetime. How often would those images pop back in my head if I couldn't forget them?

Meanwhile, Henry Bendix, leader of Skywatch and all around monster, is slightly upset about somebody stealing Skywatch's technology. Zealot watches him (wild) storm out of the office of a Ms. Trelane. So I guess Zealot works for Skywatch. These corporations sure do enjoy espionage and assassination! I wish the war between Coke and Pepsi in the eighties had been this exciting.

Ms. Trelane informs Zealot that she's got a new case! She needs to hunt down The Engineer and figure out where she came from. Zealot doesn't seem too happy about this assignment, probably because the people Zealot hunts down usually wind up dead and Zealot doesn't want a person who saved another person's life at risk to her own safety to die because Zealot couldn't say no to her boss. It's a terrible position to be in, not being able to live by your own ethics because you feel trapped by your job. Isn't that right, Sean Spicer?

Meanwhile, Voodoo is making music videos or something.

Double meanwhile (unless we're at triple meanwhile which I totally think we are), Michael Cray (aka DeadViolence or DeathAggression or whatever) reveals he has an inoperable brain tumor. That will probably be important later.

Miles Craven's team discovers that Angie must be hiding in one of their bunkers in Montauk. So pretty much everybody is headed there to capture or kill The Engineer. Apparently the bunker is Majestic-level though so they might have some trouble getting her out of it, if they can even get to it while having to fight through all the CATs winding up at the door.

The Review!
+2! It's difficult to rate a comic book that is written as opposed to vomited forth from the face of a "writer" just trying to get enough words on the page to get their paycheck while making the story marginally interesting enough to not get cancelled. That's my main issue with superhero comic books. They tend to not give a shit about telling stories and wind up just telling moments. Superman saving the world from a cosmic threat by being more powerful and having more heart isn't a story. It's a moment in a story that could be interesting if writers were at all interested in telling stories that were actually about Superman. How often, though, do they feel as dense as something like this? Ellis is building a world. No, he's built a world. He's just, with Issue #1, opened the doors to the public. I want to ride all of his rides and eat all of his corndogs. If you get what I'm saying!

P.S. Look at how boring those two images I scanned are! Most comic books are afraid to fill their comic books with panels like that. The most action in this comic book comes when Henry Bendix glares at Zealot! Also when that character who teleports whose name I can't remember carries Cole and Kenesha into The Bleed on the way to Montauk. What kind of action is that?! This isn't a wild storm at all! It's more like a light drizzle on a day when the sun can't stay out from behind the clouds long enough for anybody to truly feel warm. But it's so much better than Batman punching Bane in the face for ten pages! Although, admittedly, it's easier to masturbate to the Batman/Bane thing.

The Wild Storm #1

Why are all the spaces between issues the same? Did the graphic designer not know Warren Ellis was writing this book?

When The New 52 began, I pissed off a lot of Wildstorm fans because I trashed the books starring all of their favorite characters. Comic book fans are some of the stupidest fans on the planet. They fall in love with a character and then accept it in no matter what shitty form the company spits it back at them. Then they get angry and annoyed when I point out how terrible the Voodoo and Grifter comic books are being written, or how terribly some Wildstorm characters are being drawn by Liefeld. As if I'm attacking the character personally! Well, they shouldn't have to worry this time around because I am a professional Warren Ellis dick sucker. You won't see me say a bad word about a Warren Ellis comic book! It doesn't matter how hard it sucks because he wrote Transmetropolitan which means he gets a free pass from criticism for the rest of his life. So now when he writes Helspont (seeing as Helspont is seemingly the only major villain in Wildstorm), I'll stroke him real gentle like and say things like, "Wow! That Helspont is fucking scary! And powerful! How is Earth going to survive this next attack of Daemonites? I bet mighty Grifter with the huge cock and totally sensible bandanna-mask saves the day!" Then after Warren Ellis blows his load in my face, I'll wash up and think up some really nice things to say next month.

Right up front, I should make it known that I know next to nothing about the Wildstorm universe. I know it was terribly written when it first began (when it first really began and not The New 52 this time. Try to read WildC.A.T.s #1 now. I fucking dare you!). I know some stuff about The Authority (or Stormwatch) because Warren Ellis wrote some of that stuff and remember what I said about Warren Ellis? I also know a handful of other characters because they tried to make a go of it in The New 52 but failed. Mostly because their comic books were so fucking bad. Grifter was the worst comic book of The New 52 until somebody decided to hire Ann Nocenti.

This issue begins with a white haired woman washing blood off of her in a bathroom. It might be Zealot because she has white hair. Remember when Liefeld was drawing her in Deathstork? She looked like a Barbie Doll if you stuck it in the microwave for just under five seconds so it was slightly melted out of shape but not so much that you'd notice it on first glance. Also she was dressed as if she'd just walked out of her Jazzercise class. It was probably the worst way I could have been introduced to the character. You'll have to forgive me if I seem to hate most of these characters at first because I have no fond memories of any of them.

Oh look! She says her name in the fifth panel on the first page. Now you know when I read a comic book, I just look at the pretty pictures until I feel like I'm forced to read the words.

Zealot works for a covert team she calls Division. Apparently she gives people fatal swirlies if they do things the Division looks down on. This time, the perp was into home-brew gene editing and contraband software.

Oh! One other thing I know about Zealot is that she had red stripes on her face. Ellis begins with the blood on her face looking like the Zealot from the old Wildstorm universe. But she washes it off as if to say, "This ain't the Zealot you know, buddy-boy! This Zealot is written by Warren Ellis who already has her story planned at least two years ahead. That means her story is going to fucking mean something! Like, it'll have arcs and themes and shit! None of this half-ass flying by the seat of the pants chump monthly comic book writing bullshit that so many writers think is writing! That's just getting the work done so you can get a paycheck and call yourself a writer. But you're not really a writer, are you? If you just write whatever comes to your mind and then you have Red Hood do that without any thought to what will happen next month until the editor calls up and says, 'The artist needs some fucking pages, Scott!' Then you whip out a few pages and forget about the story until the next time the editor gets hold of you because you forgot to turn off the ringer." That's a lot to say in just a few images although it's still less than 1000 words so it was still just a summary.

Meanwhile, Voodoo and what I'm guessing are her stripper friends are planning to put up some billboards in Manhattan. I know it's Voodoo because one of her friends calls her Pris and I remember thinking about Blade Runner when I first read The New 52 Voodoo comic book.

Oh, I also would have known she was Voodoo if I took the time to read the second speech bubble in the panel before turning my attention to the blog.

Voodoo might not be a stripper this time. Or a Daemonite! She might just be a rock and roll star! She's popular enough that some guys holding hands in front of a coffee shop recognize her.

The scene shifts to the gay guys who go by the names Miles and Julian. They're Wildstorm characters who will remain a mystery to me until one of them says, "Call me by my codename, dum-dum!" Then the other one will be, "Oh yeah! I forgot that we work for Another Covert Ops Group!" Then I'll be caught up with these gays! I mean guys!

Angela Spica happens to wander by so she can call Miles "Mr. Craven." Miles Craven sounds familiar but I still don't know who it is. But I know Angela is The Engineer! I realized that without even having to see her nipples!

Angie needs more money from Miles to continue her research but he's all, "It's the weekend, dope!" And she's all, "Gah! I hate things!" Then she denies she's bleeding because she probably put some nanobots in her and she stomps away after threatening a red headed waiter named Phil. I bet he's some famous Wildstorm character too!

The point of view decides Angie is more exciting than Miles and Julian so it follows her down the street. It's a good thing it does because she comes upon a guy crashing through a window on the top floor of a skyscraper. I hope it's not the Comedian! It could be the way DC is squeezing as much Watchmen juice out of that grapefruit as they can. Angie decides it's time to get her experimental nanotechnology working and be a hero. Great! I can't wait to see her nipples!

Darn it. It looks like she's going to wear clothes this time around.

Angie's clothes disappear under her nanotech but the armor isn't as form-fitting as it used to be. Also, it has little nipple covers, just in case.

The man Angie saves is Jacob Marlowe. He's the head of Halo, some phone company or something. When he notices Angie is bleeding through her armor, he offers to help her. But she's all, "Nope! I signed some pretty crazy contracts with Miles Craven and you probably shouldn't even be looking at me this closely!" Then she flies off, leaving the point of view behind.

Jacob realizes there's a moneymaking opportunity here so he calls his personal assistant and is all, "Wake up the CAT! Those are initials that mean Covert Action Team! Unless they mean something else. Whatever, just wake the CAT up and have it find that technology for me. And this time, Adrianna, I don't want to hear about any wild CATs! Especially if they're written by Brandon Choi!"

Later, news channels all over the city report on Jacob's rescue. Two of those news channels are WGBS and the Daily Planet. That must mean the Wildstorm universe takes place on one of the unidentified Multiversity Earths, right?

Now that the news interrupted the point of view, it switches over to Miles Craven interrogating a man named Michael Cray. I think his codename is Deathblow or Killsmash or Deadpounding. He was in Grifter when Liefeld and Tieri were writing it. Unless he was in Deathstork's Villains Month issue. He couldn't have been in both though because he was white in Deathstork and black in Grifter.

Anyway, Deathblow was the guy who threw Jacob out of the window. He must have been sent by Miles and now Miles is going to give him that totally embarrassing speech that Lobo and Deathstork have never had to hear! It's the one where you begin, "So you fucking failed to do your job, you dumby!"

Cray describes how the failure wasn't his fault. His team didn't give him all of the intel! Also an exploding bomb knocked Marlowe out of the window. He didn't do anything except not blow up.

Since Cray doesn't know exactly what happened when he walked in on Marlowe, the scene shifts to Marlowe explaining what happened to him to Adrianna, his personal assistant and robot girlfriend. Maybe.

During his story, Marlowe reveals that he's not quite human and he's well over one hundred years old. He also realizes Cray has some secrets worth discovering too.

Finally, Miles Craven does some investigating and discovers his engineer, Angela Spica, is the superhero who saved Jacob Marlowe, the man he wants to kill. So now there's that to deal with.

The Ranking!
High! This is one of those comic books I'm going to have to keep notes on or else I'm going to quickly forget who is working for what organization and which organizations trust which other organizations and how many people are actually Daemonites and how does Zealot fit into the Marlowe/Craven rivalry?!