Stormwatch #20

Currently over in the Magenta Timeline...

Here's my deal with Jim Starlin and Stormwatch: I just want well told, exciting stories. But most of my commentaries and criticisms are from the perspective of DC's change to The New 52. Seen through that lens, the Magenta Timeline deal is hard to swallow since it simply bypasses the rules of the game in much the same way as most of Lobdell's or DeFalco's time travel visitors from the future stories. But you know what will be nice? Just dealing with the Magenta Timeline as stories outside of the normal New 52. I don't have to be bothered with how these stories fit in because they don't have to fit in! As long as this old Stormwatch Logo adorns the cover of the Stormwatch books, I'll just read these books as standing outside the entire New 52 Universe. No more pretend rage at Jim Starlin for excising The New 52 history from Stormwatch. Time to just enjoy this comic book for what it is. That last sentence would have ended with a colon and then the description of what this comic book is but since I haven't read it yet, I don't know!

The Stormwatch away team has been sent to investigate the Magenta Time Lords that have been rewriting Stormwatch every few years. Unless they do it every few months. Or every other second? Every negative thirteen weeks? Whatever their timetables for fuckery, the away team consisting of Midnighter, Apollo, Hellstrike, Jenny Soul, and The Weird have arrived on what is possibly the Magenta Time Lords' home planet to put a stop to their shenanigans.

I think I use the word "shenanigans" too much. I must have some leprechaun ancestry.

Apollo and Midnighter's first duty is to get Jenny Soul across the street and into a space with less minds since she's feeling overloaded. And Midnighter will provide the commentary for that blatant under use of their powers for me.

Since I dropped Stormwatch 25 ranks last issue to start them over on their Magenta Timeline, I'll give them a chance to build back up by raising their rank for everything I enjoy. +1 Ranking for this combined with the away teams initial update of "Holy crap!" Mind you, I'll also be giving Stormwatch negative ranks when they displease me. And I am oh so easy to displease!

While Stormwatch deals with crossing the street, the Magenta Time Lords are busy recruiting Lobo to beat them up. The last time Lobo fought with Stormwatch The Authority, it was because Jenny Quantum was upset that he'd killed Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I wonder how Jenny Soul would feel about that? When the Magenta Time Lords find Lobo, he'd just killed six muggers in an alley after waking up from a drunken binge. Being that this is the Magenta Time Line, I guess I don't have to worry about whether or not this is the Lobo from Rob Liefeld's Deathstroke. I probably wouldn't have to worry about that anyway since I think DC is simply pretending that all issues in The New 52 written by Rob Liefeld never existed.

The first thing the Magenta Time Lord does is send Lobo back into the past to see how he became the gigantic fucking prick he became.

I'm severely disappointed that Czarnians look just like humans instead of all looking like Lobo. But Magenta Time Line! May not possibly be New 52 Canon! Especially since in The New 52, we were introduced to Lobo's girlfriend, Sheba, who also looked like Lobo. But then that was from a Liefeld book and thus possibly not New 52 Canon!

Basically Lobo was the kid that got the sand kicked into his face until his planet exploded into a nightmare of aggressive assholes. Lobo, being a skinny little wimp, knew he was done for if he didn't act quick. He created a virus or some kind of pathogen (he simply calls it "the right lil' cocktail") that only he was immune to and released it. Everybody on Czarnia died.

I still hope Sheba replaces Lobo in the real New 52 Timeline because do we really need more "fraggin' bastich" this and "fraggin bastich" that? Although another reason to completely forget Liefeld's mess is how he had the Czarnians as one of the alien races fighting with Thanagar. Who makes that mistake?! Everybody fucking knows Lobo is the Last Czarnian! And how about another +1 ranking simply for making him look three million times better than the way Liefeld drew him.

Stormwatch does a little shopping and then continues to follow the emanations of the Magenta Time Lords. Jenny Soul manages to see one out of the corner of her minds eye and this worries the Magenta Time Lords. We'll get to their worry after the next odd interruption since the Magenta Time Lords also deal with this following panel:

+1 Ranking for this strangeness that probably has far reaching consequences if Lobo is ever able to extinguish this light. But let's see how the Magenta Time Lords react before speculating on its importance.


If they can see that Jenny Soul can disrupt their plans across all but one time line, then they can obviously see exactly what needs to be done to make that single time line come about. Unless the mere observance of the time line changes the time line! In which case, they're probably fucking screwed.

So what is that light? How is Lobo able to see it and get at it? Why do the Magenta Time Lords not take it seriously? Because it continues to flicker back into existence once Lobo walks away? I suppose the light is some kind of source for the Magenta Time Line. Lobo wouldn't have any qualms trying to destroy everything in one fell swoop if he were able. This could easily fall into the category of one of those really stupid piece of shit things Lobdell will mention that sort of seem like foreshadowing but are really just flaccid sci-fi ideas that he may or may not eventually deal with (mostly may not). But the way this is done is intriguing. I really like the panels of Lobo approaching it, putting it out, and walking off as it flickers back to life.

As Stormwatch is nearing the source of the psychic emanations, a sniper tries to blow Jenny's brains all over the backside of Apollo. But she senses him in time and dodges out of the way, leaving Apollo to get shot in the ass. I don't think it hurts him much though. He's all solar powered up and invulnerable. After the sniper shot, all hell breaks loose just like on the cover.

Sex talk seems a little out of place when you're kicking the heads off of your enemies. +1 Ranking!

Stormwatch is kicking ass but Storm Control (the mysterious teeny tiny leader) is concerned about Jenny's safety simply due to the sheer number of assailants. But before he can order Forecaster the Frogman to pull them out, a ship full of alien lizard men with patches indicating they're trysexual arrive to save the day! They also use budget interplanetary translators. Also, they're religious zealots whose main reason for helping Stormwatch is because the fascist corporate bully boys that attacked Stormwatch are the religious zealots big time number one bad enemy people. So it looks like Stormwatch just teleport doored right into the middle of a long time feud between two idiotic species.

And then there's Maude Lobo.

I suppose comparing Maude with Lobo is about as horrible as when I compared The Golden Girls to the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Speaking of Maude and The Golden Girls, both of those shows had great theme songs. Plus Lobo's dolphin buddies!

Stormwatch #20 Rating: I lost count! I think this was worth +6 Rankings at least. I definitely like seeing Stormwatch going on missions rather than all the fucking in-fighting they'd been doing. And going up against the Magenta Time Lords that can, occasionally, rewrite history seems about the right amount of danger for Stormwatch to be on the job.

Stormwatch #19

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

Is this the Stormwatch from Earth-50? Are they truly going to defeat the Stormwatch from Earth Prime? Because I wouldn't be surprised. It seems like the one rule DC has is if two gay characters act on their sexuality, they must be placed immediately inside a gay refrigerator. So technically, Peter Milligan would have killed Stormwatch Prime for allowing the boys to kiss in defiance of Dan DiDio's Anti-Gay-and/or-Blue-Beetle Law. I guess I should stop jumping to stupid conclusions just from the double spread cover. Are these Mad Fold-Ins?

Hmm. Not unless you have to get fancy and do some origami style folding. I wonder if my comic book store will replace my now mangled copy of Stormwatch #19? It was an honest mistake! I'm sure they'll understand if I told them I was trying to get the Fold-In picture to line up.

This issue begins with Jim Starlin having no idea how to write somebody else's characters so he has some beings with their heads on fire initiate the Magenta Timeline where they begin the universe by killing Adam One. This causes Peter Milligan's Stormwatch to stop existing. Also the Demon Knights. Except the Demon Knights were taken over by a competent writer, so they're actually doing okay.

I think the big clue is the name of the timeline: Magenta.

Magenta does not exist as a single color wavelength. It cannot be created with a prism. You do not see it in a rainbow. But line up two color bands from two prisms by placing the blue end of one along the red end of the other and you'll see Magenta light. So Magenta needs two wavelengths to exist. Does the Magenta Timeline require two timelines to exist? Or is the Magenta Timeline simply an imaginary construct by these fire-headed people?

But how does a complete change in the timeline affect The New 52? If this is Earth Prime, then we now have a completely new Earth Prime. Adam One is dead. Therefore there was no Merlin. Therefore there is no Etrigan or Madame Xanadu or Stormwatch. Well, we know that can't be correct because Demon Knights hasn't been suddenly cancelled mysteriously. This could be Earth-50. But what it really is is a gigantic clusterfuck by DC's editors to allow this story to be told (unless it ends up being some kind of alternate reality dream or something. Or Earth-50!). How can DC have no concept of what their own 52 Earth paradigm means? 52 Universes equals 52 timelines. Now each universe could have other dimensions such as The Phantom Zone or The Fifth Dimension or all those various pocket dimensions Lobdell likes to create. But each of the 52 Universes can't have an infinite amount of timelines. Because every timeline is simply another fucking Earth which would mean the DC Universe still has infinite earths.

You know what? Maybe I should read this fucking comic book and see what Starlin does with it before I start pointing to this issue as the comic book that caused DC to fuck itself in the ass.

The Shadow Lords have not been affected by the reality change because they were in Camelot The Bleed. Since The Bleed is conveniently outside of normal time/space, they were left alone to notice that Stormwatch has been erased from existence. They also somehow noticed that this is the twelfth time that this has happened. Can I just give my first "Fuck You" of the issue right now?

Anyway, this Shadow Lord is the Storm King and he's just arrived from inside a Black Hole (I guess that's how you get into and out of The Bleed?) to discuss the erasure of Stormwatch with Storm Control. He calls himself or his ship or fucking who the fuck knows what "The New Skywatch" and they can't be detected because they're in STEALTH MODE!

It's too bad Peter Milligan is gone because I'm fairly certain that he was building up for the Shadow Lords to be Planetary.

A bunch of bullshit I can't be bothered to comment on.

The Shadow King and the teeny tiny secret leader of the new Stormwatch (Ray Palmer?) begin looking at video files of potential Stormwatch teammates. There's Angie the Engineer. And Apollo the Sun Man. And Midnighter the psychopath. And...hey! Wait a minute! These are all the same people that were just erased from existence! FUCK YOU, JIM STARLIN! You fucking coward! Too much work to have to use characters with 380 pages of history behind them? That's one novel's worth of story! And it's mostly pictures! And you couldn't be bothered to study it and base the next Stormwatch on that history? Is this a Stormwatch pattern? Has it really been erased from existence eleven times before this and then restarted?

Wait a second. You're already utilizing these guys? So this new Stormwatch already exists? Or part of it does? Or does Teeny Tiny Leader simply have a Teeny Tiny Treasure and he hired The Weird to protect it so he figured he'd just add him to the group?

Teeny Tiny Mystery Leader has also recruited Jenny Soul from a London Asylum and some guy named Force. So whatever. I guess these are members he already recruited even though he began the fucking conversation seemingly confused about the whole rewrite of reality and Stormwatch not existing and so I guess he had been recruiting for Stormwatch before the Storm King came to speak with him because they didn't exist?

Fuck you, Jim Starlin. Oh, am I repeating myself. Sorry! Wouldn't want that! I should just write a whole bunch of disparate paragraphs that don't have a single thing in common between any of them. That review would be more fitting for this reset of Stormwatch.

Skywatch is the new Stormwatch's headquarters/space ship. It's piloted by an other dimensional frog man.

Why bother with those guys? If they can rewrite reality, they're probably doing it constantly and there's nothing you can do about it or even notice. I guess if these guys can rewrite reality and fuck up The New 52, Volthoom over in Green Lantern should be able to do it as well! I think the only solution to this rampant fucking with time and space is for each of the comics in The New 52 to be its own separate Earth. I actually wouldn't mind that!

The Engineer has been on her first mission beating up some guys named Dee and Dum who apparently haven't realized that they're stepping on some Gotham toes with their schtick. Her mission was to recruit a little guy with a drug problem that might be Stormwatch's Shaman once he cleans up his act. Or even if he doesn't. Nobody needs a sober Shaman.

Well at least these guys can continue with their romance without interruption.

Apparently I missed the allusion that Storm Control's "tiny treasure" was Jenny Soul. I guess I was too busy thinking about how many times I wanted to say "fuck you" to Jim Starlin. So The Weird and Jenny Soul get to hang out and become besties because they're the outcasts of the group. Unless Midnighter and Apollo are the outcasts of the group. Maybe Hellstrike and Force are the outcasts? I think this group is too big! And what happened to Jack Hawksmoor? Was he completely rewritten out of existence? The others weren't. They were just taken away from Stormwatch.

The group has a big meeting where they discover that they're going to have to combat the reality shifting flame headed aliens. Will they defeat them and put the Green Timeline back together? Or will the flame headed jerk-offs find a new champion that is no longer dead because of the timeline rewrite and also because he probably wasn't dead anyway and probably because who the fuck cares about anything any more? World building? Fuck world building! Let's just tell stories!

No, seriously. I'm all for that. But since The New 52 claims to be something more, I'd appreciate it if they stuck to that. Oh, anyway, I was discussing the Magenta Men's new champion!

You know, it's actually refreshing to see Lobo drawn well again and not that horrible mess Liefeld was trying to draw.

Stormwatch #19 Rating: -25 Ranking. You want to start over? Let's fucking start over, bitches! I'm calling it right now! Stormwatch #19 ruined the entire New 52 paradigm. This story is going to open up stories to all sorts of crazy bullshit that will just end in masses and masses of confusion. If this is Earth Prime, The Demon Knights don't exist. I'm hoping this is Earth 50, the Wildstorm Earth, even if Earth 50 was supposedly merged with Earth Prime. Since there are still 52 Earths, I'm assuming that Earth Prime was merged with Earth 50 and Earth Vertigo. But those two Earths still also exist separately. So over on Earth Prime, Dex-Starr can still have his rematch with the Real Midnighter.

This whole timeline reset concept for Stormwatch is lazy bullshit that really fucks with The New 52 paradigm. But if Starlin can tell good, self-contained stories, I'm all for it. But I'll still pretend this is simply Earth-50.