Customer Reviews

WildC.A.T.S: Gang War

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Moore spent most of the nineties in hibernation, writing titles that had been pulled in too many different directions and streamlining them. WildC.A.T.S is one of the better examples, as is the ingenious Supreme. Moore (and James Robinson, earlier in the series) takes the characters from being cheap X-Men knock-offs to having personalities and agendas of their own, and makes previously boring heroes like Spartan fascinating. That's not to say that this is a flawless book, by any means. Moore's writing seems rushed, at times, and his usual inventiveness is undercut by silly cross-overs, fist-fights peppered with one-liners (albeit good ones), and some frankly terrible ideas from the first year of the book that he has to do somersaults to avoid, occasionally leaving a plot hole behind. Still, he manages to hit his stride by the end of the book, and the finale is genuinely moving, interesting, and scary. The books' chief villain comes out of left field so smoothly that you wonder why you never saw him coming, and Moore is obviously attached to some of the wackier characters like Majestic and Ladytron. The only other caveat I feel I should offer is that the book's artwork is fatally uneven. Wildstorm puts Travis Charest in every issue they can, but his artwork is lazy at times (xeroxed panels, sillhouettes, no backgrounds), and the fill-in artists look like, well, fill-in artists. That said, some of Charest's work is genuinely beautiful, and certainly worth looking at.

Overall, a solid book with a few flaws that is still very much worth the reading.

Note: This is a companion set with WildC.A.T.S: Homecoming, and is the second book in the series.

Even though this is obviously not one gf Moore's finest, you can rest assured that, if such writing were to be featured regularly in mainstream US superhero comics, nobody would complain for their near-monopoly of the US comics market. Moore even manages to make two chapters of a company-wide crossover Wildstorm was having at a time work perfectly both as crossover chapters and as issues of his Gang War storyline in WildC.A.T.s.
O verall a nice read, with some great artwork from Travis Charest and Dave Johnson and some average-to-poor artwork from then Wildstorm alumni Ryan Benjamin, Aron Wiesenfeld and Mat Broome. The latter three eventually bloomed into very fine artists (kudos to Jim Lee for spotting talent so early on), but one of the limits of Moore's work for Wildstorm and for Liefield's studio(s) actually was theplethora of rookie artists illustrating his scripts. Well, that and the hard task of dignifing Jim Lee's and Rob Liefield's somewhat flat early Image creations. Grade:B

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Noted for groundbreaking work such as The Watchmen, V for Vendetta and more recently, From Hell, Alan Moore is the most influential and critically acclaimed active comic book author. In this comic, Alan Moore again proves his dominance in the much maligned field of comic book writing. Those who dismiss the dialogue as wordy likely have no formal education in writing, preferring action to subtlety. Precisely there lies Moore's mastery of his craft. Integrating subtle moments fully draws the reader into the story, unlike most comics. The difficulty some may have is that with Moore, if you don't pay attention/reread, you're likely going to miss something.

In 1995 Alan Moore took over as writer for the ongoing comics title WildC.A.T.S. with issue 21 and stayed with it for over a dozen issues. Those issues were collected in the trade paperbacks Homecoming and Gang War.

For those interested in Alan Moore who wouldn't otherwise be inclined to read a title like WildC.A.T.S. there's not much here to recommend. Story is minimal, and there is little development of substance over the course of Moore's contribution. It's a study in superhero soap opera. The reader is subject to a steady sampling of team member infighting, romances, grudges, and bickering.

Several other problems present themselves:

1. For Moore fans who are unfamiliar with WildC.A.T.S. there's very little effort expended on filling in readers with any backstory.

2. Moore takes over an ongoing title which has concepts that were "inspired" by Chris Claremont's original X-Men run, which ironically were "inspired" by Moore's early contributions to Captain Britain and Warrior magazine.

3. The artists assigned to this title change nearly every issue, making the look inconsistent. Some of these artists have an underdeveloped sense of page layout, making the reading experience confusing at times. Moore is known to tailor his scripts to the strengths and weaknesses of his collaborators. In this case, that was impossible.

An Alan Moore quote on the topic of his work here: "I was trying to work out what the audience wanted, which is a terrible mistake and I don't know what I was thinking."

What promised to be a battle-heavy trip into the world of comic turned out to be an animated soap opera. While I expected more "gang wars" as promised by the title, I found that the bulk of the book is devoted to the stormy relationship between The Spartan and Yavolda. In fact, the entire book is this couple's meetings at several social events, and although the first dinner scene is amusing, the subsequent dinners and weddings drone on and on. The "witty" dialogue comes off as trite ( especially since the two love-birds are decked out in super-hero gear ). So call me mean, but two meta-humans casting longing glances over cups of expensive coffee is a step down for the comic world.