Customer Reviews

WildStorm Rising

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Okay, this story is quite tedious, but it does have a few things going for it. First, it tries to bring Jim Lee's scattered Wildstorm Universe together, more so than had ever been attempted in the past. Second, it features some art and covers by Barry Windsor-Smith, late of Valiant at the time, who was likely enjoying the freedom granted by working for the independents. Third, the story set up the Wildstorm Universe for a renaissance of sorts, paving the way for Alan Moore, Joe Casey, and other writers to come into the fold and actually do something worthwhile with the characters. The plot, in short: the villain Defile (ugh, these names) is manipulating the WildCATs and Stormwatch into a fight when he learns of the existence of a buried Daemonite starship on Earth. The ship was long thought destroyed and could add to Defile's power, so he turns his attention to it, crossing paths with other heroes along the way. Mr. Majestic and Union are brought into the story, they fight, then there's some more fighting, then Gen13 gets in a fight, more heroes fight each other, and on and on...
The ending is pretty anticlimactic unless you know where to go from there, so pick up WildCATs # 21 to get the rest of the story.

Being a fan of both Stormwatch and WILDC.A.T.S, I thought that the premise of this book was fantastic. The two groups have to stop fighting long enough to stop Helspont and Defile from collecting all the keys to unlock the Damonite ship which could destroy Earth. It's a pretty straightforward idea.

The trade paperback is a collection of various comics (stormwatch, wildcats, grifter deathblow, etc.), which unravel the entire story arch. This has, in my opinion, pros and cons. Having several different comics involved in this one edition allows for a bunch of different perspectives and with Grifter and Deathblow in particular, I felt that they improved the overall enjoyment and added some much needed depth.

And depth is what is the biggest problem with this novel. Having multiple titles in one binding, characters can't be developed as much. Also this being a crossover of sorts, anyone who doesn't know the past of the characters will not enjoy it as much. But if you insist the book has a glossary of characters so you can't get too lost.

All and all I think this is definitely worth the read, and fits really well anywhere between vol. 1 and vol. 5 of the trade pbk. Stormwatch series.

I'm a huge Wildcats fan and Warren Ellis made me fall in love with Stormwatch. These stories aren't as clever as as Alan Moore's take on the Wildcats or, Ellis' run on Stormwatch. However, if you want good old fashion slugfest in tights fun, it's entertaining. At the very least, it's a nice middle point and some more background on some of my favorite comic book characters.