The Wild Storm #1 - Mobile Edition

DC Comics
The Wild Storm #1
By Hervé St-Louis
February 16, 2017 - 08:54

DC Comics
Writer(s): Warren Ellis
Artist(s): John Davis–Hunt
Colourist(s): Ivan Plascencia
Letterer(s): Simn Bowland
Cover Artist(s): John Davis–Hunt; Tula Lotay; Jim Lee, Alex Sinclair
$3.99

I think that The Wild Storm is a reboot of the Wild Storm universe but it may not include Midnighter and Apollo who have their own series elsewhere and seem fully integrated within the main DC Comics universe. Zealot comes from a mission where she had to deal with some sort of deviant, violently. As the clean-up team arrives, many characters are introduced. Elsewhere, the Engineer saves a rich tech mogul targeted by Zealot’s team. Is the Engineer I trouble?

I have never read Wild Storm books and know the characters introduced in WildCats superficially. It’s a good comic but I can’t name any of the characters to save my life and I think that I should care more but I don’t. So typical long-live technology business genius patterned after Steve Jobs is somehow a threat to humanity. And the one man who wants to stop him is having coffee with his husband when the Engineer comes by begging for more independence for her current project. The rival to the Steve Jobs clone is her boss.

While this comic is well-written with interesting characters I cannot be bothered to check their names, it says something about how much I want to read more of this. The Steve Jobs business type has been done too many times in comics and elsewhere. We get it, he’s the ultimate possible villain or Utopian hero. His presence in comics and other forms of fiction says a lot about how much people need heroes for the post-modern world we live in. We don’t really want super heroes. We want Jobs.

I’ve read all of these things before and that’s why I don’t want to care about this comic. Just because it is well assembled, it doesn’t mean that it is good. Much of it relies on knowing who the characters were before and how they have been translated in this brand new universe. Yes, another story of a world which has never been exposed to super heroes.

The artwork inked digitally represents the best of what American comics can do to match European comics. Artist John Davis –Hunt follows a tight nine panel/three panel- level composition per page. With the pastel colouring, this comic feels like a European book. It’s a darn gorgeous book. One criticism is that the black and red cover does not convey the tone and mood of the interior art. It feels like the editor and colourist decide to paste a traditional American cover on an American comic that was for a European look inside. It’s quite odd.

Rating: 8.5/10