#wildstorm

Wildcats is my favorite of all the regular Wildstorm series, and these latter day volume 2 issues by Joe Casey and Sean Phillips are some good ones.

The temporary end of Maxine Manchester (Ladytron). What a page.

And a Jim Lee cover! Comic sales and marketing have really shifted towards speculation, manufactured rarity, and collectability, so it feels like a different world where Jim Lee would just do random covers on random books and it wasn't a big deal or a rare variant or some other marketing gimmick.

Since Zealot's death, Grifter has been going around, getting drunk, and picking up whatever lookalikes he can find for a hookup. Of course, Zealot isn't really dead and it looks like she missed him too.

Of course, the real reason she went to him was for help against the Coda assassins that are after her. Heck of a wake-up call. Heck of a reunion. Heck of a comic.

LMAO A Grifter pinup where Whilce Portacio gives him a dump truck. Dayum Grifter, back that thang up.

He's brushing off the gravel from his hair. What a dangerous murder-computer. What a threat to society. What a danger to others and himself. What a merciless psycho-killer.

Time to finish Gen 13 volume 1 :)

The 2000 Gen13 Annual features the Princess Leia's bikini reference that was mandatory in any and all cheesecake media from the mid-80s until like the 2010s. I know cosplayers still do it, but I feel like I don't see it in story so much anymore.

Jim Lee still doing pinups of his faves.

Gen13 66 has a killer lineup of artists doing short stories. Just absolute legends one and all.

And the J Scott Campbell short is where we find out that Grunge is sleeping with Swift (of The Authority) behind Roxy's back.

I still laugh every time they come up with a ridiculous in-story reason for the obvious sexploitation of their characters. "Oh, yes, this is the special uniform we designed for you based on your target's fetishes." I'm sorry, what?

Good Rainmaker cover by Adam Warren.

Ahh yes, the classic 2000s joke "no no, you don't understand, we actually want to sexually objectify a MAN"

That time Rainmaker makes out with Britney Spears

And, in the end, they kill everyone.

The carrier is the only a.i. I trust

The Establishment is another absolutely skippable, forgettable Wildstorm comic - their version of "what if England had its own team of superheroes" - that, like so many other of their early aughts books, focuses way too much on high concept multiverse stuff and being weird and way too little on writing characters and story arcs that engage the readers.

I do like the bit above wherein one of the characters realizes the shape of the multiverse (from Planetary) and proposes making a computer to control it (like Doc Brass and his team did in the late 1930s in Planetary) and is told that would be impossible (50+ years later) so he's like "but wait, I can just use my brain" and, long story short, it really fucks him up.