RIP Wildstorm Comics

[samurainoir]

How DC Comics Killed Wildstorm Bleeding Cool Comic Book News and Rumors

A real shame, but not unexpected. DC got what they needed out of it... which is primarily Jim Lee and another boat load of Alan Moore trades they can pimp.

Out of all the Image imprints, they probably squeezed the most quality out of the nineties glut. Home to Alan Moore's run on WildCATS and his ABC line of books, Warren Ellis' Stormwatch/Authority, Busiek's Astrocity and Arrowsmith, Danger Girl/Gen 13 by J Scott Campbell, Leave it to Chance, Ex Machina, Geoff Johns and Liam Sharp's Possessed, The Boys (for two seconds).

They even published one of my favourite all time titles, Strangers in Paradise for a short time! In colour to boot.

It's just a little less diversity of product at DC Comics as a result.

[The Toyroom]

I can't tell you the last time I read something with the Wildstorm imprint....

[Random Axe]

Terrific business move. Trim the fat and rebuild the bottom line.

I know it comes at the expense of some favorite titles of MM'rs here, but this should have been seen coming for a while. I never really had any interest in them, but I did dig Majestic for a short while. I think they will revisit this in a couple of years once DC Entertainment has had the opportunity to see what their main properties can accomplish.

Jim Lee might be in mourning, but his drive to the bank to deposit his paycheck will make him feel better.

Scott

[LonnieFisher]

Marvel did it to Malibu.

[Random Axe]

Marvel did it to Malibu.

Malibu had some good books. PRIME! HARDCASE! NIGHTMAN!

I have no idea how receptive I'd be if I were to go back and re-read those titles, but I loved them in 1995 or so. Those couls be some cool customs too.

Scott

[LadyZod]

While DC did do away with the Wildstorm imprint, they did not kill it. Most of the characters and titles seemed to be folded into the main DC Multiverse. They even brought back some of the Milestone characters and folded them in.

No reason to keep separate imprints when the characters can still exist in their own universe within the main DC Multiverse.

Marvel tried to do that with Malibu and ended up just doing away with the characters after a false start. It's like they just gave up... meanwhile, DC has actually used one of the main concepts from Wildstorm, the Bleed in their crappy Final Crisis.

That at least goes to show they do have an intent to keep the concepts and characters alive.

[BlackKnight]

I'm probably about the only Damn Person on this Forum that was a Huge Fan of Wildstorm in the 90's.

Books Like Team-7, BackLash, WildC.A.T.S. and Gen-13 were just too cool to me ... I was also in my Teens when they came out, and the look of characters like WarBlade, Union and Grifter were some of the neatest designs I had saw.


With that being said, I can't bring myself to even get involved with any of the titles since the recent merg launch. I think the whole thing was handled wrong and was a complete abortion since the 1st book, when Lee drew the 1st issue on WildC.A.T.S. ( again ) but never returned.

[samurainoir]

Malibu had some good books. PRIME! HARDCASE! NIGHTMAN!

I have no idea how receptive I'd be if I were to go back and re-read those titles, but I loved them in 1995 or so. Those couls be some cool customs too.

Scott

They did have some great talent on those books.

George Perez was firing on all cylinders while he was doing Ultraforce, particularly those Warren Ellis Avengers crossover issues. He really was on fire after falling down with the War of the Gods/Infinity Gauntlet debacles.

Firearm a favourite of mine. James Robinson was just starting to hit his creative marks around this time.

Prime was a great re-invention of the Captain Marvel concept, particularly since Gerard Jones admits himself that he was just going through the motions at his DC workload at that time.

Steve Gerber seemed to find his second wind as well with Sludge and Nightman.

[samurainoir]

I think Wildstorm was pretty much a mercy killing since all their books were on life support and that they seemed to make it company policy to alienate their biggest talent pool from Alan Moore through to Warren Ellis, Mark Miller, Frank Quitely, Art Adams, Darick Robertson, and Garth Ennis.

I don't doubt that DC will find a way to exploit any of the characters and titles that still have a fanbase at some point.

The only book I was reading these days was Ex Machina and that's coming to an end.

My understanding of the licensed movie/TV/videogame/Warner properties had some degree of success. I was enjoying the Fringe tie in prequel, and I understand that video game adaptation Gears of War was one of the best selling comics that no one had ever heard about. These are just as easily serviced with a DC bullet on them.

Whatever trades are worth keeping in print won't suffer from rebranding with a DC logo. Now that Alan Moore is long gone, no need to worry about separating Wildstorm from the DC imprint when it comes to keeping the ABC books in print. I'm sure we'll have another round of the same old same old when Tom Strong, Promethia et al inevitably get green lit as movies.

[samurainoir]

They even brought back some of the Milestone characters and folded them in.

Former Milestone EIC/owner Dwayne McDuffie has some choice words about how that turned out!

[samurainoir]

We'll see what happens. They don't want the A-list talent on Wildstorm books as we see with their shuffling of Grant Morrison from The Authority and WildCats.

After taking the comics scene by storm nearly 20 years ago, the WildStorm Universe titles will end this December. In this soft marketplace, these characters need a break to regroup and redefine what made them once unique and cutting edge. While these will be the final issues published under the WildStorm imprint, it will not be the last we will see of many of these heroes. We, along with Geoff Johns, have a lot of exciting plans for these amazing characters, so stay tuned. Going forward, WildStorm’s licensed titles and kids comics will now be published under the DC banner.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I think most of the Image/Imagerelated/Image associated imprints died a LONG time ago.... right around the time all the founders went back the the then Big 2. Seems like a lot of 'em were around just to farm out labour to other companies, or as holding companies for different copyrights.

Don C.

[boynightwing]

Gen-13 was one of my favorites growing up. I hope DC will bring them back at some future date. I did start reading the revamp and got about 20 issues in (I think?) when I stopped. I only stopped because I had to make some cut backs.

I think though if I had to choose between Batman Inc. and Gen-13, I would buy Gen-13.

[kingdom warrior]

YAY!!!!! dollars comics to wipe my butt with......

[ctc]

>dollars comics to wipe my butt with

Too gritty. And grim; but I'm not sure that would matter.

Don C.