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By Alan Moore & various (WildStorm)
ISBN: 1-84576-617-2
A few weeks back I moaned that a short Moore WildC.A.T.S tale (in Alan Moore: Wild Worlds – ISBN 1-84576-661-X) was confusing, out-of context and shouldn’t be there. Well I’m happy to report that the tremendous power I wield in the comics world has been of some use as it’s also in this volume covering the writer’s tenure on Jim Lee’s flagship WildStorm titles (issues # 21-34 and #50, previously collected as WildC.A.T.S: Homecoming in 1998 WildC.A.T.S: Gang War, 1999), where it belongs.
Seriously though, this companion volume traces a nearly three year’s worth of drama and adventure illustrated by the likes of Travis Charest, Kevin McGuire, Ryan Benjamin, Jason Johnson, Dave Johnson, Kevin Nowlan, Scott Clark, Aron Wiesenfeld, Mat Broome, Pat Lee, Rob Stotz and even Jim Lee plus a horde of inkers and colourists and combines cosmic drama with bloody super war in the streets of New York.
Believing the original team killed in a space battle, Superman knock-off Majestic forms a new team of heroes to fight the good fight, but with a more pragmatic strategy – getting the villains before they commit any crimes or mayhem. Despite the sound logic the situation deteriorates into an all-out war between criminals, and even rival teams of good guys. Is it all simply bad luck or is there another agenda in play?
Meanwhile the original team aren’t really dead. With their powers coming from genetic mingling of two alien races that had battled for millennia, the heroes had no idea what to expect when they made planet fall on the home-world of the good guys. They certainly didn’t expect that the intergalactic war that spawned them was long concluded and nobody had bothered to tell the combatants on Earth.
What seems like a benevolent paradise, however, is anything but…
Alan Moore’s deft hand with superheroes is somewhat lacking in these tales, although I suspect much of that could be simply that the stripped down, posturing Image art-style doesn’t leave him his accustomed room to develop the characters – and I suspect that once or twice what he scripted didn’t get drawn at all! There are an awful lot of big, vacuous full-body poses and action shots in this book.
Another point of potential confusion is the inclusion of two –but only two – chapters of the company crossover event ‘Fire from Heaven’ and as those are parts 7 and 13, there’s little chance of getting the big picture no matter how hard Moore tries to cover with expository dialogue.
Perhaps a trifle hard going for the completist Moore fans, and not that great for the die-hard super-crowd either.
© 2007 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.