StormWatch volume One

By Warren Ellis, Tom Raney & Randy Elliott, with Michael Ryan, Jim Lee & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3420-1 (HC)                    978-1-4012-3421-8 (TPB)

StormWatch evolved out of the creative revolution which saw big name creators abandon the major “work-for-hire” publishers and set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed.

As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles the series started with a certain verve and flair but soon bogged down for a lack of ideas and outside help was called in to save the sinking ships.

Dedicated Iconoclast Warren Ellis took over the cumbersome series with issue #37 and immediately began brutalizing the title into something not only worth reading but within an unfeasibly brief time produced a dark, edgy and genuinely thought-provoking examination of heroism, free will, the use and abuse of power and ultimate personal responsibility. Making the book uniquely his, StormWatch became unmissable reading as the series slowly evolved itself out of existence, to be reborn as the eye-popping, mind-boggling anti-hero phenomenon The Authority.

And now of course, the entire rebellious pack have been subsumed by the big corporate colossi they were reacting against. Some things never change…

StormWatch was a vast United Nations-sponsored Special Crisis Intervention unit tasked with managing superhuman menaces with national or international ramifications and global threats, operating under the oversight of a UN committee. They were housed in “Skywatch”: a futuristic space station in geosynchronous orbit above the planet and could only act upon specific request of a member nation.

The multinational taskforce comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, technical support units, historians and researchers, detention technicians, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes all supporting a band of deputised superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals.

The whole affair was controlled by incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

Referencing a host of fantasy classics ranging from T.HU.N.D.E.R. Agents and Justice League of America to Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet and even Star Trek: The Next Generation, this initial archival collection (available in hardback, softcover and digital editions) collects issues #37-47 of the comicbook series and describes how the aftermath of a team-member dying forces Bendix to re-evaluate his mission: seeking more effective ways to police the growing paranormal population and the national governments apparently determined to exterminate or exploit them…

The restructuring begins in ‘New World Order’ (by Ellis, Tom Raney & Randy Elliott) as, following the funeral of the fallen comrade, Bendix fires a large number of the superhuman contingent and recruits a trio of new “posthuman” heroes: electric warrior Jenny Sparks, extra-terrestrially augmented detective Jack Hawksmoor and psycho-killer Rose Tattoo.

Weatherman’s own chain-of-command has altered too: his new superiors in the UN Special Security Council are all anonymous now and, with the world in constant peril, they have given Bendix carte blanche. He will succeed or fail all on his own…

The super-agents are further restructured: StormWatch Prime is the name of the regular, public-facing metahuman team, whilst Black is the code for a new covert insertion unit.

StormWatch Red comprises the most powerful and deadly agents: they will handle “deterrent display and retaliation” – preventing crises by scaring the bejeezus out of potential hostiles…

Meanwhile in Germany, as all the admin gets signed off, a madman has unleashed a weaponized superhuman maniac to spreading death, destruction and disease. Whilst new Prime Unit deals with it Bendix shows the monster’s creator just how far he is prepared to go to preserve order on the planet below…

‘Reprisal’ is a murder investigation. No sooner has one of the redundant ex-StormWatch operatives arrived home than he is assassinated and Jack Hawksmoor, Irish ex-cop Hellstrike and pyrokine Fahrenheit‘s subsequent investigation reveals the kill was officially instigated by a friendly government and StormWatch member-state…

Hawksmoor, Jenny Sparks and aerial avenger Swift are dispatched to an ordinary American town with a big secret in ‘Black’ as Amnesty International reports reveal that some US police forces are engaging in systematic human rights abuse.

In Lincoln City they’re also building their own metahuman soldiers and testing them on ethnic minorities…

‘Mutagen’ sees the Prime team in action in Britain after terrorists release an airborne pathogen to waft its monstrous way across the Home Counties, turning humans into ghastly freaks for whom death is a quick and welcome mercy.

As Skywatch’s Hammerstrike Squadron performs a sterilising bombing run over outraged Albion, StormWatch Red arrives in the villains’ homeland to teach them the error of their ways…

In this continuum most superhumans are the result of exposure to a comet which narrowly missed the Earth, irradiating a significant proportion of humanity with power-potential. These “Seedlings’” abilities usually lie dormant until an event triggers them.

StormWatch believed they had a monopoly on posthumans who could trigger others in the form of special agent Christine Trelane, but when she investigates a new potential meta, she discovers proof of another ‘Activator’ (illustrated by Michael Ryan & Elliott).

Coming closer to solving a long-running mystery regarding where the American Government is getting its new human weapons, Trelane first has to deal with the worst kind of seedling… a bad one…

Raney returns and the Ellis Experiment continues with spectacular action set-piece ‘KodÇ’’ from #42. Japan shudders and reels under telekinetic assault courtesy of cruelly conjoined artificial mutants bred by a backward-looking doomsday-cult messiah. The Prime team is dispatched to save lives and hunt down the instigators in a good old-fashioned, get-the-bad-guys romp which gives the team’s multi-faceted Japanese hero Fuji a chance to shine…

By this time the comics world was paying close attention as “just another high-priced team-book” became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power.

Making the title unquestionably his plaything, Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority. The transition hit high gear with the following tales: short, hard looks at individual cast members

The incisive explorations begin with ‘Jack Hawksmoor’: a human subjected to decades of surgical manipulation by aliens to become the avatar of cities. Drawn to the scene of a serial killer’s grotesque excesses, Jack uncovers a festering government cover-up which reaches deep into the soul of American idolatry: implicating one the culture’s most revered idols and threatening to rip the country apart if exposed.

Nevertheless, the apparently untouchable murderer will never cease his slaughter-campaign unless someone stops him…

‘Jenny Sparks’ follows the cynical Englishwoman whose electrical powers were an expression of her metaphysical status as incarnate “Spirit of the Twentieth Century”: proffering a captivating pastiche of fantasy through the last hundred years as the jaded hero recounts her life story (see also Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority).

This dazzling series of pastiches references Siegel & Shuster, Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare, Kirby, Crumb and the horrors of Thatcherite Britain in a gripping tale of betrayal…

Terse thriller ‘Battalion’ then sees StormWatch’s normally non-operational, behind-the-scenes trainer fall into a supremacist terror-plot whilst on leave in Alabama. To survive, he’s forced to call on skills and abilities he never thought he’d need again…

‘Rose Tattoo’ was a mute and mysterious sexy super psycho-killer recruited by Bendix as a walking ultimate sanction. When her super-powered team-mates go on a hilarious alcoholic bonding exercise, she finally shows her true nature in a tale which foreshadows an upcoming crisis for the entire team… and planet.

Following Raney & Elliot’s sterling run Jim Lee & Richard Bennett illustrate the concluding ‘Assembly’ as Bendix sends his core team into the very pits of Hell in a bombastic action-packed shocker that acts as a “jumping-on point” for new readers and a reminder of what StormWatch is and does… preparatory to Ellis kicking the props out from under the readership in the next volume…

Also on show are a concluding gallery of covers and variants by Raney & Elliott, Gil Kane & Tom Palmer and Mark Erwin.

Artfully blending the comfortably traditional with the radically daring, these transitional tales offered a new view of the Fights ‘n’ Tights scene that tantalised jaded readers and led the way to the groundbreaking phenomenon of the Authority, Planetary and later iconoclastic advances.

Raney & Elliott’s art is competent and mercifully underplayed – a real treat considering some of the excessive visual flourishes of the Image Era – but the real focus of attention is always the brusque “sod you” True Brit writing which trashes all the treasured ideoliths of superhero comics to such devastating effect.

This is superb action-based comics drama: cynical, darkly satirical, anarchic, alternately rip-roaringly funny and chilling in its examination of Real Politik but never forgetting that deep down we all really want to see the baddies get a good solid smack in the mouth…

These now relatively vintage tales celebrate the best of what has gone before whilst kicking in the doors to a bleaker more compelling tomorrow.
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