Category: WSU

Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #3

“Homecoming-Part 3: An Armor of History” (No Spoilers)

Gail Simone is a true master of the story telling device “the plot thickens”. This is only the 3rd issue of this mini-series and she has packed so much story into this series so far. She is also doing a great job of balancing all the characters which is no easy task with an ensemble cast.

The story behind the villain of this story could have easily been written off as a cliché. But Simone takes us down some dark places as we see the true nature of this villain. We also find out pretty quick how he got this way. This new character she’s introduced is really powerful and it leads to some disturbing uses of his powers. This issue is really about him as the other characters can do little else but be reactive to the events unfolding before them.

The Authority #26

“Genociety” (No Spoilers)

The Authority continues their space odyssey which turns into a space nightmare in this issue. Tom Taylor has taken us through some great science fiction during his run and he throws in a little science horror now.

I can tell artist Al Barrionuevo had a lot of fun designing some of the alien creatures we see in this issue. I especially like the fact that none of them are humanoid. The team has traveled so far out in space now these things should not even know what a human is (or should they?). That’s another great thing about the story that’s unfolding here is Taylor keeps piling on the mysteries (including a very interesting one with Swift) even as we get some answers.

Wildcats #26

“Desert Storms” (No Spoilers)

Wow! If you are a long time Wildstorm fan like me there are a ton of references and appearances in here that will make you giddy! Much like Christos Gage did in his run, Adam Beechen is finding great ways to incorporate old characters we haven’t seen in years.

Beechen is still juggling several stories but for the most part we get two stories here with two distinct themes. One is the more epic story involving the mysterious character Aeon and the majority of the other heroes. But the second is a more personal story as Warblade takes the nurse who helped him when he was wounded and they go to Earth to find her family. In the midst of all the grandness of the Aeon story, the Warblade story is more down to Earth and very human. I hope your heart is prepared for the outcome.

The Authority: The Lost Year #12

“Reality” (No Spoilers)

Here we are finally and so ends half (looking at you Wildcats) of the redemption for Worldstorm and this titled which had been put on hold since Grant Morrison left it in 2006. It has been a bumpy ride to say the least but it is very interesting how they chose to end this.

All of you who have been following our coverage of this title know that for the most part we’ve been really frustrated with it. Morrison had a strong start when he worked on it, so when Keith Giffen was announced to take it over it seemed like a good fit. Giffen, after all, had already written these characters several times. But somewhere along the way, it seemed that this series as a whole just started to fall apart. One thing that was evident was the story arcs were way too short. There were several alternate worlds that the team visited that were really cool but only lasted two issues. This led to a lot of great set up being resolved super fast in order to move on to the next alternate reality.