“The Wild Storm” is back with the start of its second arc, things are getting weird. But are they really “weird,” nobody seems to mind bodies not matching outward appearances besides Angelica. As the cast deals with the fallout, “Wild Storm” begins to shine through with how weird-not weird all of this really is.
Written by Warren EllisCover by Jon Davis-Hunt
Illustrated by Jon Davis-Hunt
Colored by Steve Buccellato
Lettered by Simon Bowland
Jackie King, chief analyst at I.O., tries to make sense of all the pieces scattered across the board since Angela Spica saved Jacob Marlowe’s life. Angela Spica wakes up at Jacob Marlowe’s safe house and starts to realize how far from real life she’s been thrown since then. But life is not slowing down, and Marlowe’s wild covert action team have to extract the last member of their number from an I.O. black site. Meet John Colt—moments before he’s either rescued or murdered or dissected to reveal a secret kept for thousands of years.
With seven issues and one arc under its belt, “The Wild Storm” presents a much clearer picture of what it is. The early talk from writer Warren Ellis about having to rewrite/reimagine the cosmology of Wildstorm (all while potentially being locked up in Jim Lee’s basement) gave the impression “Wild Storm” is a deep state conspiracy title, or as Eugene S. Robinson would put it, “conspiravercy.” And on a certain aesthetic level, with its hyper powerful multinational corporations, secret and rogue intelligence companies, Skywatch, and aliens, it is that. At the same time running through this series, and this issue in particular, is the idea of the mundanity of work. For all of its conspiring aestheticism, “Wild Storm” is a book about the process and functions its characters go through, as they operate or subvert secrete treaties.
The start of “Wild Storm” second arc introduces two new characters to the mix. Jackie King, Chief Analysis for I.O. and John Colt, part of Christopher Marlowe’s WildCAT. I haven’t seen it confirmed, but Jackie King seems like this stories version of Jackson King aka Battalion from the old Wildstorm days. Her position in I.O. is somewhat Weatherman-esque. I am more confident that John Colt is supposed to be the new incarnation of Spartan, considering “John Colt” was an old alias. This bit of trivia aside, it’s how Warren Ellis writes and Jon Davis-Hunt present these characters that shows the mundane aspects of their otherwise glamorous jobs.
Mundanity isn’t created just by a subject matter being considered boring. It is the routine processes that raise these functions to that level. Ellis’s opening sequence with Jackie King highlight a more typically understood mundane set of tasks: the morning routine. Jackie’s routine is normal, she’s hounded by her cat (and history greatest monster) Streaky at all times, before commuting to her super-secret but not extravagant office job at the I.O. office building.
Hunt’s page design in that section and the issue overall are very balanced and symmetrical. Pages tend to be divided into thirds and further subdivided from there, but rarely in a way that disrupts the larger geometric shapes on the page overall. It has the effect of not just making a comic with excellent flow, but a relaxing read. It doesn’t want to the reader to consciously think about how much it is showing off.
Ellis’s dialog gets at the procedural qualities of King and her job. “We are Analysis people. They treat us like nerds and drones but literally nothing in I.O.’s remit happens without us.” She maybe a “drone” but she’s Queen Drone. She than goes on to recap for her drones the broad points summary of the series’ first arc. Normally that sort of maneuver would seems like an utter waste of a page, but here it naturally masks the exposition dump and fits within the broader thematic of the issue. It’s an interesting sequence to include, 7 issues in it is doubtful the series is adding many (if any) new readers. But with the first trade coming out in a month, it’s the kind of moment you could use to sell it on.
Mundanity creates an expectation for lacking the spectacular. The mundane quality of the series isn’t its lack of spectacle, it is the rote processes by which the spectacular is managed that it is created. On a textual level that’s characters like Jamie King going into crisis analysis mode. Or in the case of the freshly introduced John Colt, engaging James Bond, nay, John Wick-mode in a bid to escape from his deep cover work within I.O.
Continued belowEarlier, I mentioned how Hunt’s page design and art doesn’t want you to consciously think about it, his action pages with Colt really test that statement while still reading thematically appropriate. Everything is still balanced, keeping the thirds dynamic, and the perspective gives the reader a clear view of the actions taken as Colt easily dispatches the guards. Describing these 5 pages of action as “storyboarded” is unfair both to the role of storyboards and Hunt’s art, but there is such flow in one page that it reads like the key frames from the animated gif version of this sequence. That easy flow makes everything seem spectacular and cool, but if you look at the expression on Colt’s face it runs counter to that impression. Barring a brief smirk when he knows it’s about to go down, he is emotively stone faced. The ease at which he shoots the guards in their heads with his supped-up Walther PPK, while doing a twisting head scissor, gives the impression he’s been doing this for a while. It is an aerobic sequence, but Hunt’s measured art work makes it seem like just another day in the office. A normally tense sequence rendered with well-trained reflexes.
This measured quality makes “The Wild Storm” an interesting contrast point with Warren Ellis’s prior Wildstorm work like “Stormwatch.” That was a book that could never sit still or have its characters fully believe that their actions were correct. Despite being produced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the various artists really laid into the hyper expressive energy that ran through early Image. By comparison the book Ellis and Hunt have created is positively Zen like. It has all the crazy stuff of original Wildstorm, but funneled through a more contemporary sensibility of methodical detachment. This issue and the methodical approach of the comic overall, reads like an influence from current indie titles like “The Wicked + The Divine.” While the promise of actually explaining some of the particulars to Angela in the next issue promises to add a dose of energy, I doubt it’ll be the 5 Hour Energy binge experience like “Stormwatch.” (Side note, I believe this issue features the first direct reference to the Kherubim.)
Final Verdict: 7.5 – “The Wild Storm” is back and it’s as smooth as ever. Sure, come for the crazy alien stuff but stay for the commentary of banal corporate work.
