Bendix is coming.
And that is bad… Your Major Spoilers review of The Wild Storm #6 awaits!
THE WILD STORM #6
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Jon Davis Hunt
Colorist: Steve Buccellato and John Kalisz
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Editor: Marie Javins
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in The Wild Storm: “Michael Cray, the world’s best professional killer, is going to get himself killed for refusing to assassinate an innocent. Angela Spica, whose only mistake was saving someone’s life, is discovering that her life is over forever, and that the people in this strange new world she’s forced to survive in… may not be people at all. Treaties have been breached. Secrets are being told. There’s a war coming…”
“THE ACTUAL POWER STRUCTURE ON EARTH…”
This issue picks up where we left off, with Michael Cray and Christine Trelane in Cray’s apartment, as something comes knocking at the door. Cray pulls his gun and calls out that he’s not dressed in preparation for a fight…
…and then the most amazing sequence of art and action I’ve seen in some time commences. Jon Davis-Hunt makes serious magic (aided by stellar coloring), showing us why Cray is such a force to be reckoned with. The action sequence actually takes up the first half of the issue, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous or overworked, delivering some serious bang and/or story for the buck. Once he’s dispatched his attackers, Cray accepts Trelane job offer. Elsewhere, Angie Spica, The Engineer, is teleported to Jake Marlowe’s safe-house where she is given another Warren Ellis staple: Conspiratorial world-building. Marlowe explains how I/O is the actual reigning power in the world, how Skywatch exists as a separate power structure… Oh, and how he’s not actually human at all.
INCREDIBLE ACTION SEQUENCES
That reveal, by the way, shown through Angie’s scanning equipment, is just dead solid perfect storytelling, followed by Henry Bendix tracing her implants to realize that someone has been stealing from him, vowing to rain fire from heaven to punish Angie. This issue manages to take things that I already knew (like Marlowe/Emp being an alien Kherubim or Bendix being an irredeemable jerk) and revealing them so skillfully that it all feels like new information. There’s also a sequence with Void that is creepier than anything we’ve ever seen from her, which also wipes away my worries that she’s not as weird as she used to be. Ellis crafts a compelling story with realistic characters in the midst of what should seem ridiculous and over-the-top, but instead feels grounded and immediate, like the best action movies.
THE BOTTOM LINE: IT’S A KEEPER
In short, if you ever wondered how the silliness of WildCATs and Stormwatch could be turned into chilling, suspenseful, action-filled excellence, look no further than these pages. (Having the book be a planned 24-issue run with, presumably, and ending doesn’t hurt.) The Wild Storm #5, aside from sounding like an easy-listening radio station, delivers action, reveals mysteries and shows us a new side of some familiar characters, earning a well-deserved 4 out of 5 stars overall. Whether you remember the Wildstorm books fondly or not, this is some really good comic booking…
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