My "Wildstorm: Then and Now" article

[grifter78]

Here is an article I did for retrojunk.com where I basically give an overview of the Wildstorm Universe from it’s beginning to its current direction. I did this to help new people interested in Wildstorm to get an overview of where the company has been. In the interest of not making it too long I did leave some things out but tried to cover many of the key things that happened to the company over the years. Please excuse the awkward format that retrojunk uses for its articles. It does not allow the pictures to be lined up with the text. Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/3738/

[The Xenos]

Wow. That brings back some memories. Very nice retrospective. Opps. I was gonna mention you forgot to mention when they actually got sold to DC, but looking again, I found where you said it. Though you did forget the interesting issue that the DC bosses took offense at The Boys and they had to shop that book to another publisher.

I can't find that old thread about Wildstorm's current status, so I guess here's a good place to make the comment. Is anyone else weirded out that DC is using Wildstorm as a media tie in whore studio? I'm rather bothered by this. There are almost more movie and TV tie ins than there are original Wildstorm titles. Certainly WildStorm Universe titles are outnumbered this month. We have four of those copared to like 8 media tie ins.

We have Chuck (tv), Mirror's Edge (game), Push (movie), Gear of War (game), Fringe (tv), two Word of War Craft books (game), and an X-Files comic. Oh and I hear news that Wildstorm studios is being farmed out to work on the new Batman Arkham Asylum game. Plus you got founder Jim Lee working on DC's damn DCU online MMO game and maybe occasionally working on Miller's All Star Batman book.

What the hell happened to Wildstorm? I'm rather not interested in this post apocalyptic world they're in now. I missed the buzz and crossover, so I'm not bothering continuing the books. Nevermind most creators don't seem interested. How many Wildstorm reboots does DC expect fans to follow? DC gave us a neat sounding one with Morrison in the lead, but then those books tanked and eventually the other creators, namely Gail Simone, left those books.

Aside from Ex Machina and this Storming Paradise mini, I'm totally lost on Wildstorm. Plus the way they're farming out Wildstorm as DC's media apation department dilutes the line even more. Couldn't DC create a new DC imprint for that instead of laying that on Wildstorm's logo?

Plus, hey, what happened to Crimson and Out There, some fantastic books from Humberto Ramos from the Cliffhanger sub-imprint? They seem to be out of print.

Man, I remember Wildstorm being a source of pure amazement. Sleeper. Planetary. Authority. All those Cliffhanger books. Classic Gen 13. ABC Comics from Alan Moore.

Persoanlly, I wonder if DC is sabotaging its own imprint in favor of its other lines of books. Wildstorm is the bastard stepchild they have no idea what to do with.