Deathblow and Wolverine #1 (September, 1998)
Story & Breakdowns - Aron Wiesenfeld
Finishes - Richard Bennett
Colors - Monica Bennett
Letters - Mike Heisler
Computer Colors - BAD @$$
Design - Greg Brotherton
Assistant Editor - ERT
Editor - Tom Harrington
Cover Price: $2.50
Here's a book I never knew existed! Let's take a look at that time back in the 80's when Logan and Michael Cray hung out in Chinatown!
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We open in San Francisco, 1982... and man, I love this art already! Wolverine is heading in to visit a lady friend named Sung, who is in rather poor spirits at the moment. Ya see, she went to visit her mother... and her mother didn't even recognize her. Logan attempts to comfort her... and says that this can happen as people get older. She asks him to accompany her back, and he agrees.
Logan and Sung head back over... and he is surprised to see just how lucid Sung's mother is... chatty, friendly... just a real sweetheart. This is when Sung informs him that her mother has never spoken English before!
Suddenly, the worm turns... Sung's mother backhands her... and, like they usually do, a ninja bursts through the window... and slashes Sung's mother right across her belly! She slumps to the ground.
Wolverine shouts to Sung to get outta dodge... and she begrudgingly does. Then he gets thrown out the window... and hits the Chinatown street amid a sea of arrows.
He runs through what looks like it might be a Chinese New Year festival... right past, er into... our man, Michael Cray... Deathblow!
Wolverine gets attacked by even more ninjas... and winds up collapsing. Cray stands before Logan's body and begins firing on the ninjas.
He loads Wolverine into his convertible and drives away, shaking ninjas off with each turn. He tells Logan he's going to take him to the hospital. Wolvie... pops his claws in response. Might be best not to take him there. Before he can tell Cray where he'd like to be dropped off, Wolverine... falls asleep.
And so, Cray decides to take his passenger back to his place. While Wolverine is kayoed, Cray looks through his belongings... and finds something most curious: A letter addressed to him, from Logan and Sung's address!
Wolverine begins to stir, and Cray begins with the questions. Unfortunately, before he can get any answer... more ninjas! Cray is forcefully ejected from his home... which is then destroyed when a car drives through it.
Wolverine and Cray fight off the ninjas, like they do... and decide to head back to Logan's home address. Upon arrival... he doesn't find Sung, instead there's a creepy fella in a top hat!
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What a fun little romp this was!
I gotta admit, I know next to nothing about Michael Cray... other than, I think he was cloned a whole helluva lot back in the day... but, what we see of him here is a pretty cool character. I'm pretty sure my main takeaway for him is his lamenting the loss of his house... just seemed like such a sad-sack reaction to having a bunch of ninjas descend upon one's home.
Wolverine was... Wolverine. This was before their were X-Men movies, so Marvel hadn't yet spilled the beans on every little bit of his history (in attempt to beat the studios to the punch), so it could stand to reason that... sure, Logan and Cray met up in 1982 San Francisco. It seemed like Logan knew everybody anyway... so really, what's the harm?
As for the story... there's not a whole heckuva lot to sink our teeth into. We know that there's something going on with Sung... and somehow she's in the middle of the mystery. That, and there were a whole lot of disposable ninjas roaming the streets of San Francisco.
Where this issue shines, for me... is the art. It's pretty glorious stuff! Worth the price of the issue alone!
Overall... a weird little miniseries, that I didn't even know existed until I found this issue in a cheap-o bin. It's one I will be keeping an eye out for... and I'd recommend others do the same!
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WildStorm! #1 (August, 1995)
Story - Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, Aron Wiesenfeld & Simon Furman
Art - Walter Simonson, Aron Wiesenfeld & Alan Im
Inks - Dan Panosian
Colors - Joe Chiodo, Wendy Fouts & WildStorm FX
Letters - John Workman, Mike Heisler, Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Editorial Coordinator - Amy Zimand
Assistant Editor - Mike Heisler
Editor - Jonathan Peterson
Just when I thought I was done with WildStorm stuff... I was digging through my longboxes and came across this mid-90's oddity. I'd completely forgotten that such a thing even existed... and I'm almost 100% certain that I filed it away some years back without even cracking the cover.
Anyhoo... since I'm kind of on a WildStorm kick at the moment, figure now is as good a time as any to check this bugger out.
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We open with our pals Grunge and Roxy as they wait at a San Diego airport for a "package". A couple cross their path with a complaining child. Grunge thinks the tot's the poster child for birth control, while he appears to make Roxy's biological clock tick a bit louder. The family sits at the gate... and they all fall asleep. It is at this point that a pair of baddies decide to snatch the kid.
Grunge and Roxy spring into action... and give chase. The couple loads the child into a waiting helicopter. Roxy launches herself up... which causes the male baddie to start firing his gun... directly into the propeller. Roxy is able to rescue the kid just before the helicopter goes boom.
Back on the ground, our Gen-Active pals return their potentially Gen-Active bounty to his parents. Turns out the baddies were kidnapping him for his potential powers... and did not harm the parents in hope that they'd continue to populate the world with "special" offspring. Roxy tells dad to vamoose... the baddies think the boy is dead, and it's best to let them continue to think that way.
Our next story opens with a tattooed naked man walking through a museum. With the eyes of the passers-by upon him, he wanders past an exhibit featuring a warrior's armor. Next thing we know, he's in full warrior garb and he's taken possession of a police officer's horse.
He continues through the city... and here's where we meet Deathblow. He's sitting in traffic in his slovenly kept car... suddenly his windshield gets demolished.
On the street, the naked warrior man continues his curious travels... an officer opens fire in his direction. This proves to be a pretty big mistake, as without even breaking a sweat, our man trots by and chops off the officer's hand. As his mad dash hits a full-on gallop, the horse is tripped up by a staff.
Why, it's animal-lover extraordinaire... Deathblow... and he's ticked off about his windshield. Must not have full glass coverage... I keep tellin' him, it's only pennies on the dollar to add it.
Our (thankfully) final tale features WildC.A.T.S member, Spartan. He's staking out a shipping facility in Virginia... and finds himself attacked by some armored goons.
They fight for a bit before exchanging stories with the only armored guy without a helmet... Santini. It appears that this facility may house something called H-K Units... that's Hunter-Killers to normies like us. This is really a tough one to follow... not "new" reader friendly in the slightest... you'd almost figure one of the purposes of an anthology book is to provide readers with an introduction to a wide array of characters. That certainly is not the case here.
Anyhoo... Santini and the gang get into the facility and set explosive charges on a wall... when they go boom some members of the new generation of Hunter-Killers emerge... guns blasting. Ooookay.
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Well... this was... something.
Really can't say that I enjoyed any of this... I'm really not even sure what the purpose of an anthology like this would have been at the time. I mean, we get a Gen¹³ story, a Deathblow story, and a WildC.A.T.S story... when all three had ongoing titles at this point. Not really sure what necessitated this...
The Roxy and Grunge bit was kind of just there... not really bad, but nothing that couldn't have been included in the ongoing series. I gotta say, I did a bit of a double take when I saw that Walt Simonson was on art... it doesn't look anything like his work... least not to me.
The Deathblow piece was enjoyable in that it was something of a novelty... a black and white story was not what I was expecting. It looked pretty neat... really dug the art style, but I couldn't get into the story. The Spartan story... was kind of difficult to follow and wasn't interesting enough for me to even try.
I'm wondering if this was published as some sort of copyright protection on the word "WildStorm"... that's the only real reason I can think of. Anyhoo... overall, I was very disappointed by this and cannot recommend hunting it down.
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