Should The Wildstorm Characters Be A Part of The DC Universe?

[Vordan]

Isn't this just the Suicide Squad, Checkmate and numerous other government characters that already exist in the main DC universe?

Nah the Suicide Squad hasn’t done any actual black ops stuff in a while, and they’ve got a different vibe. They’re supervillains forced to work for the government not willing agents, if that sounds too similar to the WildCats for you, than the Titans are too similar to the JL and shouldn’t exist either since both just fight supervillains. Plus the traditional SS doesn’t even EXIST currently.

Checkmate doesn’t DO anything, Bendis tried to make them work but that failed, that organization is irrelevant these days. What we need is a book that defines all the other government agencies in an understandable hierarchy. You have the Wildcats and the Suicide Squad with clear cut boundaries, and the Wildcats should be going up against other government metahuman black ops, basically make the Wildcats part of a metahuman arms race between nations, the superhero as a political thriller essentially. They’re the government’s first resort with the SS being the last resort.

[Agent Z]

Nah the Suicide Squad hasn’t done any actual black ops stuff in a while, and they’ve got a different vibe. They’re supervillains forced to work for the government not willing agents, if that sounds too similar to the WildCats for you, than the Titans are too similar to the JL and shouldn’t exist either since both just fight supervillains. Plus the traditional SS doesn’t even EXIST currently.

Checkmate doesn’t DO anything, Bendis tried to make them work but that failed, that organization is irrelevant these days. What we need is a book that defines all the other government agencies in an understandable hierarchy. You have the Wildcats and the Suicide Squad with clear cut boundaries, and the Wildcats should be going up against other government metahuman black ops, basically make the Wildcats part of a metahuman arms race between nations, the superhero as a political thriller essentially. They’re the government’s first resort with the SS being the last resort.

I feel like it would be better to just write Suicide Squad and Checkmate as black ops books and leave Wildcats to do their thing in their own universe.

[Sutekh]

They would be better off on their own Earth again. They have never really "fit" in the DCU like the Charlton or Marvel family have.

Agreed, and if they were on their own Earth, I feel like we'd have a better chance of seeing some lesser-used characters I liked, like Taboo, Serge or Ladytron. It's not like Midnight and Apollo (and flashes of Grifter and Caitlin Fairchild) were the only characters in the entire Wildstorm catalog!

The same kind of applies to other characters from other worlds. We've seen a bit of Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, but characters like Nightshade languish unused, because the Charlton-verse heroes have to be integrated into all of 'Earth 1's' pre-existing heroes, and gosh, there's a lot of them!

It's not like DC can't have 'Earth 1' heroes have *yearly* crossovers with 'Earth 2' heroes, if they want to, and it's quite possible for one or more canon immigrants to spend more or less time on some other Earth, if there's some story potential there (such as a Booster / Beetle series, which kind of requires a Charlton hero and an 'Earth 1' stalwart to hang out together).

[Vordan]

I feel like it would be better to just write Suicide Squad and Checkmate as black ops books and leave Wildcats to do their thing in their own universe.

People said the same about Milestone but the sales for that have been soft. Hell Ellis did reboot them on their own and I don’t remember the sales being strong for that either. I don’t think there’s much appetite for these characters on their own anymore.

[Uncanny X-Man]

People said the same about Milestone but the sales for that have been soft. Hell Ellis did reboot them on their own and I don’t remember the sales being strong for that either. I don’t think there’s much appetite for these characters on their own anymore.

I thought Ellis' The WildStorm was a sci-fi masterpiece, a brilliant piece of work on how to reboot a dormant property and reinvent concepts and characters for a modern audience ; it was such a bummer that all the series that were supposed to spin-off from it will now never happen. But the readers didn't respond to it at all and sales were abysmal so I would concur with you that interest in these characters on their own is pretty low.

[Timothy Hunter]

Agreed, and if they were on their own Earth, I feel like we'd have a better chance of seeing some lesser-used characters I liked, like Taboo, Serge or Ladytron. It's not like Midnight and Apollo (and flashes of Grifter and Caitlin Fairchild) were the only characters in the entire Wildstorm catalog!

The same kind of applies to other characters from other worlds. We've seen a bit of Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, but characters like Nightshade languish unused, because the Charlton-verse heroes have to be integrated into all of 'Earth 1's' pre-existing heroes, and gosh, there's a lot of them!

It's not like DC can't have 'Earth 1' heroes have *yearly* crossovers with 'Earth 2' heroes, if they want to, and it's quite possible for one or more canon immigrants to spend more or less time on some other Earth, if there's some story potential there (such as a Booster / Beetle series, which kind of requires a Charlton hero and an 'Earth 1' stalwart to hang out together).

You raise a good point. If you put the Wildstorm characters in the DC Universe, writers are more likely to just use the most popular Wildstorm characters because the DCU is already so crowded, neglecting less popular characters who probably would have been given a fairer shake in the Wildstorm Universe.

[Ascended]

People said the same about Milestone but the sales for that have been soft. Hell Ellis did reboot them on their own and I don’t remember the sales being strong for that either. I don’t think there’s much appetite for these characters on their own anymore.

Not in the direct market, no.

Ellis' WildStorm reboot series was indeed amazing. Really damn good stuff, despite the crap sales. And I feel like we're saying that a lot lately; oh the book was so good, I wonder why it didn't sell?

Maybe it didn't sell because the people who would have bought it aren't Wednesday Warriors. Maybe the direct market, at least right now and for the foreseeable future, just isn't going to support anything but the biggest of the big names and all the effort DC and Marvel put into expanding readership should instead be put into carving out a niche for themselves in the OGN/bookstore/Scholastic markets, where stuff other than Batman and Spider-Man have a chance of catching on and succeeding. I mean come on, even Green Lantern can't carry a book anymore. Not too long ago that franchise was five or six books deep, and today? Can't support even one. If the Lanterns can't thrive in this market, what hope does WS have?

Some of the best books the Big 2 have made in recent years can't stay above water in the direct market but do really well in trades, or in Scholastic book orders. Maybe DC and Marvel need to start looking at those markets far more seriously than they have been. If Squirrel Girl can be a sales darling in Scholastic, then why not Gen13? If Watchmen remains an evergreen trade powerhouse decades after publication, why not try a new Planetary in the same market? The Beast Boy/Raven OGN's sell really well, so why not Apollo/Midnighter?

And I dunno if anyone has brought this up yet, but maybe one of the reasons why WS struggles these days is because the entire market caught up with it. You go back fifteen, twenty years, and Authority doing stuff like the uber-violent super fights or sex scenes or having openly gay characters was novel, you didn't see that anywhere else. Today? You see heroes and villains get ripped in half every other story, you see Batman and Catwoman have rooftop sex so often they might as well open an onlyfans page, and publishers, on a regular basis, loudly announce that this character or that one is LBGT. WildStorm *was* cutting edge at the end of the last century, but compared to comics today it's almost standard. The quality, at least during the glory days of WS, was much higher than the typical Big 2 comic of today, but the content? Damn near bland!

Perhaps the WS roster haven't been nerfed and toned down to match DC's sensibilities, perhaps DC's sensibilities have shifted to match what WS was doing and we've all become desensitized to it. It's no longer a rush to see Apollo and Midnighter fight with lethal, gory, overwhelming force because we see that same sorta thing in half the books we read each month. Nobody cares that they're the gay Superman and Batman, because we have "real" Supers and Bats who're LBGT.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I just thought the Wild Storm was a slow burn. It's something you'd binge read rather than pick up month to month. I waited for it to get collected so I figured other fans would do the same.

[skyvolt2000]

People said the same about Milestone but the sales for that have been soft. Hell Ellis did reboot them on their own and I don’t remember the sales being strong for that either. I don’t think there’s much appetite for these characters on their own anymore.

Trade sales say a different story as Ascended pointed out.

Right now on Amazon Static's trade (despite being hardcover) is a top 50 seller for DC while being a top 250 for all comic book trades.
Milestone Compendium is ranked 104 and top 500 overall.

Except for Tom Taylor's Nightwing & Superman (starring the hated Jon Boy Kent) and Tee Franklin's Harley & Ivy book-it's outselling every other single current mainstream DC title including BATMAN title. With a writer folks HATE.
Crime Syndicate, The Next Batman, The Other History of DC Comics, John Ridley Collection, are a better seller than Suicide Squad & Flash.

Oh those Ellis Wildstorm trades....
Doing better on Amazon as trades beating Cyborg, Supergirl, Morrison's Green Lantern and others.
Gen 13's last trade put out in Jan 2022 is doing better Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Aquaman and Justice League (most of it).

Amazon is saying there is an audience and continues to say it every single day.

An Audience that would be happy if DC stopped with the events that hold everyone hostage.

So what are all these books doing that the floppies could NOT do?
That once you choose to ignore the entitled Wednesday Warrior that only thinks CERTAIN books and people should be allowed to do comics-the results are better?

[Sutekh]

You raise a good point. If you put the Wildstorm characters in the DC Universe, writers are more likely to just use the most popular Wildstorm characters because the DCU is already so crowded, neglecting less popular characters who probably would have been given a fairer shake in the Wildstorm Universe.

I feel the same way about a few others. I'm a fan of Milestone characters like Oro, Iron Butterfly and Xombi, for instance, but all I'm likely to ever see from the Milestone-verse is Icon, Rocket and Static. Ditto Nightshade is my favorite of the Charlton heroes (and I have this weird interest in Son of Vulcan), and all we ever see is Blue Beetle (Ted) and Captain Atom, and now, thanks to James Gunn, Peacemaker and Judomaster.

But for Wildstorm, I was a huge fan of Battalion, Winter and Diva, from Stormwatch, the Gen 13 crew as a whole (although I didn't really like any of them individually, weirdly) and various Backlash / Wildcore characters like Taboo and Serge. But DC only seems interested in the Authority members, which were, IMO, introduced at the tail end of the Wildstorm's run, and marked a popular departure from what had come before to a new 'grittier' Ultimates-style writing. I liked the more four-color (less bloodthirsty) characters introduced earlier.

[numberthirty]

I just thought the Wild Storm was a slow burn. It's something you'd binge read rather than pick up month to month. I waited for it to get collected so I figured other fans would do the same.

Politely?

I could not disagree more.

The entire "Project Thunderbook..." arc?

It was a stroke of genius for that arc to give each person involved in the "Project Thunderbook..." experiment an issue of their own in the here and now.

[Agent Z]

People said the same about Milestone but the sales for that have been soft. Hell Ellis did reboot them on their own and I don’t remember the sales being strong for that either. I don’t think there’s much appetite for these characters on their own anymore.

Well, have they sold any better in the main DCU?

[Vordan]

Trade sales say a different story as Ascended pointed out.

Right now on Amazon Static's trade (despite being hardcover) is a top 50 seller for DC while being a top 250 for all comic book trades.
Milestone Compendium is ranked 104 and top 500 overall.

Really? That’s great! It’s been a pain in the ass to try to track digital sales ever since Amazon mauled Comixology to death.

Except for Tom Taylor's Nightwing & Superman (starring the hated Jon Boy Kent) and Tee Franklin's Harley & Ivy book-it's outselling every other single current mainstream DC title including BATMAN title. With a writer folks HATE.
Crime Syndicate, The Next Batman, The Other History of DC Comics, John Ridley Collection, are a better seller than Suicide Squad & Flash.

Oh those Ellis Wildstorm trades....
Doing better on Amazon as trades beating Cyborg, Supergirl, Morrison's Green Lantern and others.
Gen 13's last trade put out in Jan 2022 is doing better Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Aquaman and Justice League (most of it).

Amazon is saying there is an audience and continues to say it every single day.

Hey if all those are selling well that’s encouraging, a lot of those books are ones I’m a fan of personally and was bummed to see them tanking in the direct market. Explains why DC is making such a strong effort to reach markets outside of the direct market (although I also think they need to do more to push DC Universe as a service).

And I dunno if anyone has brought this up yet, but maybe one of the reasons why WS struggles these days is because the entire market caught up with it. You go back fifteen, twenty years, and Authority doing stuff like the uber-violent super fights or sex scenes or having openly gay characters was novel, you didn't see that anywhere else. Today? You see heroes and villains get ripped in half every other story, you see Batman and Catwoman have rooftop sex so often they might as well open an onlyfans page, and publishers, on a regular basis, loudly announce that this character or that one is LBGT. WildStorm *was* cutting edge at the end of the last century, but compared to comics today it's almost standard. The quality, at least during the glory days of WS, was much higher than the typical Big 2 comic of today, but the content? Damn near bland!

I’ve been having similar thoughts. In a world where The Boys and Invincible are major commercial success, stuff like Wildstorm is downright tame. What was edgy and novel is now cookie cutter and safe.

Perhaps the WS roster haven't been nerfed and toned down to match DC's sensibilities, perhaps DC's sensibilities have shifted to match what WS was doing and we've all become desensitized to it. It's no longer a rush to see Apollo and Midnighter fight with lethal, gory, overwhelming force because we see that same sorta thing in half the books we read each month. Nobody cares that they're the gay Superman and Batman, because we have "real" Supers and Bats who're LBGT.

Yeah this is also a factor, when you’ve got Jon and Tim running around do Apollo and Midnighter command the same attention? I think they could, but as members of the Superfamily rather than sectioned off in their own universe. At least they’re being used well in Action Comics right now.

Well, have they sold any better in the main DCU?

I think Midnighter did ok in the DCU, Static absolutely could have been huge but the creative and editorial team they put in charge of that character completely dropped the ball. If the product is garbage it doesn’t matter if it’s on its own or canon it won’t find an audience. But I do think both the Milestone and Wildstorm characters could fit in the DCU just like the Charlton characters did. Icon would easily fit in as a JSA member who went into hiding after the JSA fell apart for example. Static was going to be a Titan and is in YJ, hell the YJ show includes both Milestone and Wildstorm character and it works (mostly).

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Politely?

I could not disagree more.

The entire "Project Thunderbook..." arc?

It was a stroke of genius for that arc to give each person involved in the "Project Thunderbook..." experiment an issue of their own in the here and now.

That was volume 3. By that time people would've made up their minds about trade waiting or not. I liked it but I read it in trade just the same.

[Thor-Ul]

Honestly I prefer the Wildstorm character in their own universe. Make them emigrate to the maid DC universe it causes a lot of them loses several key elements.
But I admuit than certain adaptation could work better than others but tha t depends to much on the writers.