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  1. #1
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    Default Wildstorm Comics

    Who feels that Jim Lee made a terrible mistake in selling his company to DC Comics rather than stepping down as publisher to concentrate on illustrating at the time. I always loved the old Wildstorm Comics format; but when I learned the Jim had sold the company, I thought that it was the beginning of the end as DC Comics would kill off the brand slowly as Marvel had done the Malibu Comics.

    Now that Wildstorm is just a shell of its former self, I would if there's someone out there would consider buying the company back from DC Comics and make the brand independent once again to how it was before it got sold in 1998?

    Afterall, the founder of Saban Entertainment bought back the rights to the Power Rangers from Disney while and investment company got the remains of Valiant Comics from the bankrupt Acclaim Entertainment. I never felt that DC was ever going to do right by Wildstorm at all. The Wildstorm Brand had a lot of untapped potential if only Jim Lee had seen that before selling off his company.

    http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/09/...led-wildstorm/

  2. #2
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    Jim Lee has pretty much run Wildstorm into the ground before DC bought it out. And the books that were produced after that buy-out were nowhere near the quality of storytelling they had been when Wildstorm had been independent. It had been dying a slow death for a long time.

    Then the New 52 appeared. DC trying to incorporate Wildstorm into its main line universe. And that just didn't work. The tones were way different from each other in the first place. As was the type of storytelling. And the mash-up, as expected, was not kind to the Wildstorm properties or to DC.

    Would I like to see Wildstorm as a separate company again? Yes. Because I was a pretty big fan of their books. Much of what they produced made me very happy.

    But the Wildstorm properties deserve to be their own thing.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darrin Kelley View Post
    And the books that were produced after that buy-out were nowhere near the quality of storytelling they had been when Wildstorm had been independent. It had been dying a slow death for a long time.
    That simply isn't true. The Golden Age of Wildstorm was right there in the midst of DC's ownership; Ellis' Planetary and Authority to set the tone, Ennis' Mag. Kev, Casey's Wildcats 3.0, Alan Moore's America's Best line, Brubaker's Sleeper, Ellis' plethora of creator owned stuff (Global Frequency, fo). Previous to that it was an obvious superhero rip off universe, brimming with cliches and devoid of inspiration. Post DC purchase it became THE place for Mature, action-oriented scifi books (in direct contrast to the more ponderous, philosophical and mystical bent of Vertigo).

    Certainly there reached a point of decline, as Marvel began taking a lot of that talent first into the Ultimate Universe (and to a lesser extent, MAX Universe) and then into their mainstream books, and again with the rise of true creator owned material. But the just-bought Wildstorm was far, far better than the drek they were putting out; it became a place of experimentation and innovation, of genre diversity and content diversity. It was built on the back of editors like John Layman, Scott Dubnier and Ben Abernathy.

    Modern Image, though often equated with Vertigo, actually has much more in common with the Wildstorm of that era.

  4. #4
    Astonishing Member Dark-Flux's Avatar
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    Depends on what you mean by mistake. Cos im pretty sure it worked out well for Jim Lee. :P

    But yeah, id agree that the golden age of Wildstorm was pretty much around the time and into the purchase by DC.

    I think its entirely possible that Wildstorm could flourish under DC. It just needs commitment. Good creative teams, freedom from the tight editorial control that plagued the early days of the New 52, and probably to be their own universe/imprint again.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark-Flux View Post
    Depends on what you mean by mistake. Cos im pretty sure it worked out well for Jim Lee. :P

    But yeah, id agree that the golden age of Wildstorm was pretty much around the time and into the purchase by DC.

    I think its entirely possible that Wildstorm could flourish under DC. It just needs commitment. Good creative teams, freedom from the tight editorial control that plagued the early days of the New 52, and probably to be their own universe/imprint again.
    I think that DC should sell Wildstorm with conditions that all of its characters are back to how they were before DC purchased the brand, meaning that the new owners can not use anything that Wildstorm had used during the DC era. It might be better for the brand to be independent once again.

    Did you know that there was a Gen 13 cartoon in the works(Produced by Disney) around the time of the sale of Wildstorm to DC? Because of that, the movie was never distributed in the USA, which was scheduled for release prior to DC buying Wildstorm. This is the part where I said that Jim Lee made a mistake in selling his company to DC, which is own by Time Warner, who are Disney's competitors.

  6. #6
    Astonishing Member Dark-Flux's Avatar
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    why would you want to get rid of all the DC era stuff? Planetary, Authority, DV8, WildCats 3.0, Kev, Tom Strong, Promethea, Top 10, Sleeper etc...
    Thats Wildstorms best stuff...

  7. #7
    Astonishing Member FanboyStranger's Avatar
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    I still maintain the biggest mistake Wildstorm ever made was devolving their universe to your standard superhero generic comics after "Eye of the Storm" didn't work out. Maybe if Grant Morrison had stuck it out with WildCATS and The Authority, it might have worked, but since he didn't, you lost everything progressive and innovative that Wildstorm had become. I guess they were expecting fans to just continue following along, but most of those fans weren't interesting in a backwards progression. I guess if the fans that enjoyed pre-DC Wildstorm had come back, they could have justified the move, but in my opinion, that ship had sailed long ago.

    The sad part is that there was some interesting talent on those book-- DnA, Edgington, Carey, Giffen, etc-- but they weren't allowed to really run wild with their ideas like Ellis, Millar, Casey, Brubaker, and even Micah Wright had been.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark-Flux View Post
    why would you want to get rid of all the DC era stuff? Planetary, Authority, DV8, WildCats 3.0, Kev, Tom Strong, Promethea, Top 10, Sleeper etc...
    Thats Wildstorms best stuff...
    Those titles have ended. If DC sells Wildstorm, everything would be at the point of where it was before The DC era started. As you can see with Valiant Comics, it more or less went back to how it was before Acclaim Comics bought them. Of course, Wildstorm can always create new titles, along with bringing back the old Pre-DC titles.

    Quote Originally Posted by FanboyStranger View Post
    I still maintain the biggest mistake Wildstorm ever made was devolving their universe to your standard superhero generic comics after "Eye of the Storm" didn't work out. Maybe if Grant Morrison had stuck it out with WildCATS and The Authority, it might have worked, but since he didn't, you lost everything progressive and innovative that Wildstorm had become. I guess they were expecting fans to just continue following along, but most of those fans weren't interesting in a backwards progression. I guess if the fans that enjoyed pre-DC Wildstorm had come back, they could have justified the move, but in my opinion, that ship had sailed long ago.

    The sad part is that there was some interesting talent on those book-- DnA, Edgington, Carey, Giffen, etc-- but they weren't allowed to really run wild with their ideas like Ellis, Millar, Casey, Brubaker, and even Micah Wright had been.
    I am sure that if Wildstorm is an independent company once again, they could bring back to old talent creative team back into the fold once again.

    One of the reasons why Image attracted my interest was because of Wildstorm Comics. I would love to see Wildstorm return back into the Image fold once again.
    Last edited by Darthfury78; 03-06-2015 at 12:54 AM.

  9. #9
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    Nothing comes close to the Pre-DC Wildstorm:




  10. #10
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    I have fond memories of some old Image titles and Wildstorm but honestly think rehashing old universes over and over won't do the material any favours.

    A comics renaissance needs fresh stories not reboots!

  11. #11
    Astonishing Member Dark-Flux's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darthfury78 View Post
    Those titles have ended. If DC sells Wildstorm, everything would be at the point of where it was before The DC era started. As you can see with Valiant Comics, it more or less went back to how it was before Acclaim Comics bought them. Of course, Wildstorm can always create new titles, along with bringing back the old Pre-DC titles.
    Newsflash fella; all Wildstorm books have ended. Valiant arnt not going back to the Acclaim era because they cant. Theyre not doing it because (with the exception of Q&W which they are utilising) not much of the Acclaim era was well recieved. Its not worth revisiting.

    Conversly, a lot of the DC era Wildstorm books are considered by many to be the best of Wildstorm. To not capitalise on that would be stupid.
    There nothing to say that is some random group bout Wildstorm back they would have to ignore DC era stuff. Theyd own Wildstorm and therefore presumably all Wildstorm associated IPs.

  12. #12
    Astonishing Member Dark-Flux's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darthfury78 View Post
    Nothing comes close to the Pre-DC Wildstorm:




    Pretty sure Jim Lees X-Men came pretty close. By which i mean was exactly the same thing.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darthfury78 View Post
    Nothing comes close to the Pre-DC Wildstorm:



    Yes, I agree, but not in a positive sense. Thank God Jim got guys like Warren Ellis to give his comics some depth.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by FanboyStranger View Post
    Yes, I agree, but not in a positive sense. Thank God Jim got guys like Warren Ellis to give his comics some depth.
    I think that Jim Lee should have given publishing control to Warren Ellis or a creative management team to handle Wildstorm while he moved on to other things rather than selling the company to DC.

    Just imagine how far Wildstorm might have been today under the right creative management team? Perhaps Jim should have hired Joe Quesada and the guys of Event Comics to run Wildstorm. In a sense, Wildstorm buying Event Comics and bring the team over to the company.
    Last edited by Darthfury78; 03-08-2015 at 12:24 AM.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darthfury78 View Post
    I think that Jim Lee should have given publishing control to Warren Ellis or a creative management team to handle Wildstorm while he moved on to other things rather than selling the company to DC.

    Just imagine how far Wildstorm might have been today under the right creative management team? Perhaps Jim should have hired Joe Quesada and the guys of Event Comics to run Wildstorm. In a sense, Wildstorm buying Event Comics and bring the team over to the company.
    I agree. Or maybe Mac Silvestri/Top Cow since the two have worked together numerous times on Image if it means keeping the Wildstrom characters in the company. Sadly, Jim don't seem to have a problem with how DC is handling those characters as they haven't had a place in the DCU nor have they established anything noteworthy there. Like he's just sitting back and watching them die a slow death. I would love someone from Image to strike some kind of deal with Jim or at least convince him that this was dead on arrival.

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