Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Tim Sale

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Deathblow #10-12

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deathblow_010_17[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today’s scheduled reading was Deathblow #10-12, the end of the initial mega-arc of the title.

The first twelve issues of Deathblow are about how anyone can decide to be a hero but no one gets to choose the kind of hero they get to be.

Michael Cray is a mercenary – maybe the most-efficient and cold-blooded mercenary of all of Team 7. He just wants to be dropped into places where he can remove bad men from the world until he, too, shuffles off of this mortal coil.

Fate has something different in store for Cray and for his ex-wife Gaby, Sister Mary, Faisal, Grifter, Backlash, and Dane. They all get to be heroes in this story, but none get to walk the straight path they intended.

I should mention that this story “doesn’t count,” in that all but one or two of its bloody outcomes are reversed by the final page of Deathblow #12. I really hate stories that don’t count, no matter how cool they are (which is why I have so much trouble with DC Comics … but that’s another post entirely).

I didn’t really hate Deathblow. It’s disappointing that Jim Lee and Brandon Choi couldn’t conceive of a story with stakes this high that could stick, but Deathblow himself is changed by it and maybe that’s all that matters.

At times I thought I was bored with the tale, but each time I was almost lost Choi and Sale brought me back with an awesome moment. Travis strips Sister Mary of her plethora of weapons. Gaby melting from angelic host to human right before Michael Cray’s eyes. Famine and War casually striding across New York City landmarks.

deathblow_012_17Despite Deathblow being rooted in Team 7 machismo and Jim Lee’s awesome specimens of human biology, at points Sale and colorist Linda Medley are pushing its visual identity into territory like Sin City, Hellboy, or even Sandman purely through the power of their bold, minimal artwork – which allows them to shock us with panels like the colorful entry of the Team 7 calvary at the end of issue #10.

Then, Sale performs his best magic trick, turning Grifter, Backlash, and Cray into beautiful modern art on the page in issue #11 as they square off against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and then with the Black Angel himself, until Michael Cray is the only thing left between this world and the apocalypse.

deathblow_010Before we can get there, Cray needs to have his reckoning with Travis in Deathblow #10, his former operator who was secretly a serial killer.

This is the one facet of the plot that I couldn’t get behind. The idea of Herod, a methodical killer only after the special children who might make a difference in this world, is the sort of hook you could hang an entire title on.

To see him get tossed away as a mini-boss in this saga while the issue reached a crescendo with the introduction of the Horsement felt like it wasted all of the subtle build-up to his reveal as a villain, even if he proved to be the climax of Gaby’s plot. Choi had the perfect chance to reset his capture with the big rewind at the end of the story but left his plot neatly resolved for the moment. We’ll see if there’s anything as good in store with the next arc.

Tdeathblow_011hen, in Deathblow #11, the core surviving foursome of Team 7 spread out across the city to try to intercept the Horsemen.

This is not your typical good vs. evil, love vs. hate sort of fight (not that anything in Deathblow has been that). Grifter, Backlash, and Dane aren’t good men who fight for right. They’re also not exactly the four most-powerful characters we’ve met so far in WildStorm. Yet, they share Cray’s theme of trying to
find a way to remain heroes no matter how twisted their lives become. They each get their trademark moment of cool, but seem to be no match for their supernatural foes.

However, Deathblow manages to overcome Death himself by simply shattering his Seal of the Apocalypse. Of course, he uses his special Sword of Heaven to do it, but maybe the other members might have a shot using their Genesis powers?

deathblow_012Everything goes to hell in Deathblow #12. The Team 7 men each eliminate their Horsemen but each pay an awful price for it. Deathblow and his rag tag team of cops and holy men storm the top of the World Trade Center only to be methodically cut down by the horse of demons there (even after Faisal turns out to be the Archangel Raphael, who does a doozy on the Black Angel).

Then, just as Deathblow is about to succumb, the ragged remains of Team 7 storm the roof only to be disintegrated by the Antichrist … but, it’s just the opportunity and inspiration that Deathblow needs to make his, erm, well, his deathblow, if we’re being honest.

 Cue the massive rewind using the energies the Black Angel siphoned off of Christopher. The boy funnels them back into the very fabric of reality, ironing out the tens of thousands of ripples caused by the Black Angel’s machinations going all the way back to the Baghdad plot in the initial four issues.

One thing he cannot correct is Gaby’s death, as really she had been dead for two years now while acting as the host of an angel. Christopher just doesn’t have the juice to iron out the kinks that far back. It sucks to see the one real female character in the series triple-fridged (her original death, he death in #11, and then her death sticking in #12) to literally absolve Michael Cray and give him some closure. As with Herod, it seems like we could have a more interesting series with her alive.

Despite my frustration about taking my favorite two supporting characters out of the story, therein lies the answer to why this isn’t a typical “it doesn’t count” story. Sure, all the world-shattering consequences were reversed, but all that things that broke Michael Cray remain in place. All of the personal consequences of his journey from dying mercenary to an absolved man remained consequential – maybe even moreso considering how the rest of the world around him and Sister Mary stayed relatively the same.

I just hope that an amazing story comes from it, because in giving away their rewind button Jim Lee, Brandon Choi, and the departing Tim Sale made sure that Deathblow can’t ever go back to being another book about a merc. Now Deathblow’s mission comes with a capital “M,” and it has to move on after this spectacular mic drop of evocative, challenging, actual art from Sale and Linda Medley.

Need the issues? Deathblow #0-12 were collected in a 1999 TPB titled “Sinners and Saints.” DC issued a revised, expanded, and re-ordered HC and TPB of #0-12 that both are still readily available. For single issues try eBay (#10-12) or Amazon (#10, 11, 12) – and note that Amazon offers these issues digitally(!) through Comixology.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we’ll finally learn the mysteries of Team 7 with their first eponymous miniseries (and then on to post-Lee WildCATs, the 2nd arc of Wetworks, and Warblade miniseries plus a Grifter one-shot!)

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Deathblow (1993) #5-9

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today we’re back to Deathblow, which I found to be wildly uneven on our last go-round. Now, Tim Sale has taken control of the artwork with Brandon Choi still scripting. Is the change enough to flip my opinion on the book?

Before we begin, a quick mea culpa: Lynch is still with IO in this arc, so this should’ve been read before Gen13. Oops! In fact, it might occur entirely between Gen13 #1 and #3 given the time that elapses and based on Lynch departing #9 directly for Gen13 #3. This arc also happens after Stormwatch #9, which means the arrival of the time traveller in Gen13 #1/2 misses Stormwatch #9 by at least a week.

deathblow_007Deathblow is different than all of the other WildStorm books. It’s not just the desaturated colors or the religious overtones, but the small cast combined with sense that the plot is paramount. It feels as though the story might keep heaving onward even if Deathblow decided not to show up. At points in this arc it feels like he’s an anchor dragging behind the good versus evil aspects of the story, until the final pages of issue #9 manage to reel him in.

All of the plot points teased in issues #1-4 collapse into a single story here – Deathblow’s faith and his cancer, Travis’s untrustworthiness, the miracle boy in Philadelphia, the Black Angel, the Order of the Cross, and more. They felt like a lot of random information, but it turns out they’re all part of the same plot.

There’s an inherent tension between the scenes with Deathblow, terse and rippling with muscle, and the supernatural plot, which could be ripped straight from… well, Supernatural, to use a modern example. The sense that Deathblow himself isn’t of this paranormal world is tangible, even as we learn those closest to him have already been inducted.

Add to that the constant suspense of how Deathblow’s Gen-Active powers will present themselves (aside from being impervious to gun shots and stab wounds, that is), and this mystery has suddenly become almost as much as a page-turner as Stormwatch.

This leads me to marvel at the incredible powers of Brandon Choi, perhaps for the 15th day in a row. This man was plotting the entire WildStorm Universe, with each book wildly different in style than the last. Choi really settles in to the terse vibe of Deathblow here. It feels like it has its own voice moreso than the initial run.

Now the permanent artist (save for covers), Tim Sale imbues the book the sort of stark, crime noir look it’s needed all along. He deploys Lee’s style of fine detail only when warranted. While you’ll immediately be yearning for Jim Lee’s over-the-top version of Deathblow himself just because it looked so damned good, everything else about the book is a better fit for the story. Seen through a noir lens, it all makes more sense.

New with issue #6, colorist Linda Medley keeps the desaturated color palette but loses the sickly photo-negative greenish cast. This could be hindsight talking, but digital colors pull attention away from Tim Sale’s stately art. What I wouldn’t give to see a modern colorist like Matt Hollingsworth apply a vintage palette and lack of gradients to these issues. They deserve even plainer colors and starker contrast.

By the end of the arc, all of our characters (including a nun cop, the angel of death, and Director Lynch!) converge on a convent outside of Philadelphia for a bloody battle that entirely alters the course of Deathblow’s life – and definitely his comic book!

I’m not sure if I should recommend this book to you or not! Choi and Sale have made a remarkable turnaround with this arc, but I won’t be sure it was worth the ride until we see how it begins to be resolved.

Need the issues? Deathblow #5-9 (and on through #12) were collected in a 1999 TPB titled “Sinners and Saints.” DC issued a revised, expanded, and re-ordered HC and TPB of #0-12 that both are still readily available. For single issues try eBay (#5-9) or Amazon (#5, 6, 7, 8, 9) – and note that Amazon offers these issues digitally(!) through Comixology.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow we’re back to Stormwatch (already!) with #11-13.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Deathblow #0-4

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[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]deathblow_000Deathblow was the third book in Jim Lee’s trio of WildStorm launch titles, introducing his own analog to The Punisher – one of his famous runs as a penciller at Marvel in the late 80s.

(The character was first introduced in a brief tale in the anthology Darker Image, although that story doesn’t track directly to the beginning of the series and would  be completed in a #0 issue.)

Deathblow would later coalesce into a remarkably gripping story, but at its introduction the book was a mere footnote to WildStorm’s pair of flagship teams. That’s due to a staggered publishing schedule and four short, disconnected issues that don’t feel like they had Lee and scripter Brandon Choi’s full focus.

That’s puzzling, as Deathblow begins with the most traditional opening arc of all three of the initial WildStorm titles. We get time to linger on our anti-hero and his relationships before being plunged into action. Why isn’t it satisfying?

At this early stage of their independence, Lee and Choi didn’t know how to deliver information while keeping a story in motion. As a result, the first three chapters of the story feel like prologue, while the brief action sequence and bizarre twist in the fourth hardly pays off all the set-up.

While the story was a muddle, Deathblow remains notable as a rare example of Jim Lee inking himself. The style is striking. It retains all of the dynamics of Lee’s typical work, but drapes them in shadows and negative space. It’s a much more dark, rough-hewn look than his typically sharp pencils. It almost suggests Frank Miller or Jae Lee’s inky style. Jim Lee also plays with silhouettes and reversing out foreground details in a single color from the backdrop.

The unusual style is emphasized by a desaturated color palette of grays and greens. Most characters are colored as pale white ghosts or sickly yellow specters. Any hints of red are reserved for the lines under Deathblow’s eyes, religious imagery, and bursts of occasional violence. It’s a bold, memorable choice, but the early days of digital color don’t do it full justice. The high contrast looks smudged where colors meet, and inexact gradients swallow up Lee’s penwork.

Tim Sale takes over finishes duty over Lee’s layouts in the third issue. Sale isn’t as detail-obsessed as Lee, and as he settles into his simpler style the art begins to gel more with the early digital colors. This would coalesce into a beautiful, minimalist look that would last through issue #12, though Lee would continue providing misleading hyper-detailed covers

There’s little to recommend this early run, which reads like the worst of everything Image was accused of in its early days. Even if the between-issue delays are invisible to us now, the stories are short, incoherent, and try to push as many “cool” and” x-treme!” buttons as they can in their brief page count.

Want the play-by-play? I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of Dark Image, Deathblow #1-4, and #0 below. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow I tackle WildC.A.T.s Special #1 and WildC.A.T.s Trilogy #1-3.

Need the issues? Deathblow #1-4 (and on through #12) was collected in a 1999 TPB titled “Sinners and Saints.” DC issued a revised, expanded, and re-ordered HC and TPB of #0-12 that are still readily available. For single issues try eBay (Darker Image & #0-4) or Amazon (Darker Image, #0, 1, 2, 3, 4)
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