Review: Welcome to Tranquility Part Three of Four

Sorry for the short delay. I meant to get this review up yesterday but I ran out of time. In this entry I'll be reviewing Welcome to Tranquility issues 7-12. I'll remind you once again, there will be spoilers. So if you don't want anything spoiled please don't read this entry. These issues were written once again by Gail Simone and Neil Googe did pencils (with the exception of the backup stories).

Gail Simone opened up this story arc by quickly showing the aftermath of what happened in the previous six issues of Tranquility. We see the tombstone for Mr. Articulate and we see our surviving characters from the previous story arc getting on with their lives and it appears the town is mostly back to normal. It also appears we've only gone forward in time only a few days since the sixth issue. After seeing Zeke and Bad Dog in the cemetry talking about the dead Colonel and his graveyard arrangements we see Sheriff Lindo getting ready to leave the town lockup where we see Emoticon behind bars. Emoticon is obviously serving time for his role in the death of Mr. Articulate but he appears to have changed a little bit while serving behind bars. He even shows the Sheriff a little bit of respect.

After leaving lockup, Sheriff Lindo goes to the movies by herself and while at the movies we see the Gen13 team has shown up in Tranquility and Emoticon has been broken out of jail. Shortly after the breakout we find out the town might be developing a bit of a zombie problem.

After meeting our zombie friend we get a few backup stories to help share the history of some of our main characters. We get a backup with Emoticon and Pink Bunny at the diner before he got his emote mask and a second Pink Bunny backup of her fighting and killing Hellkitten after a pretty intense fight. The third one is of little Sheriff Lindo back when she was just a little girl beating the snot out of a boy who started talking trash about Lindo's family. Facing family problems at home and being convinced that the Sheriff at the time is racist, we see Lindo and her sister hotwire Sheriff Presley's (Deputy Presley in present time) personal car. Lindo drives the car off the road and the Sheriff catches up with the two girls and shows compassion and even says he won't tell their mother if they do chores at the police station. At this point it appears little Lindo starts to calm down about her situation and begins to build a positive relationship with the Sheriff.

We also get a story about how Zeke became a zombie. Apparently he was a talented young singer with a guitar that got turned into what he is by a guy named The Host. After Zeke's story we get guess what? That's right, another blast from the past when we find out how Emoticon got his mask. Emoticon tried to rob an old man that has a farm but got caught by the farmer. After being captured by the old man, we see Emoticon reveal that the old man is his grandfather and Emoticon was trying to steal money from him. The old man quickly accepts that he could be Emoticon's grandfather and caused a horrible tragedy that gave Emoticon his mask.

After getting all this wonderful backstory we go back to the present at the hospital where we see our crazy-eyed doctor checking out the zombie body for the Police Department. While examining the body the zombie heals itself and wakes back up attacking Sheriff Lindo, the doctor and the Deputy Presley. Presley basically blew the zombie away and we see The Host visit Zeke at the graveyard after Lindo and Presley debate what Zeke will do with the potential zombie uprising in town.

We quickly see what side Zeke takes as the Host really upsets Zeke by killing his pet snake. One thing leads to the next and after some more backup stories we see The Host visiting Emoticon and his grandfather who broke him out of jail. The Host proposes the three of them form a trinity after Zeke turned The Host down.

While the potential bad guy trinity is talking the hospital, diner and graveyard all become overrun with zombies. The fighting really picks up and we have Maximum Man, Pink Bunny, the police, Gen13 and more all wrapped up in combat with the zombies on multiple fronts. At the diner, Pink Bunny sends her workers to hide and barricade themselves in the walk-in refrigerator while she fights alongside a zombie Mr. Articulate against the other zombies. Unfortunately in the fight, Mr. Articulate literally loses his head and Pink Bunny is quickly defeated.

In the heat of battle, Emoticon decides he needs to change sides and no longer backs The Host or his grandfather. Let's just say the kid finally grew a spine and allied with the Tranquility heroes. The heroes battle the zombies, Emticon's grandfather and The Host and eventually win.

Now for my opinions, first I want to say this was another brilliant installment to the Tranquility series and I will definitely buy future Gail Simone Tranquility stories. She once again left no real holes in the story which is really saying something considering how complex she makes everything with tons of different characters and stories going at once. At the same time, one could argue that she might have tried to do too much (which is also how I felt with her first story arc in issues 1 thru 6) with too many characters. Tranquility is such a great and interesting town with a lot going on but I feel like she uses too many characters that aren't really needed to advance the story.

Zombies are almost always great in comics and this story was no exception. It was especially fun seeing Mr. Articulate and Astral Man back in zombie form. Other things I really enjoyed was learning more about Emoticon, Sheriff Lindo, Deputy Presley and Zeke especially. As much as I enjoyed the various backup stories though, I feel like we got too many of them. It goes back to my thoughts of trying to do too much with too many characters.

Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest) I give this story arc a 9. There were parts I enjoyed more than in issues 1 thru 6 but I thought 1 thru 6 had a more tightly knit story overall. For me this arc beat out the first arc in action and the art was as good as ever (which is expected since Googe did the pencils for all these issues with the exception of backup stories) I just think that where I deduct a point is having all the backup stories and frankly, I felt like the same story could have been told (maybe even better told) with 2 or 3 less backups. Sometimes less is more. I would have been happier if we got more of what was happening in the present and less of what was happening in the past.

I have one review left for the Tranquility series. I plan on doing my review for the Tranquility: Armageddon issue next week. In the meantime, I'll be reading some old mid 90's Wildstorm books including the Gen13 mini series, WildC.A.T.S issues 20-25 and the first Grifter ongoing series (10 issues). Maybe once Tranquility is wrapped up I'll blog about some of Alan Moore's WildC.A.T.S run or the Gen13 mini series. I also plan to talk about Wildstorm's recent announcement about what is being planned for Grant Morrison's Authority and Wildcats runs in the very near future. I'll try and work that into my next entry later this week.

Review: Welcome to Tranquility Part Two of Four

As promised I'm now going to review Welcome to Tranquility issues 1-6. Before I get into detail I want to tell you that this is going to be a pretty in-depth review so there will be spoilers. If you don't want anything spoiled for you it would be a good idea to skip this entry. I'm not going to go over every single page and panel but I will give a pretty good overview of what happens managing to leave out just a few details to enhance your reading experience (there's a twist or two I won't go into). You've been warned!

The story starts with a group of aged heroes sitting in a local diner being served by a young girl named Leona who is apparently the grandchild of a hero named Slapjack. As the aged heroes are talking to Leona we meet the woman running the diner, Suze, the Pink Bunny. After the brief diner intro we are taken back in time to meet the Liberty Squad who are on vacation in a place called Peaceful Woods. This was brilliant as we got several pages of introduction for many of the aged heroes living in Tranquility in their prime. We meet Judge Fury, Astral Man, Bad Dog, Maxi-Man, Pink Bunny and Colonel Cragg.

After their short story where the Liberty Squad defeated the gladbots and Henry Hate we go back to the present and meet Minxy Millions after we get a quick introduction to her character in her prime. Minxy crashes her plane right into Tranquility almost killing the sheriff and a couple journalists being escorted around the town by Sheriff Lindo working on a story. After the crash we see Maxi-Man walking down the street approaching the Sheriff and asking if she has a Pakistani dictionary. The Sheriff tells Maxi-Man she doesn't. After this we find out from the Sheriff that Maxi-Man is one of the most powerful heroes and that he has a secret word that allows him to change from accountant into superhero instantly. There's one problem though. Maxi-Man has forgotten the word that allows him to change and that's why he is reading out of dictionaries hoping he stumbles across his word at some point.

We now go back to the diner which is basically setting the state for the rest of the story arc. A thug going by the name of Emoticon shows up in the diner with his crew looking to stir the pot so to speak and Emoticon and his thugs fight against the locals in the diner and somehow in the heat of the moment Mr. Articulate who was hanging out with his elderly superhero friends at the diner is stabbed and dies soon after.

After the stabbing we get to see what appears to be a cover for some kind of tabloid that's called The Tattler which shows Mr. Articulate naked under a blanket lying in the morgue. On the cover of the tabloid it reads, "The Great Voice Silenced! Mr. Articulate Sleuths No More! Death or Deception-- Could He Yet Live?" and then you see a picture of Midnighter on the bottom of the page with more headlines reading, "Was He or Wasn't He? One Former Lover Speaks, and it's a He!" Personally I thought this was hilarious as it was poking fun at Midnighter's sexuality as he is a homosexual (in case you didn't know, Midnighter and Apollo have been lovers for quite some time).

After we see a maxi doctor examing Mr. Articulate's body and the Tattler journalist snooping around the hospital we skip forward to Sheriff Lindo questioning Emoticon. Lindo quickly learns Emoticon couldn't have committed the actual murder because he has a visor on his head that won't allow him to lie as the visor makes emote images.

As the story continues we learn that Leona has been holding back with some information, The Tattler journalist is still working on his story and we also learn the Mayor is definitely a bit of a hot head and may not be all that he seems. By about halfway through the six issue arc one is led to believe that Leona is the key to solving the murder mystery but she is very reluctant to pass on any information to Sheriff Lindo or anyone else.

Probably my favorite part of the series is when the Liberty Snots are formally introduced after seeing ads for The Authority and Timelost Teens (Gen13). Gail Simone really had some clever ideas to try and fit this story in with the Wildstorm universe without actually incorporating most of the Wildstorm universe. It's pretty impressive to see her touch on all these other titles without actually including them in the arc. We learn from the introduction of The Liberty Snots that they are basically the grandkids of the towns aging icon heroes. We see that Leona is a member of the team, called Ajita as well as new characters Silicon Stiletto, M-T, Freeksho, Mangacide and Leona's boyfriend, Sweet Sally. Yes, that's right...a guy going by the name of Sweet Sally. I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't supposed to like Sweet Sally early on and these kids seem pretty "emo" sporting mostly black threads and wearing make-up.

As it becomes more and more clear that Leona isn't telling all to the Sheriff, Lindo pays Leona a visit and everything building up inside of Leona drives her to the edge and she tries to commit suicide but fails and is taken to the hospital. The Sheriff tries to keep Leona's mom from seeing her as she knows it will only upset Leona even more and while all this is going on, The Liberty Snots plan to break in to take Leona as they also aren't allowed to see her. While all this is happening we find out that one of the journalists that nearly died in the plane crash has been murdered in town (making reference to the journalists that were almost killed by Minxy near the beginning of the story- the journalists were still running around town looking for information while the Sheriff was off trying to solve the murder).

Sheriff Lindo brings Emoticon back in for more question as she feels he was more involved in the murder than he initially let on. He obviously didn't commit the murder himself but he knew who did. Before Lindo can finish her questioning The Liberty Snots make their move blowing a gigantic hole into the side of the hospital saying they get their teamate or they will burn everyone in the hospital.

The police fight off The Liberty Snots and and the Mayor shows his true colors when he attacks Pink Bunny to get to the living journalist in his diner (the journalist was under Pink Bunny's protection from request of Sheriff Lindo). After The Liberty Snots and the police come to a peaceful resolution at the hospital Lindo gets a call from a beat up Pink Bunny saying The Mayor is the bad guy.

At this point basically everybody is terrified of The Mayor and don't know how to stop him when Henry Hate shows up and reveals to Maxi-Man (his long time foe and friend) that he knows his secret word. After getting his secret word back we get Maxi-Man fighting The Mayor. While Maxi-Man fights The Mayor, Sheriff Lindo enlists many of the towns retired heroes and villains to aid him. With the whole town backing Maxi-Man up, The Mayor is taken down.

Before all this happens it's revealed that Colonel Cragg is with The Mayor and he plans his own attack on the town. While most of the town was off fighting The Mayor, Minxy and her co pilot who happens to be Lindo's sister, saves the town from an aerial attack from Cragg. Apparently the whole plot from start to finish was over what ended up being a sort of fountain of youth for the town. Different parties had conflicting thoughts on what to do with the fountain and their situation and one thing led to another.

The good news at the end is Leona wasn't directly involved in any of the murders but it turns out she felt so guilty because she was in a position to stop the murder of Mr. Articulate as she has the ability to insanely fast (you can compare her abilities to The Flash from DC Comics). Everything moves so slow for her in real time that she easily spotted what was going on but didn't do anything to stop her friend, Mr. Articulate from dying for personal and selfish reasons.

Overall, I give this arc (on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest) a 9.5. The art is fantastic for the story and Gail Simone threw in a lot of fun little nuggets while telling a great original story. I only deducted half a point because I felt like she threw a little too much out there too fast. I think she could have told this story with a couple less characters. This was the kind of story where you could jump in and read without knowing anything as it was a brand new concept, town and group of characters for Wildstorm but she overcomplicated things probably a little bit more than she had to, at least for me.

Personally, I had a strong feeling that The Mayor was involved one way or another very early on and it made sense to me but I felt like there was no reason to have a second traitor like Cragg thrown in the mix. I was also a little underwhelmed with Leona's involvement in all this. With her trying to commit suicide and all this plot buliding up around her character you'd think there would have been a little bit more to what happened beyond just not stopping it for selfish reasons.

Wildstorm in April

Hey guys, today I am going to take the time to discuss what's coming out next month from Wildstorm. Later this weekend I will be doing Part Two of my four part review of Welcome to Tranquility. April is an exciting month with lots of new product coming out and we also get a special bonus week for releases as we have five Wednesdays in the month of April.

Kicking the month off, The Authority #9 comes out on 4/1. Also coming out on 4/1 is the final issue of the Mirror's Edge limited series and a big bonus for 4/1 is the DC/Wildstorm Dreamwar trade paperback which I will definitely be picking up. Dreamwar was a six issue miniseries written by Keith Giffen with art by Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott. I haven't read this story yet as I had been waiting for the trade but I plan on reviewing it in this blog sometime in the future.

Wrapping up the busy week of 4/1 we have Prototype #1 (of 6) and the Resident Evil: Fire and Ice tradepaperback.

Unfortunately, with 4/1 being such a heavy week all we get the week of 4/8 is Gen13 #29 and Resident Evil #2 (of 6). Things pick up again on 4/15 with World of Warcraft #18, The X-Files #6 (of 7), Mysterius Unfathomable #4 (of 6) and the Casey Blue: Beyond Tomorrow trade paperback. Going into 4/22 we have Wildcats #10 and Ex Machina #41.

4/29 is going to be a busy week with Fringe #4 (of 6), Gears of War #6, Resistance #5 (of 6) and Supernatural: Rising Son gets the trade paperback treatment.

All said, April is going to be a busy month as World's End continues and we're starting to see a lot of limited series coming to an end. We're also starting to see more and more books get the trade paperback treatment which excites me. The past few months have been relatively slow for new trades coming out from Wildstorm. Hopefully this is the start of a new trend.

With more and more readers switching to the trade format it's important for Wildstorm to cater to many of these customers by providing excitement and good jumping on points for their titles. It's clear that the imprint has had great success with licensed properties as of late but without help from trade paperback sales I don't think World's End will catch on and grow sales with the mainstream comic community anytime in the near future.

It's my understanding that we will see some trades for Wildcats and The Authority later this summer. Part of why there's been such a long wait is that the World's End issues are only 18 pages instead of 22 because we currently get 4 pages of back up stories. That said, it sounds like if you want to get the back up stories you have to buy the single issues unless Wildstorm decides to somehow collect these stories in the future. I think it would be cool if someday they collected all the back ups in one collection. Not everybody gets the four titles a month and I'm sure a lot of people ignore the back ups as they know they won't be getting the next part of the story because they aren't buying the title it's found in.

WSU Fandom

Hopefully everyone has had a nice relaxing weekend so far. Up here in Minneapolis it's still pretty cold but we haven't had snow in over a week and it's slowly warming up so I'm feeling pretty optimistic. In celebration of the warming weather it's time to celebrate the fandom of Wildstorm comics.

Today I'm going to focus on five things in the Wildstorm fandom. First off is going to be an obvious choice, the official Wildstorm forums.

(Link: http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/category.jspa?categoryID=6 )

There's nothing particularly special about this forum but it's a great place to talk for free about your favorite Wildstorm books with other fans. I am picking this board in particular first because it's official and also there's not nearly enough activity on these boards at times. I think one way to help make the folks over at DC pay more attention to it's Wildstorm fans is by getting more fans on their forums showing there's interest in the Wildstorm books. If you're all about the internet forums without wanting to post on sites full of crazies (like Newsarama) make an account and start posting if you haven't done so already!

Next up, I want to tell you about The Comic Forums.

(Link: http://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2/ )

The Comic Forums aren't Wildstorm specific. They are simply comic specific. But it's a great culture on these boards and you can talk about just about anything comic related with hundreds of other comic fans from across the world.

One great aspect with these forums is you can do more than just talk about comics. You can also make threads to buy, sell and trade books and there's many podcasts featured on the forums, including the infamous Comic Geek Speak podcast. Comic Geek Speak has covered some Wildstorm titles in the past, including a Book of the Month Club episode focusing on The Authority v.1 by Warren Ellis. It's a great episode to listen to if you're into podcasts and have considered picking up these issues in the past.

With nearly 5,000 registered accounts you can't go wrong posting on The Comic Forums. Not only can you talk to fellow comic fans on this site but also creators and publishers. You can learn about a lot of indie books especially that you may not necessarily read or hear about elsewhere.

Next up I want to talk about the Eye of the Storm podcast. Eye of the Storm is a podcast that's been put on by a gentleman going by the name of Franky De Jesus. He started the podcast at the beginning of 2008 recording episodes consistently throughout the winter and spring of 2008. He went on hiatus in the summer and fall and recorded his most recent episode in December of 2008.

The podcast isn't perfect but when Franky was active he gave us what we needed with solicitations and in-depth interviews. I think the best way to encourage Franky to put out more episodes more often is to download his episodes (episodes 2 through 7 can be found on iTunes by searching for Eye of the Storm under podcasts). If you have any compliments of criticisms please write a review about his podcast on iTunes. To this day I am the only guy who has written a review for Franky. I'm hoping with enough downloads and comments he will be more encouraged to get active again. Even if he doesn't the episodes are worth listening to for his Armageddon reviews.

Wildstorm definitely needs a larger presence in the world of podcasting. With over 100 active comics related podcasts out there we have very few that ever focus on anything Wildstorm related. I'm now going to shift focus on another podcast that covers Wildstorm at times that's much more active than Eye of the Storm and that podcast is Raging Bullets.

Raging Bullets is a podcast that focused on DC Comics which of course includes the Vertigo and Wildstorm imprints (you can find it by searching Raging Bullets in the podcast section of iTunes). Even though it's not specifically for Wildstorm they cover quite a bit to make Wildstorm fans consider listening to them. With over 160 episodes put out regularly it's a great show to check out if you have the time to listen to them. I mention having the time to listen to them because their shows can be very long (most comics podcasts in my experience are 45-90 minutes on average, Raging Bullets can go 2-3 hours). If you aren't interested in the entire podcast you can always look at shownotes and fast forward to sections that may interest you.

Keep in mind with podcasts, you don't have to have an iPod or pay any money to enjoy them. iTunes is free for everyone to download and you don't have to have an iPod to sync your podcasts to. So if you're ever just sitting at your computer and browsing the internet you can always browse while listening to your favorite podcasts.

I'm saving the best for last and what's last is the Wildstorm Resource Wiki.
(Link: http://wildstormresource.wetpaint.com/?t=anon )

I'm not going to talk about this website much but I just had to link it as it's a wonderful site. Please check it out and participate. Make an account and help promote your favorite books and characters! If you want to know more about the Wildstorm Resource Wiki click the link and check out the goodness! Remember, for a Wiki to work there needs to be people like you and me helping add information to it to make it a wonderful site. A special thanks go to Grifter78 and Wildstorm Resource for modding and providing the site for us fans.

Review: Welcome to Tranquility Part One of Four

Today I'm starting to review Welcome to Tranquility (issues 1 thru 12 and Welcome to Tranquility: Armageddon one-shot). I'm splitting this review into four posts for the sake of not making one giant post that nobody will read that's a bazillion paragraphs long. Sometime next week I plan to put up Part Two and the following week Part Three with the Part Four finale one week later.

The first twelve issues make up the Welcome to Tranquility limited series which was written by Gail Simone (currently writer of Secret Six and Wonder Woman and previously writer of Birds of Prey and Gen13). Neil Googe was the main artist for the twelve issue mini series issues. Carrie Strachan and Travis Lanham provided colors and letters, respectively. Welcome to Tranquility: Armageddon was writen by Christos Gage with art by Neil Googe and Horacio Domingues. Carrie Strachan and Travis Lanham provided colors and letters once again. Welcome to Tranquility was created by Gail Simone.

If you don't already have the issues you can pick up the Book One trade paperback that has issues 1-6 collected with a Worldstorm Preview Story. The trade is priced at $19.99 USD. Book Two is another trade that has issues 7-12 collected and is also priced at $19.99 USD. Welcome to Tranquility: Armageddon can be found in the Wildstorm: Armageddon trade paperback which collects all the Armageddon one-shots written by Christos Gage priced at $17.99 USD. If you want go to cheaper or if you prefer single issues I imagine most of these issues can be found in a dollar box at some local comic shops.

Without going into every single detail (that would make this blog how long!?) I'll give you the necessary information to get through the storyline and hopefully get you to where you feel like you got the information you would like from me or maybe even get you to go out and buy it at the store if you don't have it already. Best way to support a book publisher is to buy the books, right? That said, I also understand we're all going through tough times right now economically and we can't just walk into a store and buy whatever we want whenever we want. If you don't have the desire or the budget to buy this title that's perfectly fine. Part of why I am writing this blog is to help bridge the gap for the people that don't have the time or the money to be buying and reading all these books. With the internet it's gotten much easier to follow a comic publisher without buying all the comics. Between forums, podcasts and blogs it's now easier than ever to keep up with everything.

Let's start with the introduction written on the back of the trade which reads:

"Tranquility is like any other small town in America, except for one fundamental difference-it's the town where super-powered beings go in order to retire and raise families. From the Golden Age to the Modern Age, heroes and villains alike reside in Tranquility, and it creates a unique blend of personalities and conflicts that causes the local law enforcement nothing but headaches. As a camera crew is in town to film a news segment on this unique place, the town is turned upside down by a murder...and it becomes evident that all isn't as quaint as it seems!"

In Part Two I'll cover issues 1-6, in Part Three I'll cover issues 7-12 and in Part Four I'll finish up with Welcome to Tranquility: Armageddon and a wrap-up.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming reviews and if you have an idea for a future review feel free to leave a comment! After Tranquility I was thinking about going back to the beginning of Wildstorm and doing the WildC.A.T.S Trilogy or the WildC.A.T.S/Cyberforce crossover.

In my next post I plan to focus on the small but dedicated Wildstorm fandom. I will share some information about podcasts, internet forums and share some various links to help you stay current with all things Wildstorm. There's lots out there to check out! If you have any information or links you would like to share leave a comment and I will try and work them into my post.

Character Spotlight: Nemesis

Expanding on my spotlight plans I am now introducing my character spotlight series. I plan on running character spotlights along with creator spotlights and eventually team and book spotlights. The idea is to share information on creators, stories and characters that you may not be exposed to otherwise. There's plenty of people who only read one title or another and they might find it helpful to get information on other happenings in the Wildstorm universe. I'll do my best in my spotlight installments to avoid major spoilers unless otherwise noted.

Rather than do something logical like start with a big character like Midnighter, Grifter, Zealot or Majestic I thought I would start with a character that hasn't been as exposed, at least not until more recently. Sorry to anybody looking for a blast from the past this entry. You'll have to wait until next time as I've picked Nemesis.

If you want to play along at home, listed below is a list of spotlight entries I plan on making in the coming weeks. Keep in mind, this list is subject to change based on my reading schedule. As I write about these books and characters I'm for the most part not writing cold. I'm writing entries shortly after reading and re-reading a lot of material found in single issues, trade paperbacks, etc.

Coming soon for Creator Spotlight:

Gail Simone (writer of Welcome to Tranquility, Gen13)

Warren Ellis (writer of Stormwatch, The Authority)

Jim Lee (founder, editor and artist of Wildstorm)

Coming soon for Character Spotlight:

Jenny Sparks (The Authority)

Dane (Wetworks)

Grifter (Wildcats)

If you want to see a particular character, team or creator under the spotlight in the near future write a comment nominating your pick. I'll try and work in the requests with my named picks.

From Khera and trained as a Coda warrior, Charis Adrastea (a.k.a. Nemesis) is currently featured as a member of the Wildcats and had her own 9 issue limited series run titled Wildcats: Nemesis. She was also a featured character in Wildstorm: Armageddon and Wildstorm: Revelations.

Part of what makes Nemesis so different from most other people is that due to genetics she is capable of living for thousands of years and packs a lot of strength for such a small woman. Aside from her ability to live so long, she is very much in tune with the emotions of those around her (empathy).

Wearing specialized body armor, Nemesis is highly skilled in various forms of combat. She is deadly with both guns and her two prized and indestructible swords made from the Creation Engine. Her swords can cut through pretty much anything.

When the Kherubim/Daemonite war spread to Earth, Charis was among the Coda warriors stuck on our planet. Nemesis was asked to infiltrate the Daemonites by posing as a traitor but she was compromised when the Daemonites asked her to kill a recently captured Zealot. As a higher ranking member of the Coda, Zealot ordered Nemesis to kill her but Charis couldn't go through with it so she blew her cover and fought the Daemonites instead. After this, Charis wasn't just an enemy to the Daemonites as this conflict developed problems with the Coda as well.

Around the same time, Charis hooked up with a member of the Brotherhood of the Blade (a rival faction of male warriors) named Raven. Raven later betrayed his lover by killing 200 Coda on the Isle of Lesbos. Not only did he kill all the Coda he also set Charis up in the process so she would take the blame.

Over the years Nemesis has avoided many assassination attempts and has worked hard to clear her name. Charis' nickname was given to her by the Coda after her perceived betrayal.

If you've enjoyed this character in the Wildcats books or gotten interested in her from recent events I highly recommend picking up the trade or single issues for Wildcats: Nemesis. It's a strong read. My next character spotlight will most likely be about Jenny Sparks.

Recommended Reading for Those Left Behind

For the past couple weeks I've been talking on a few different internet forums and in private messages about Wildstorm books and why some titles are selling and other's arent. I've even put up a poll on The Comic Forums about World's End and whether or not people are following it and also if they like or dislike it ( http://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2//index.php?showtopic=149897) I think the general consensus is Wildstorm has suffered for a few reasons the past several years. Among them being:

1. The books come out late!
2. Fear of the reboot
3. Worldstorm

Out of the few dozen comic readers I've spoken to most complain about what Worldstorm did.

All that said, I don't disagree with any of that, but it's in the past. To each concern raised I have a reply.

1. The books don't come out late anymore. Since World's End started all titles have been coming out on time in single issue format.
2. If you fear the reboot then I have a thread you should see on the official Wildstorm forums: http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?threadID=2000181524&tstart=0
3. Worldstorm? It's done. It's like House of M, World War Hulk or Countdown to Infinite Crisis. In the past. Time to move on. That's the great thing about comic books right? You can enjoy what you enjoy and ignore what you don't. You vote with your wallet.

Now, if you have been following the panel news, what folks are talking about across the internet on sites like Newsarama or maybe you were a fan in the 90's and something took you away from it all, Armageddon and World's End are a great place to start at if you are considering investing in these titles again. Writers made it easy enough to read the new stuff without being very familiar with the older books. For example, if you read Wildcats: World's End you don't necessarily have go go back and read the previous 100+ Wildcats books that came out before World's End. I went back and started reading the old stuff again but it wasn't because I had to. I did it because I enjoy the new stuff so much it encouraged me to go back and start from the beginning.

The easiest way to jump back into Wildstorm proper without digging through dollar bins or watching eBay like a hawk is to go to your Local Comic Shop or visit a website like amazon.com or instocktrades.com and order these three trade paperbacks:

Wildstorm: Armageddon
Wildstorm: Revelations
Number of the Beast

If you open up your wallet and buy those three trades you will have everything you need to take you up to World's End. If you don't like it then maybe Wildstorm proper isn't for you right now but at least you tried. No harm done, right? You can always eBay your trades or pass them on to a buddy when you're done with them if you aren't a collector.

Now if you do enjoy those trades and are considering picking up some stuff monthly or bi-monthly here's some nuggets of information that you may find useful. The two top selling World's End titles so far have been Wildcats and The Authority. Most readers will tell you that they are both solid reads. Many fans will tell you that Christos Gage had a bit of a slow start on his Wildcats run but that he's come into his own the past few issues. That I'll agree with for the most part. Wildcats is regularly at the top of my stack each month and The Authority isn't far behind.

Stormwatch PHD has been, unfortunately, the worst selling Wildstorm proper book since the start of World's End. It's surprising because most Stormwatch fans seem to love this title. For whatever reason it's not getting much attention and sales continue to suffer. If you're an old Wildstorm fan that enjoyed reading Stormwatch I highly recommend jumping on this title as the issues come out. This title could really use the help!

Gen13 seems to be the most talked about book for both good and bad reasons. Gen13 is selling a little bit better than Stormwatch but not by a whole lot. It seems to be one of those books right now that everybody either really enjoys or dislikes.

If you read the three trades I recommended and enjoyed them getting invested in Wildstorm proper again is as simple as starting up with the respective issues that come out after Armageddon and World's End or the run that started shortly before.

Both Gen13 and Stormwatch's current series started not too long before Armaggedon and World's End. Gen13 is especially easy to get into with trades out due to the popularity of Gail Simone's run on the series.

The Authority and Wildcats both started new runs and numbering after the events of Armageddon, Revelations and Number of the Beast.