Absolute WildC.A.T.s by Jim Lee

WildC.A.T.s I #Absolute

by Jim Lee

Industry titan Jim Lee presents ABSOLUTE WILDC.A.T.S., a collection of the greatest WildStorm characters in one giant Absolute Edition!

Covertly fighting evil extraterrestrials, the WILDC.A.T.S. have tirelessly stood as humankind's last defense. But when the Daemonites initiate a plan that will allow their warships to attack Earth, it appears all hope is lost. Now with Armageddon approaching, it is up to the android Spartan, the hulking Maul, the female assassin Zealot, the mercenary Grifter, the shape shifting Voodoo, the living weapon Warblade and the precognitive Void to stop the invasion and save the world.

ABSOLUTE WILDC.A.T.S collects WILDC.A.T.s #1-13, 31, 50; CYBERFORCE #1-3, WILDC.A.T.s/X-MEN: THE SILVER AGE #1; WILDCATS ADVENTURES #1 and WILDCATS #1, as well as behind-the-scenes sketches, concept designs and variant covers in an oversize slipcase.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels

624 pages, Hardcover

First published March 13, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, creator and publisher. After graduating from Princeton, he decided to attempt illustrating comic books, and met with success. Lee's distinctive, crisply hatched line art style and rigid, idealized anatomical forms established a new stylistic standard for superhero comic-book illustration and reinforced a popular trend away from brushed to penned inking in the late 20th and early 21st century. Lee is currently one of the most successful artists in American comics.

He has received a great deal of recognition for his work in the industry, including the Harvey Special Award for New Talent in 1990.

Reviews

[Dan Solomon]

I don’t normally log all the comics I read here but I read basically every page of every Wildcats comic ever published last month, so what the hell? If I had to guess where the good parts were and where the bad parts were in 2500-ish pages of a 90’s superhero series based on characters its creators made up when they were childhood pals, I’d have assumed that Alan Moore and Joe Casey were the good parts and the childhood friend who was not a professional writer was the bad part. That’s not entirely true, though—Moore’s run is half good and half not so much, and Casey’s is full of interesting ideas and some of the most vile gender politics of a comics era full of vile gender politics. Brandon Choi wrote with a madcap adolescent enthusiasm, meanwhile, that didn’t always make sense but was so joyful and silly that it’s hard not to get swept up in it. (The latter half of his run, when he came back after Moore, is harder to appreciate.) Scott Lobdell phoned his entire run in; Chris Claremont fully committed even though he only got three issues. And the art! Lee, obviously, at his best, but also Travis Charest, Dustin Nguyen, and Sean Phillips, all doing genre-defining work. It’s a shame these characters got left behind 20 years ago, and no one figured out how to use them, because there is a lot of heart to what Lee and a Choi created, and the best parts of what Moore and Casey did are memorable and groundbreaking. Maybe they can hire a woman to be involved if they ever reboot it, it gets exhausting typing so many dudes’ names, but that’s superhero comics for you.

[Mario Alba · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a terrific volume this is! I had a blast walking down memory lane and re-reading the first 13 WildCats issues for the first time in over twenty years. They hold up! Also, I got to read a couple of things I missed back in the day, like WildCats #50 and the WildCats/X-Men: The Silver Age crossover, in which Lee channels his inner J. Scott Campbell. It was also great to revisit Grant Morrison and Jim Lee's WildCats #1 from ten years ago --it was much more interesting than I remembered, but it made me wish that series had continued. In lieu of that, Absolute WildCats includes the script for issue 2 and a break down of what the twelve-issue series would have been. Finally, there are a bunch of covers and promo illustrations, many of which I had never seen. (The ones I did know brought a smile to my face when I saw them again.) All in all, if you like the power duo that is Jim Lee and Scott Williams, you must get this book, because it is a blast from beginning to end.

[Bob Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those early Image Comics were really Peak 90s Comics!
Jim Lee, "vulgar auteur" in comics ?
https://youtu.be/WkE1MDaurTU