WildC.A.T.s: Gang War

WildC.A.T.s I #7

by Alan Moore, Travis Charest (Illustrator)

The Kheran contingent joins their old comrades on the mysterious island of Gamorra as they await a battle against an evil alien on the moon.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, War, Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

Reviews

[47Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had to happen - the dreaded crossover. It ruined the flow of Moore's run with a mediocre story and boring twists.

Savant's team have started a war with the gangs. They have a handle on it, but the bombing of a bar popular with superheroes leaves several injured, including Max Cash. Tao quickly takes advantage of the event to propose an alliance with Stormwatch.

The return of the original Wildcats is far from being a moment of celebration. With the Daemonite war over they have a hard time finding their place in the world. Most of them head for Gamorra where another war is brewing with Lord Kaizen leading the bad guys. The new Wildcats focus on the gang war at home and have a startling revelation about one of their own.

The original Wildcats join the many other characters from the Image universe in the assault on Kaizen Gamorra. Hadrian gains access to some buried memories from someone's past. It's a Kherubim called John Colt who became Kaizen after everyone thought him dead. Hadrian has Colt's soul, but is unable to defeat Kaizen by himself. Majestic finishes the job.

Hadrian's personality is replaced by John Colt's memories. He was Zealot's lover and the two rekindle their relationship, to Cole's regret. The gang war is still going strong and the supervillains have Overtkill on their side which turns the tide in their favor. 

Everything stops when the new Wildcats discover that the bombing of the superhero bar was orchestrated by Tao to spark the gang war. Cole tries to shoot Tao, but hits Savant instead as she teleports in at the wrong time and wrong place. Fuji is the first to succumb to Tao's coolest ability of mind manipulation. Maxine is next when Tao takes advantage of a structural weakness on her metallic body. Even though he promises to release of cures for AIDS, cancer and world hunger, Majestic kills Tao.

[Max Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the issues in the middle have the characters caught in a big cross-series event that is never explained (it's literally "Hey, I'm Daimyo and you're all attacking my island for some reason!") so reading this standalone is painful until the event stops and the team resumes going about its own business dealing with the imminent Tao origin.

[Lee Battersby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like many of the Image superhero comics, WildCATS always felt like pale rewrites of the major company products that the Image creators walked away from when forming the company. Here, you can see Moore trying to stretch the books obvious limitations, but he is too constrained by their lack of any real originality, and even those elements we come to to expect from the best Moore work-- the consipracies, the betrayals, the characters who are more than they seem-- come across as obvious, and lacking in any real energy. And the book suffers from all those elements that make big-team superhero books struggle for literary merit: 2D throwaway supporting characters; new members who are obviously only created to provide contract/reinforcement of the major characters personalities, or worse, who are a collection of plot-necessary powers with no real personality to wrap around them; plotlines that serve only to take the team to a point of separation from which they can then be regathered once more as a team.

I read this in sequence with 'Homecoming' as one storyline, and by the end was left with no sense of surprise or sensawunda, and found far too many references to previously read team stories-- in particular, Secret Wars and the events leading up to the original X-Factor, to be excited, which was not at all helped by the Liefeld-homage artwork. It's competent, journeyman work, but I expect better from Moore.

[Kristian]

this book is about 3 goups night riders knights and the bb45 and they all get into a gang rival where there is alot of killin and once the leader was killed that team eas out of the war. and the 2 last teams where the night riders and the knights and then they shot a bullet at the same time and at the same time it rips through both of the team leaders torsos. and they scream then there was silcence and cop noises all of a sudden there was a panic where to hide the bodys they put them in the back of a pick up truck and drove of not speding nor driving slow. then they got to a lake and dumped there bodys in there when the cops came and cought them all it was a slick top undercover and they got back into the pick up truck and fled off they went and parked there car in the woods took the licence plates off and he regestrations and put the car on nuetral and psuhed it into a lake. next morning there car was on tv and it was a very crazy moment but the cops never found them because they actually started to work together and hate each other anymore.
i can not relate thi book to my life because imnot in a gang nor have i experience a shotting or anything like that.
i give this book a 3 because there was no main charecter nor was there a setting but at times the book was good.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Menos mal que este tomo me resultó mucho más entretenido y digno que las bazofias anteriores bazofias anteriores, aunque es cierto que está lejísimos de las mejores obras del Barbeta. Tiene escenas casi conmovedoras, como cuando Grifter se despide en sueños de un amigo muerto en la historia anterior. Y capítulos técnicamente muy bien hechos, como el final, en el que asistimos a un funeral de un personaje que no sabemos quién es hasta la última página (bastante ridícula de por sí, por cierto). Pero igual se nota que a esta altura ya estaba un poco harto de todo y niempedo puso su mejor esfuerzo en esta saga final. Sí es bonita, cerrada, prolija y con alguna vuelta de tuerca bien ajustada. Pero ni siquiera llega al nivel del tomo 1, en el que se lo notaba más curioso por explorar el entonces prometedor Universo WildStorm. Lástima que Charest dibuja tan poquito acá, porque podría haber aportado un apartado visual un poco más pintoresco.

[Nicolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vraiment pas terrible, ce second tome. En fait, sa principale qualité est de mettre en scène Maxine, dont le charisme ne fait aucun doute.
En fait, le pire dans ce tome, ce sont les terribles ellipses qui sont présentées initiallement entre chaque chapitre, où on a quasiment l'impression que toute l'action se déroule hors-cadre.

[Nicolas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Toutes les ficelles de la BD qui balade son lecteur sont réunies dans ce tome : le traître qui se révèle à la fin, les retournements de situation improbables, ...
C'est vraiment pas terrible.
Le pire est évidement la mort de la cyborg atomique au sacré caractère.
Et ce tome rejoindra évidement le premier ...

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a chaotic mess due to the Fire from Heaven crossover, but it ends well.

[Chris Maurer · Rating 2 out of 5]

all I'm saying is characters are not inherently bad, they just get badly written...

[Dony Grayman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomo 2 de dos de los que cubren la etapa de Moore en la serie regular de WildCATs. Contó con varias reediciones distintas y debo tener más de un número suelto en revistas.