Alan Moore The Complete Wildcats TP

WildC.A.T.s I #6-7

by Alan Moore, Travis Charest

Alan Moore is considered by many to be the finest comics writer of the last quarter century. His achievements in the medium include 'WATCHMEN', 'V FOR VENDETTA', 'FROM HELL' and 'THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN'.

Now, Moore's defining run on the super-hero team known as WildC.A.T.s is collected into a single volume, one in which he is ably assisted by Travis Charest and other fine artists who provide breathtaking visuals.

'THE COMPLETE WILDC.A.T.S' is the perfect starting point for the flagship WildStorm super-hero team. It's a tale filled with unsettling revelations and gripping drama, and features the introduction of one of WildStorm's great villains, Tao!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction

First published August 1, 2007

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

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the comic books WildC.A.T.S. #15 to #34. In response to criticisms of week story telling, the addition of James Robinson, and then more significantly Alan Moore seriously brought the book to a new level as we get to much better understand the characters... even as Cole leaves(!). The period when there were two teams, Savant's on Earth, and Emp's on Khera were the best this series ever got!
I'm aware how much this is loathed, but for me, like when Alan Moore picked up Swamp Thing, her picked up WildC.A.T.s and took it to places and levels un-dreamt of. 8 out of 12.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've actually read this in the earlier, two-volume edition, but for convenience sake want to pick up the one-volume, so I'm adding it to my 'to-read' list.

To combat all the negativity towards this admittedly minor work in Moore's canon, I refer to this poorly-punctuated but insightful Amazon review:

"Sometimes we get so used to a creator breaking new ground that when he just tells a great story on an existing landmass, we think he wrote a bad story. All the reveiwers here that claim this book is bad, are those type of people.

If you look at Alan Moore's Tom Strong books, they are not like Watchmen, why? Because Alan Moore is channeling the characters and comics of old, old, really old, Pulp comic heroes. He writes them as if they never stopped being written back in the 30's, and continued on to today. Then you have League of Extroadinary Gentlemen. Those comics are written to the tune of all the great novel works from back in the Victorian age and on to the early 1900's.

So now with this book, he writes an X-men knockoff. He doesent take it and make it his own, he writes it in the vein of an X-men knockoff, and tells a great story doing it. The reason he didn't break ground is because the characters themselves don't break ground. The universe they populate doesent break ground. Yeah, I guess he could have taken the Wildcats universe and turned it on it's head, making it his own, but he wrote this story in the confines of the series. He respected the existing fans enough to not change what they had come to love about this series, and instead wrote something along the lines of a summer blockbuster.

It's action packed, full of funny moments and doesent fill you up with heavy material. It's fun, it's exciting, and the art is pretty.

Enjoy it for what it is, and not what it isn't."

Additionally, I gotta point out that some of the characters Moore introduced to the series are my favorite of his creations. Ladytron (or as I think of her, Maxine the Machine) is the foulest sexy punk rock cyborg I've ever had a comic book crush on, and T.A.O. is an extremely chilling variation on the hero-turned-evil-mastermind type that Moore uses so frequently.

Plus you know, it's fun. It's exciting. And the art is pretty.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't as bad as some people make out. I admit it doesn't stand well against much of Moore's work but if you look at it in the context of its Image stablemates it's actually very readable and stands a little higher in the intelligence stakes than all the tech-fueled violence so prevalent at that time. The first eight instalments feature a split narrative featuring the new Wildcats formed after the apparent demise of the original team. It's fairly humourous, tongue lodged permanently in cheek. Quite a bit of the humour comes from the mostly cybernetic rookie Ladytron who spends most of her time either kicking bottom with extreme prejudice or attempting to find herself a boyfriend - sometimes she does both at once. The other side of the narrative tells the story of the M.I.A wildcats' return to their home planet where they discover something rotten in the state of Kherra. Eventually they return to Earth in total disarray for a reunion with their new counterparts. Unfortunately this coincides with the Fire From Heaven event (a hugely bloated crossover that ran for several months over most of the Image titles that required a degree in quantum theory to derive its chronology). These two issues are frankly awful and Moore's run never really fully recovers from the mess they leave behind. The concluding issue and the farewell wrap-up segment aren't too bad, though it's pretty evident that Moore has had quite enough at this stage and there is very little left that would indicate 'genius at work'. I'm tempted to add a star for the book gathering all 15 parts together but I shouldn't really have to for a graphic novel collection actually being what all series collections under 16 issues should be - COMPLETE.

[JL Shioshita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lot of people don't seem to like this one. Of course, the Wildcats (ancient alien x-men) weren't exactly the most original or creative superhero team to come out of the Image 90s. I like what Alan Moore did with this though. You can see the trends starting here that would define some of his later work, looking back to the golden age of comics and the pulps, seemingly trying to atone for what the Watchmen did to comics. I liked it. The first two thirds with the parallel story lines of the teams was good. Once the original team comes back to Earth though, the pacing takes a nosedive as we're forced into a classic 90s crossover event. The book takes an issue or two to recover from that nonsense and ends on a funeral story which was structured in a fun way only Moore could pull off. The art is inconsistent from issue to issue, making for an uneven read, but that was par for the course for Image back then.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like Moore's writing, but I do not know any of these characters and it felt too confusing as it jumped around a lot.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yesterday I wrote about a really good team superhero comic, Identity Crisis, filled with compelling characters, a smart plot, and real risk. Alan Moore's run on WildC.A.T.s is the exact opposite of that: big, loud, and dumb.

Like so many of the early Image comics, there just doesn't seem to be any point to anything that is happening in this book other than some fighting and explosions. The characters are basically interchangeable, distinguished by the color of their hair or their superpowers, but not a bit by their personalities. It doesn't matter whose mouth the word balloons are coming out of (with the notable exception of a bad-ass cyborg named, I kid you not, Ladytron) because the lines only serve to advance the flimsy plot, not to reveal anybody's thought, motivations, or emotions.

Other annoyances: the art is wildly inconsistent, with some single issues having as many as 4 separate pencilers. Worst of all, the second half of the book contains just the WildC.A.T.s portion of a major Wildstorm crossover event, so readers of this book are only getting 1/4 of the story. There's a ridiculous moment where, at the end of a chapter the characters say, "Let's go to the moon and stop those bad guys!" and in the beginning of the next are saying, "Good thing we beat those bad guys on the moon!" No indication is given to what any of this is about, but it's not like you'll care.

The saddest thing about all of this is that it's written by Alan Moore, who is clearly phoning it in. There are a couple of glimmers of Moore's trademark weirdness, brief moments when it seems like he might be having a good time: the WildC.A.T.s infiltrate a theme restaurant where all the waiters are dressed as ex-presidents; a villain incapacitates his enemies by arguing unity of consciousness; an alien hotel in a low-probability field. But for the most part, this collection is devoid of purpose, sense, emotion, or interest.

[William Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read a WildCATS comic it was 1992 and I was sick in bed. I'd been on a camping trip with my boy scout troop and started having a serious migraine and running a fever. The scoutmaster called my mom from a payphone down the way and she came on out at 3 a.m. to pick me up on a rainy and cold Saturday night.

When I got home, she surprised me with a handful of the new Image books and a WildCATS t-shirt. (I kept that WildCATS t-shirt for 7 years, until it practically disintegrated and I had to wear other t-shirts underneath it because there were too many holes in it). Mom had done her homework- or asked my brother for input- because she bought almost everything Jim Lee had done. And I know fr a fact she didn't take a look inside the Spawn #1 she bought for Bobby because if she had, she'd have crossed herself and dropped the damn thing.

Maybe it was because I was 11 and was just in complete and total awe of Jim Lee, but I couldn't get enough WildCATS. Read straight n through till about issue 36. Dropped out of comics for a bit after that.

Re-reading this as a trade volume makes me realize that Alan Moore really tied everything together from the strainned and cluttered first 15 or s issues. Those were just mayhem without much story- a lt of blood and great art, but pretty much discombobulated. Moore brught chesin t a few previous plt pints and inserted some f the greatest characters Wildstorm would ever see- Ladytron and Tao. A damn fine mainnstream ffering from Alan Moore, no matter what some snobs might think.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got the first few issues of this series that Jim Lee wrote and they kind of suck, so it's amazing what Moore turns it into. This review also applies to Supreme if you change Jim Lee to Rob Liefeld.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading for WildC.A.T.s fans.

[Guido · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saga completa de los WildC.A.T.s de Moore que por suerte no recopila todo lo que rodeaba al bochornoso crossover Fire From Heaven.

[Jessica Fure · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alan Moore wrote this book to make people stop asking him to write comics - that's my best guess.
The only other explanation would be that he had one of those days that make you f'cking hate living, topped it off be eating a poison taco, then wrote this book in a fit of vengeance while sitting on the toilet, burning his ass off, praying for his death and the death of the rest of us, too.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best Alan Moore has to offer, but it's still a rather fun collection. I really love the way this one is drawn (the 90's obsession with cyberpunk really shines here), though I had no idea who the characters were. Maybe I'll check out some of the Stormwatch collections next...

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art was fun in this one, but not much that is signature Moore in this one. In other words, pretty standard stuff that doesn't stretch the genre. The female cyborg is the best character and that's a Moore creation. I could have read a series based on her...

[Justin Decloux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moore has fun writing what essentially serves as an epilogue to the series - where all the heroes find their mission is over and that only corruption follows. He seems to lose steam by the second volume.

[Carlos J. Eguren]

"Justo lo que quiero decir. Que hay un enemigo oculto tras todo esto, que hay un enemigo entre nosotros"- TAO.

Hace unos años, cuando leí Alan Moore. Retrato de un hombre extraordinario, descubrí una interpretación muy interesante sobre la desconocida e irregular etapa de Alan Moore en los WildC.A.T.s En ese libro, homenaje al cumpleaños de Moore, uno de los autores sostenía que en la cita con la que abro este comentario, Moore, en realidad, estaba hablando sobre él mismo y lo que le estaba haciendo a la serie: el guionista saboteaba al grupo, él era el enemigo entre ellos, en la sombra. No he dejado de pensarlo mientras leía este recopilatorio.

Después de que Alan Moore terminase Watchmen y acabase convertido en dios de una nueva era de los cómics de superhéroes, el escritor decidió huir y hacer cosas completamente diferentes. Tras años enfrentado a Marvel y luego con una DC que se había mostrado injusta con sus contratos, el mago de Northampton decidiría ir hacia otros conceptos.

No obstante, la llegada en los '90 de ese huracán que fue Image llevó a muchos artistas como él mismo a trabajar en lo que se buscaba en esa época: superhéroes hipertrofiados, dignos hijos del género de acción, con más metralletas y violencia que con poderes magnánimos y ganas de charlar. Es decir, un producto mutante, un engendro de los X-Men desbocados y la adultez malentendida (por algunos) de Watchmen (que no es un cómic maduro por las palabrotas o la violencia sino por la complejidad de sus tramas, algo que muchos no entendieron). Esa década no fue una gran década para los cómics, dejando a DC haciendo de todo y una Marvel en la bancarrota, pero también generando una extraña colección de números de "nuevos superhéroes" escritos por autores como Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller o el propio Alan Moore.

Los '90 según Moore

En esa etapa de la Image recién nacida, surgirían los WildC.A.T.s de Jim Lee y Brandon Choi como parte de Wildstorm. En sus inicios, la serie contaría con guiones de autores tan potentes como Chris Claremont, el hombre que hizo grande a los X-Men. Los WildC.A.T.s, este grupo encubierto con héroes producto de su época, sería un pilar más de la editorial. Cuando Alan Moore tomó la serie, hablaría del grupo original (dado por muerto, combatientes de una guerra de otra galaxia) y del nuevo equipo conformado por Majestic y Savant, lo que contrapone space opera y héroes callejeros, pero añade dosis de crítica social al racismo y la responsabilidad sobre el poder.

Pese a que WildC.A.T.s no es uno de los cómics imprescindibles de la obra del Bardo de Northampton, es una lectura ligera, entretenida, con algunas buenas ideas que el escritor suelta como si nada, como si se le ocurriese sin más, sin la necesidad de hacer macrosagas o similares (algo que se agradece en muchos casos). En una época de portadas con hologramas y variantes al millar, Moore se centra en ofrecer lo que muchos esperan: explosiones, héroes llenos de músculos, amenazas... y aprovecha para meter algunas cuestiones interesantes en los personajes, formas narrativas llamativas o un par de conceptos interesantes: el racismo de Khera (un Kandor 2.0.), una guerra entre divinidades y monstruos que terminó hace mucho tiempo (¿kree-skrull?) y unos superhéroes que no encajan con el tiempo que les ha tocado (¿Majestic y sus antihéroes?). Metáforas e ideas que aparecen varias veces a lo largo de la obra de Moore, sí, pero que no dejan de ser destacables.

Por tanto, si el lector se acerca con curiosidad, puede pasárselo bien con este trabajo (porque sí, es una de esas obras que si puedes sacar de la biblioteca, como en mi caso, está bien). Sin embargo, si lo que desea es ver un Watchmen por parte de Moore, nada más lejos de la realidad. El escritor reserva sus grandes proyectos para otras creaciones y aquí, sin llegar a hablar de un trabajo puramente alimenticio, sabemos que es Moore jugando con juguetes ajenos... Pero es Alan Moore y sabe jugar mejor que muchos y de ahí que surjan personajes interesantes como el gigante púrpura Jeremy, el inteligente TAO o la mejor de todos, esa androide violenta mezcla de Terminator y tostadora que es la encantadoramente vil Ladytron (Maxime).

El resto de la crítica aquí: https://elantrodelosvampirosyotrosmon...

[Javi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Los 90 eran años muy locos y hasta a Alan Moore le pasaron factura. Está claro que simpatizaba con la generación Image pero , ¿realmente era necesario esto? Hombre, pues de algo tendría que vivir el señor que Northampton no es londres pero los anillos no van baratos.

La historia en sí tiene momentos que parece que va a despegar, al menos se queda en algo divertido a veces un poco autoparódico. Probablemente había ya un guion marcado al menos en calidad de objetivos que los personajes debían conseguir para luego continuar la serie, el caso es que no se les saca el jugo y en ocasiones parecen demasiado planos (tampoco es que el material con el que trabajar sea una maravilla).

El dibujo pasa de ser horroroso a pasabla e incluso tener momentos buenos.

Es una obra muy menor pero muy válida como testimonio de una época, yo al menos así la he disfrutado.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints WildC.A.T.s (1) #21-34, and #50 (July 1995-June 1998). The WildC.A.T.s are dead…or so Majestic believes. With the death of his team, Majestic and Savant set to make a new team of WildC.A.T.s to defend Earth. Unknown to Majestic and Savant, the WildC.A.T.s have survived and are about to learn the truth of the war between the Kherubim and Daemonites on Khera. Returning to Earth with this information, the WildC.A.T.s face the collapse of the team and uncover a traitor within their ranks.

Written by Alan Moore, Alan Moore’s Complete WildC.A.T.s collects Alan Moore’s stories from the first volume of WildC.A.T.s plus a short wrap up segment in WildC.A.T.s (1) #50 (June 1998). The issues were collected (sans #50) previously collected as WildC.A.T.s: Homecoming which collected WildC.A.T.s (1) #21-27 and WildC.A.T.s: Gang War which collected WildC.A.T.s (1) #28-34. This collection was preceded by James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.s which collected Robinson’s run which occurred before this volume.

Alan Moore is an interesting writer who brings interesting ideas to comics. Many writers work best when they have free reign on a comic (like their own creations), but as Moore proves with Swamp Thing, Supreme, and WildC.A.T.s, Alan Moore really can succeed in revamping existing characters.

Honestly, I never was a big Image guy when it launched. I thought most of the characters were rather generic and the stories were really superficial to the art. Of Image comics, I did like WildC.A.T.s much more than I liked Youngblood. I was glad that Moore was assigned WildC.A.T.s because he showed the team’s potential.

I have to say I do like the Majestic’s “Earth” WildC.A.T.s better than the traditional team. Ladytron really is what the team needed to make it edgier and test the limits of Image. As a result WildC.A.T.s actually feels more like a Vertigo comic at times. Moore doesn’t do the best job keeping Tao’s true side hidden, but I do love the final showdown with Tao (including his mind-screw of Fuji).

The space portion of the series does do some interesting things. It did involve my two favorite WildC.A.T.s characters more in that Voodoo and Maul both had big roles in the events. I just found that the divided nature of the story had me wishing for Earth more than what was happening on Khera.

WildC.A.T.s isn’t Alan Moore’s best work, but it still is worlds above the average comic book and aided by some great art. It does help if you have a bit of a handle on the WildC.A.T.s before jumping into the collection, and it can be a bit rough for newcomers to the Image world. It also contains part of a bigger WildStorm crossover “Fire from Heaven” in issues #29-30 (April 1996-June 1996) which are a bit jarring and are given little explanation. Check it out for Alan Moore’s take on a more traditional team book.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

So y'all know I'm a big Neil Young fan, right? This book - really all of Alan's mid-90s Wildstorm/Image work that I've read - reminds me of Neil's early and mid-1980s output. Amazing artist, really terrible work.

Alan's WildC.A.T.S. is like Neil's Trans - if you're really patient and very attentive, you can see how it almost worked. Trans has strong melodies and great lyrics, but it's all buried in this terrible 80s techno production (which was, admittedly, something that he intentionally experimented with) that robbed the music of any power and immediacy.

WildC.A.T.S. has some nice moments, particularly during the team's stay on their birthworld Khera, but it never quite comes together. The dialogue isn't up to Moore's usual standards, a crossover robs the book of any momentum, and the book is saddled with some absolutely abysmal artwork. Kevin Nowlan draws a few pages beautifully, and Jim Lee, Dave Johnson, Travis Charest and Ryan Benjamin provide (mostly) competent pages. But the rest of the book is the worst mid-90s, Jim Lee-wannabe hackery - pinched faces, missing backgrounds (particularly galling when the dialogue is clearly preparing the reader to see a stunning vista of an alien world or something awe-inspiring, and the artist provides a shot of the team and maybe a single, distant, indistinct tower).

I like how Moore developed Tao (interesting to me, as I hated Prometheus in Morrison's JLA, to see how Moore tackles the same notion and makes it work much more effectively), and that he often seems to be verging on satire of the series and its concepts.

I didn't like that Moore didn't seem to put much effort into developing the cast. Grifter's brother didn't really do anything, and the rest of the cast got your basic, run-of-the-mill superteam treatment - oh, Maul meets a girl just like him, but she dies tragically preventing a political bombing. Boohoo.

In short, in another world, without the Wildstorm Universe and with much, much better artists, maybe Alan Moore's WildC.A.T.S. would've kicked ass. But it doesn't.

However, I still kind of like Trans.

[Jesse · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a complete rewrite of my previous review, which, simply put, was 'You can't polish a turd.'
It has come to my attention that this was one quarter of a large Wildstorm crossover. It's notable that they didn't promote this on the cover. This is clearly an attempt to cynically repackage the portion of a crossover that was written by a marketable name.

Actually, it occurs to me that crossover time is the PERFECT time to bring in a famous writer to be your ringer. That way, serious comic fans will get into the series, follow the whole crossover, and buy four times as many issues. Leverage that name, DC, leverage that name.

And now they are trying to leverage it again, by packaging Moore's work into an incoherent mess, and getting guys like me to buy it. Well played.

Crossovers revolutionized comics in the 80's, with X-Men leading the way (Great Mutant Massacre, Inferno), and had already made them suck by the 90's, with X-Men leading the way (X-tinction Agena, X-Cutioner's Song). Well, following X-Men's lead has been WildC.A.T.S. agenda since issue #1 (that I bought on the news stand the week it came out, and, tellingly, did not follow up with issue #2).

This is for completists ONLY.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can kind of see here what Alan Moore would have done had kept making Watchmen with the Charlton Comics character. It's very rare to see Moore write in an explicit pass-the-baton mode. Here, he leaves the basic mysteries of an all-new character for others to figure out.

So generally, this book is very interesting and keeps a lot of threads --that could each support a book this size -- running without compromising too many. True, some of the stuff involving the original team feels cut too short, but I think that perspective fits the fact that we're supposed to identify with the new team to whom the old team is a confusing group of interlopers.

The "big" twist is incredibly predictable and follow-on epilogue twist is disappointing, but I think that's a matter of moral disapproval rather than good or bad storytelling. Other than those, Moore does a good job keeping the reader guessing and invested.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe nowhere near the height of any of Moore's other works, but this year-long storyline is, unsurprisingly, quite possibly the best thing WildStorm put out during its first few years. (Certainly miles above Alan Moore's execrable Spawn / WildC.A.T.s book.) The outer-space adventure in the first half plays a nice game with expectation and disillusionment, while incorporating several interesting political allegories. The "war on crime" plotline, however, is arguably more interesting (and gives us such enjoyable characters as Maxine Manchester and Tao), with a twist that's effectively set up and really very well done. Definitely worth reading.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be fair to those who are reading this: I have never read anything else from the Wildstorm imprint.

This is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the characters. It was hard to get into it at first because I wasn't sure who was new and who had history.

This is a bit like his run on Swamp Thing and Watchmen combined. He takes an established story and kind of throws it out the window to do his own thing. I really liked the WildC.A.T.s 2.0.

I am a bit interested in reading some of the earlier stuff now, but I son't know how hard I'll search it out.

Definitely for fans of superhero comics. This is like Marvel or DC without tons of backstory.

[Rudi Dewilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing !!!! A must read.

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graphic novels as comics are called now, to save the embarrassment of calling them comics, might seem out of place on a science-fiction website but an awful lot of them are bound to come under the science-fiction or fantasy heading. Since they are often intelligent and well written there is no reason, except snobbery, to exclude them. No snob, I am glad to get as many as the revered editor wants to bung my way and was especially pleased to get this fine piece of work from Big Al. I am not wildly familiar with WildC.A.T.S. so I found the initial chapters a bit confusing. Presently it makes sense, however, so there is no need for new readers to be shy of the book. Although it's cut into bits called chapters, the original comics, its really just one long story. Well, two long stories tied together at the end.

The first story is about some of the original WildC.A.T.S. who have ended up on their home planet, Khera. Here they find that the war they’ve been fighting for ages is long over. Returning to civilian life they also find, slowly over several chapters, that victory is not everything. The home planet is a funny old place and very unequal. Although they were comrades in war, they find themselves cast into conflicting roles in peacetime. Emp and Zealot are feted aristocrats, Maul and Void are unimportant and Voodoo is an outcast because of her genes. All are changed by the experience.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Majestic recruits new members to make up the numbers of WildC.A.T.S. and continue the fight against crime. Some of the new members have ‘challenging’ personalities (as the social workers say) and there are conflicts. The new WildC.A.T.S get into a war against crime. They don’t just wait until a crime is committed and then go into action, they attack criminals first. The criminals are disgruntled by this unprecedented mode of superheroism. There is a bar where super people hang out together (a terrific idea) and the criminals' retaliation to WildC.A.T.S affirmative action is to bomb it. Or so it seems. After that the war gets nasty.

I’m a big fan of Big Al and this here comic book is good fun. The plot is slick. The writing is always clever and frequently brilliant. The fellow has a way with words. However, it did occur to me that today’s comic fans probably give him too much credit for modernising the genre. This team book has villains becoming heroes, complex characters, love triangles and so on. But Roy Thomas was doing all that stuff in 'The Mighty Avengers' back in the late sixties and doing long complicated plots too. I hasten to add that Mister Moore is, by all accounts, modesty itself and, as his appearance on last years BBC documentary about Steve Ditko showed, has a real sense of the history of the genre.

He is also good at giving due credit to the artists who are his collaborators. Alan Moore is the headline name on the book but graphic novels are very much a visual medium. Personally, if the art doesn’t appeal I don’t bother reading the comic. This book is quite a team production with several different styles. Happily, all the art is good and some is downright beautiful. I particularly liked the work of Travis Charest. Oddly, there are sometimes more than two pencillers and sometimes a team of several inkers so it's hard to know who to credit. There is certainly no page displeasing to the eye.

The cover price is fairly hefty but the production quality is first-rate. Titan Books are pretty good value for money as a rule. You don’t get as many pages of story here as you do with Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase but the pages you get are much prettier, in full bright colour, and will provide as many hours of pleasure, at least, as the equivalent dosh spent on DVDs. Worth it really.

[Aidan]

Alan Moore on rest mode. The writing for the team that ends up on Khera is pretty great classic Alan, where even being lazy he can’t help but run away with imaginative sci fi details like the coincidence hotel thing, and imbuing this alien race and war with culture, history, and exciting politics.

Thats the only good part. The writing for anything on earth is pretty bland, and good god the art is almost entirely awful. Travis Charest improves across the run, to the point that the final chapter is actually quite well drawn, but prior to that he’s not only just a Jim Lee rip off, but one who doesn’t even draw environments, backgrounds, or people with personality! When actual Jim Lee popped on for an issue, I never knew I’d be thankful to see him, but I’ve been taking for granted the fact that Jim Lee will draw backgrounds, and buildings, and just the ground, and won’t place everything in a blank void the way Charest and the other artists do. Pretty often on Khera, Moore’s descriptions of what’s there do not match what we actually see. I was quite close to just quitting the book, but Pat Lee drops by to help on pencils and was so awful it kept me reading for the sheer comedy of fucked perspectives and proportions.

Would not recommend unless you’re an Alan or WildStorm completist, but god help me I did just request Alan’s WildStorm minis from the library, so I suppose I am but the fool I seek to warn.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically the the concept of 1.) Seeing you heroes slum it doing WFH. vs. 2.) You can't expect groundbreaking work from certain constraints (somewhat true--but also Supreme and Prophet beg to differ) or 3.) You can't polish a turd.

Ultimately, this is Alan Moore writing what he thought fans wanted to read, rather than what they should read. I'd usually give this a 2.5 or so--because it's a bit boring and the story is very generic (as was Image books of the time)--yet, Wildcats eventually took on the likes of Joe Casey (for Wildcats 2.0 and 3.0) and this comic was a crucial throughline to Stormwatch. Which begat Authority. Largely gestating the careers of Warren Ellis (not as much) and Mark Millar. Their tones (in addition to Grant Morrison) pretty much annunciated the tone for 2000s NuMarvel and the Wildstorm Universe.

So it all comes back to Alan. Writing a slightly above story, an ideal to strive towards. And having the industry race behind him stumbling and falling him to try and join Him in the sun.

[Rayco Cruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tenía este cómic pendiente desde hace años. Fui seguidor de Wildcats desde que salió el nº1, un puñado de años atrás. En aquella época no alcancé a valorar el peso argumental que tenía esta etapa y abandoné la colección en grapa a mitad de los números que ocupan este volumen. Ahora, con una perspectiva más adulta, he podido valorar mucho mejor el trabajo de Alan Moore. Temas como el racismo, la intolerancia, el clasismo, la camaradería... Tienen cabida en este tomo maduro, elegante y de lectura serena a pesar de la gran dosis de acción que contiene.
El aspecto visual es fabuloso, sobre todo las partes ilustradas por Travis Charest, y está a la altura de la trama. Es verdad que, sobre todo en el desenlace, hay un cierto tufillo a Watchmen, pero está muy bien resuelto, de forma más que satisfactoria.
Una lectura muy recomendable.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is OK. Don't expect any Alan Moore greatness here. The WildC.A.T.S. are thought dead but in reality returned to Khera after hundreds of years and things aren't what they thought they would be. It's the "You can't go home again" story. Meanwhile a bunch of screwups have started a new WildC.A.T.S. on Earth. Again, this starts off OK. It gets interrupted in the middle by a Wildstorm crossover called Fire from Heaven but only chapters 7 and 13 are collected. It all falls apart from there. Moore was clearly phoning it in by that point if he wasn't before. There's a gazillion Wildstorm artists on this book which doesn't help.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say that I really wish this had been longer and Alan Moore could've told a much longer story. What we got was really good especially for having a huge event crossover happen right in the middle of the run. Even though the "Fire from Heaven" event isn't collected in this I had no trouble following Alan Moore's story. Sure, you are missing a lot of stuff plot wise but it doesn't really lose too much of its flow.

One of the best parts in all of this has to be the Church of Gort. Absolutely hilarious.

4/5 Would definitely still recommend.

[Johan · Rating 1 out of 5]

After I read Warren Ellis' The Wild Storm I wanted to read more comics about WildC.A.T.s. This comic was a huge disappointment ... by Alan Moore nonetheless. The art is inconsistent, the characters look bloated, the story is all over the place, ... Actually, there isn't much of a story apart from superheroes and supervillains beating each other up over and over again. Boring.

If I would have read this in this late eithies or early nineties I might have given this 3 stars.