JLA / WildC.A.T.s

WildC.A.T.s reading order #18

by Grant Morrison, Val Semeiks (Editor), Kevin Conrad (Editor)

Crossover between the Justice League of America of DC Comics with WildC.A.Ts, of WildStorm Comics.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Batman, Comic Book

64 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1997

About the author

Grant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.

In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Score: 4.00 out of 5
Grade: 80% (A-) | Great

The JLA and Wildcats collide in a classic 90’s superhero mash-up! Here is my review of JLA/WILDCATS #1:




The Good:

The main villain, Epoch, Lord of Time, starts off as your generic crazy villain. But by the end, it felt like Morrison double-downed and made him this over-the-top, ridiculous, but fun, villain. There’s even a sequence where the JLA fight him through time which was great. The final fight was unexpectedly brutal, which always puts a smile on my face!





This book really gets good when the JLA and Wildcats first collide. I loved seeing how the JLA and Wildcats matched up 1v1 – especially with the two leader’s butting heads. Watching Batman chirp Grifter for his use of guns was hilarious. (I feel like Batman would be the most savage trash-talker ever!) Once the JLA and Wildcats set aside their differences, this turns into a fun team-up story.





I really enjoyed the action-packed art! It never felt like the story shied away from using these heroes to their fullest. The 90’s action fun and the retro vibe won me over. Even the amount of humour caught me off-guard. Most of it taking the shape of two superhero teams just poking fun at each other.





The Bad:

At first, I wasn’t a fan of Epoch. He felt like your typical 90’s villain of the week. Although he comes into his own later on, his first impressions missed the mark. And the sequence where the JLA fight Epoch through time felt a little dragged out, as if the story was stalling for pages. There’s also a sequence where Green Lantern and Void go to Void-Space. This just felt like a weird, unfunny, and unnecessary detour that didn’t really do much for the story.





Conclusion:

Seeing the JLA and Wildcats together was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It was over-the-top, funny at times, and was vintage 90’s. Despite some sequences slowing down the story, there’s a lot of fun to be had here. I’d recommend this to anyone wanting a fun 90’s comic that you can turn your brain off to and enjoy.




Thanks for reading! :)

[Gregorio Zoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boh, poco da dire, classica roba anni 90, con infiniti discorsi stereotipati di grande scienza, quarte dimensioni e cose simili che sembrano più una supercazzola che un effettivo motivo narrativo. Dei personaggi della Wildcats quasi la metà sono macchiette dimenticabili, e come sempre nelle storie di Morrison sulla JLA il nemico è qualcosa di enorme che viene sconfitto per un loophole

[Shane Stanis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chrises on Infinite Earths: No Crime, Just Cows

Read for space/time shenanigans, a gross “manga emperor,” and some cool big action

[Oran · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
JLA/WildC.A.T.s is a comic book crossover between two superhero teams that were owned by two different companies, Detective Comics and Image comics respectively.

The Justice League comprises of notable and famous comic book characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder-woman, the Flash and Green Lantern. However, the characters from the WildC.A.T.s team are relatively new to the comic book industry as they were only created in the 90s by comic book artist Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi. However, this didn't stop the graphic novel from being an enjoyable read.

In this particular crossover, the DC villain Epoch, appropriately named the Lord Of Time, wreaks havoc and causes chaos by time-travelling and messing with alternate universes, including that of the WildC.A.Ts' universe. By accident the Justice League find themselves on the WildC.A.Ts' universe and together they must work together to defeat Epoch. Incidentally, the Justice League and WildC.A.Ts don't see eye-to-eye at first and instead they greet each other with hostility.

Many criticize Grant Morrison's writing as confusing and hard to comprehend. Well, in some aspects I do have to agree with this held opinion, but this is largely my fault as I've never read a WildC.A.Ts' story before. In spite of this I must admit the time-travelling was hard to understand at times but then again its time travel.

My favorite part of the novel is when The Justice League has to fight its WildC.A.Ts' counterpart. In this scene, Morrison shows how well he can implement humor into his writing.

The art in this crossover, is particularly well-done. Although it takes more of a cartoon feel, I like it.

Although this was the first WildC.A.T.s graphic novel that I've read, I can say Morrison has made want to read more by constructing the characters to be unique superheroes with interesting values and attitudes.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up at a used bookstore with every intention of loving it, which I did. That love is irrational due to the fact that I dislike Kyle as Green Lantern and I prefer my Flash to be Barry. Simply put, I loved this for what it represented and not for what it actually turned out to be.
A crossover between JLA and WildC.A.T.S is a dream come true for me. Yes, I realize that this took place in '97 but I was barely a teen girl and shunning all things that were for boys because "boys don't like girls that know more about guy stuff than them". It would only take a few years before I could not care less and went back to loving what I loved, but this crossover was one of the things that slipped through the cracks.
Zealot was a favorite as was Grifter, so to see them paired up with my all-time favorite, Batman was a treat.
Morrison rely heavy on science-y language with a far fetched plot involving time-travel, alternative universes and even more scientific-ish reasons for how this is all happening. True be told, I could care less how it was happening, I was just thrilled that it was happening. I did enjoy some of the interactions between members of the teams and some of the dialogue made me smirk.
Val Semeiks art was exactly what I expected. It was classic 90s style with some pretty good splash pages and decent close-ups. There was loud, over the top action and basic backgrounds on the small panels. Kevin Conrad's ink and colors are almost more worthy of mention due to the bright flashy colors that he used and it his work that truly made some panels stand out.
I'm not sure how people in 1997 reacted to this comic but me, here in 2016 loved it. It was a throwback to a preteen obsession meeting up with a life-long obsession and where it was not perfect, it was nostalgic for me. It's a keeper.

[Tony Laplume · Rating 4 out of 5]

It occurred to me that, as far as all outward appearances go, the original Image Comics superhero lineup was the first to be created in which the idea of superheroes was taken entirely for granted, that it was as natural to a theoretical Image citizen for superheroes to exist as, say, the mailman. There might be exceptions here and there, but there was never any real attempt to ground these characters in reality.

In other words, it’s as ideal as anything ever has for Grant Morrison to treat as his personal playground.

A lot has been said about Morrison’s style over the years. There are times when everyone seems to love it, and others when everyone seems completely baffled. In JLA/WILDCATS, a snapshot if there ever was of Morrison at his peak popularity, when he’d just gone mainstream with the enthusiastically-received and career-altering JLA (when he went from being perceived as the go-to guy for revitalizing sideshow franchises to being asked to define the mainstream itself), he gets to showcase what epic superhero storytelling looks like in its most condensed form.

The villain achieves near-complete control over...everything, but the Justice League and the WildC.A.T.s end up joining forces against him. Morrison weaves together his trademark ability to phrase every possible line of dialogue in its most dramatic, impressive-sounding form, the first scientist of superheroics, continuously. And that’s the whole thing. The conclusion is never in any doubt, and the narrative flow by definition is easy enough to write itself. But Morrison never, ever settles for the mundane.

In anyone else’s hands, the results would have been solidly routine. Of course it isn’t, with Grant Morrison. A good way to sample his wildest instincts, in their most predictable form.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crossover between the titular super-teams from DC Comics and Image Comics (and yes, I know the WildC.A.T.S were later folded into the DC universe, but they weren't in 1997).
The Justice League confront the time-travelling supervillain Epoch but are unable to prevent him from doing untold damage to the timeline. Attempting to return to their own time, they accidentally find themselves in an alternate universe where they have to form an alliance with some of that world's superheroes to save both of their timelines.

Now, I had never read a WildC.A.T.S story before this and the 90s were notorious for dodgy ill-thought-out crossovers, so I wasn't expecting a great deal from this book.
Perhaps those low expectations are why I actually found myself quite enjoying it in the end. Or perhaps it's because Morrison strikes the balance between the crossing-over characters perfectly, with their interactions feeling organic and not just like fan-service. In fact my favourite moment of the book is the (inevitable) initial fight between the titular heroes where Grifter, seeing the Batman in action, decides to quietly sit the fight out until the two teams reconcile.

Epoch is a better villain than he initially seems too. He starts off as a run-of-the-mill one-off villain spouting megalomaniacal rubbish but across the book begins to evolve into an ever more powerful and, frankly, weirder foe. By the end he's so weird that I could easily imagine him being pulled from the pages of 'Doom Patrol' rather than those of the JLA.

Basically, a far better crossover story than it has any right to be.

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[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Standard superhero crossover - heroes fight until they're on the same side then team up to defeat the bad guy. I really like Morrison's JLA but never found anything interesting in the few WildC.A.T.S comics I've read. The story is typical Morrison superheroics, but the writing felt phoned in and the art is a style I don't enjoy.

[José Miguel (TheHudson) · Rating 3 out of 5]

La historia es un poco floja porque podría estirarse más y aprovechar a los personajes.
Aún así, se disfrutó.
Lo leí entre estaciones de metro, fácil y fluida historia.

Leí la edición de Grupo Editorial VID, versión en español de septiembre de 1998.

[Lucas Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best part of this was Grifter taking one look at Batman, momentarily considering fighting him, then sitting down on the ground and lighting a cigarette like “Nope, not doing that." Considering how Superman and Wonder Woman mopped the floor with Majestix & Zealot, he was right to do so.

[Luiz Santiago · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

QUADRINHOS: http://www.planocritico.com/category/...

[Wayland Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent, not great, meeting of the 90's JLA lineup and the WildCATS to fight a powerful time traveler.

[Cyril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining, bombastic and pretty, but classic Morrison storytelling issues leave it as good at best
3.49 stars

[Kapitol Tank · Rating 3 out of 5]

One-shot que hace de spin-off/Team-up de la JLA de MOrrison y los WildCATs contemporáneos.

[Aram · Rating 3 out of 5]

So 90s comic book it hurts, but it hurts so good

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really this is closer to three and a half, but of course Goodreads doesn't allow half stars in the ratings. This title is a team-up between DC's Justice League and The WildC.A.T.S., then published by Image comics. The basic outline of the story is pretty standard fare -- A time-shifting foe is using his abilities to tap into the energies of time and space itself in an attempt to become godlike, leading to ruptures that threaten both universes -- but Grant Morrison does a good job of differentiating the large-ish cast of characters as well as the two universes, particularly given the relatively short amount of pages he has to work with. The art is consistently solid, and everything moves along at a good clip without any major plot threads unraveling. Of course, since this is a crossover between two publishers, by the end all of the major players have been restored pretty much intact to their original states.

Really, my biggest complaint is a little unfair. DC was going through one of their periodic attempts to "refresh" some of their iconic characters, and Superman in particular is almost unrecognizable throughout the book. That's not the fault of those who gave us this particular title, since they had to work with what they had available, but I nevertheless found myself thinking that if really like to have seen this with the "real" Superman in place instead.

This is hardly a problem unique to DC, or to that era of comics. I rather suspect that in years to come people may feel the same way about, say, Peter Parker as a rich businessman rather than a working photographer. But I digress.

On the whole this was an enjoyable title, and it was fun to see the two teams interact. I believe it would have benefitted from more room to explore some of the implications of the story, but nevertheless it's a pleasant enough quick read.

[Luis Reséndiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

casi siempre es buena cosa leer a grant morrison, y casi siempre es buena cosa un crossover superheroico (al menos en el papel, al menos para los que fuimos niños en los ochenta y los noventa y nos acostumbramos a este tipo de emociones). jla/wildc.a.t.s es extraño porque no pierde el toque morrisoniano, que incluye paradojas temporales, metafísica, realidades múltiples y senderos que se bifurcan, pero tampoco se separa del esquema del crossover superheroico, ya saben: con chistes, retos entre superhéroes, una confusión inicial entre malos y buenos y una causa común que unificará a los héroes. me quedo con eso: la rareza de tener a un autor con esos conceptos en un subgénero del cómic superheroico más bien distinguido por sus facilismos y complacencias.

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

The nineties were an. . .interesting time for comics. Here we have a time-traveling megalomaniac (standard comic book fare for any decade), a crossover between DC's Justice League of America and Image Comic's W.I.L.D.Cats (this occurs before DC bought Wildstorm Productions from Image, which should suggest how much DC was scrambling for readers), a electric blue raspberry Superman, giant shoulder pads (sometimes combined with bikini armor), weird face-helmet-collars, and a bunch of characters whose names sound like they need exclamation points after them (Maul! Void! Zealot!).

It's not "so bad it's good," and it's not exactly a good comic, but it's sort of nostalgically adorable.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad que, para ser de Morrison, me resultó bastante poco imaginativo. Pero tampoco la pasé mal leyéndolo. No creo que el haber agarrado la edición en inglés haya sido un punto en contra, pero quizás si la hubiera leído de Vid la pasaba más rápido. De todos modos, si consigo la tapa en buena calidad y/o el ISBN, seguramente la suba.

[Jeffrey Jelmeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually rather disappointed. Turns out the story is one I have already read, bundled up in some other collection, so this was a wasted read for me. The story itself is actually rather good, but I had thought that this was a new crossover story, and finding out otherwise was what drove it down a star for me.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morrison does his time-hopping, trans-dimensional thing in 64 quick pages, sort of a mini preview of themes in his epic DC One Million (which was published the next year). The JLA get more screen time but the Wildcats come off overall with more personality (especially Grifter compared to stodgy ol' Batman). The WW/Zealot interactions were the best parts.

[Gregor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff still not as trippy as I would like , but good time travelling nonsense all the same

[Jdetrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crossovers are notoriously bad, but this works. Perhaps because it's really a JLA story guests tarring the Wildcats, but it keeps its focus and it's fun.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

DC's crossover is better than a two-star rating, but it's not a three-star rating either. It's not really 2.5, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

[Dony Grayman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edición en inglés que estaba bastante más barata que en castellano.

[Guido · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primer cruce entre la JLA y los WildCATS mucho antes de que compartieran multiverso.