The Wildstorm Universe is a fictional shared universe where the comic books published by Wildstorm take place. It represents an alternate history of the real world where ideas such as interstellar travel and superhuman abilities are commonplace. It is also the name of one of three brands launched by Wildstorm to help differentiate their titles set in the same universe from other, separate titles.[1] Originally launched as part of the Image Universe, it broke off as its own separate universe during the Shattered Image event.
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The Wildstorm Universe began as part of the Image Comics Universe. During Shattered Image, Wildstorm broke off from Image and constituted a separate universe. The Wildstorm's universe represents an alternate history of the real world, with further similarities to other comic book universes (especially the DC Universe). Interstellar travel and alien races, including the Kherubim and Drahn, are taken for granted, and centuries or more of alien contact gave rise to a distinctive mythology in Wildstorm worlds. Fictional technologies, or technologies only theoretically possible in the real world, are present in the Wildstorm Universe. Superhuman agents are commonplace and involved in world politics: Stormwatch dealt extensively with the United Nations, and The Authority took over governance of the United Nations.
Superpowered characters in Wildstorm, other than those bioengineered for superhuman powers, represent three categories of metahuman:
Though storylines in The Authority had portrayed Wildstorm as a multiverse, the 2006-7 DC comics event 52 situated the Wildstorm Universe as a single parallel universe among 52 such realities in the DC Comics Multiverse.
52 made crossovers between DC and Wildstorm titles likely. The first of these occurred in Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Wildstorm, a team called the Challengers visit the Wildstorm Universe on their tour of the multiverse in search of Ray Palmer, the only person capable of stopping a forthcoming Great Disaster. The Challengers conflicted with the Authority, who had killed a speedster left by Palmer as a marker that he had passed through. The fight ended when Majestic interceded and forced the Authority to let the Challengers go. Meanwhile Gen13 characters encountered another group of DC characters bent on stopping the Challengers.
Major titles set in the WildStorm Universe include:
Team 7 was one of the first comics set definitively in the Wildstorm Universe. The first Team 7 series lasted for 12 issues, composed of four-issue story arcs, including one that introduced the "Gen-Factor" storyline. Many subsequent Wildstorm Universe characters are associated with or related to the core Team 7 cast: Lynch, Deathblow, Grifter, Backlash and Dane themselves featured in numerous later Wildstorm publications; Gen13 are the sons and daughters of Team 7 characters; Wetworks was established by Dane; and Grifter is a member of WildC.A.T.S; Lynch was longtime head of International Operations; TeamOne was, chronologically, a precursor team to Team 7.
Many Wildstorm Universe stories referred to the Kherubium/Daemonite War, a fictional historical event explored in most depth in the WildC.A.T.S series.
A storyline that crossed over WildC.A.T.S, Stormwatch, and the movie franchise Aliens brought significant changes to the Wildstorm Universe, killing off many established characters and laying the ground for the Wildstorm Universe's new flagship series The Authority.
In 2005/2006, DCU character Captain Atom appeared in a nine-part limited series entitled Captain Atom: Armageddon under DC's WildStorm imprint. In this title, he wore the yellow/red outfit seen in the Kingdom Come series.[2]
In the story, Captain Atom experiences a time-shift at the moment of his apparent 2005 death in Superman/Batman, transporting him to the WildStorm Universe. He quickly gets into and appears to win a fight with an overzealous Mr. Majestic. Observing the frightened reactions of onlookers, and puzzling over his own altered appearance, he realizes that he has somehow become trapped on an alternate Earth, one where super-heroes are feared by the general populace. Mistaken by the local super-heroes as the force destined to destroy their universe, he was in fact an instrument used ultimately by Nikola Hanssen, new host for half the essence of the Void, to reclaim her whole power (partially lodged in his own body, and cause of his altered appearance). During the story Atom at first cooperates with both Wildcats and The Authority; as the story closes these two teams become enemies and are all killed, as Void triggers the reboot of the WildStorm universe.[3]
The 'reboot' set the ground for a November 2006 relaunch of many Wildstorm titles. At first, the new titles appeared to include major changes to WiIdstorm continuity; as stories progressed efforts were made to explain these changes so as to preserve continuity from before the Worldstorm event.
The relaunched titles were:
New titles included:
During this period in Wildstorm's publishing history, the DC Comics year-long series 52 reimagined the Wildstorm Universe as part of the DC DC Multiverse, designating it Earth-50.[4]
The Worldstorm relaunch faltered as 2007 drew on. Both flagship titles, The Authority and Wildcats, were slated to be written by Grant Morrison with "Wildcats" drawn by Jim Lee and "The Authority" drawn by Gene Ha, but the pair encountered serious delays. Only one issue of Wildcats' and two of The Authority ever shipped. Eventually, amid disapproving fan reaction, both series were cancelled.[5]
Before the announcement that Morrison's series would not continue, Christos Gage filled in with The Authority: Prime. The series shipped promptly, and Gage was hired to write a new cross-universe series Wildstorm: Armageddon. Armageddon comprised six one-shots based on six of the relaunched titles, and led into successive bi-weekly limited series Wildstorm: Revelations and Number of the Beast. These culminated in the World's End storyline, beginning July 2008, which documented worldwide catastrophe and saw several Wildstorm titles relaunched with new creative teams and a new status quo for the universe.[6]
World's End titles:
Wildstorm editor Ben Abernathy described this storyline as a new direction for the Wildstorm Universe:
[T]his direction evolved following our WorldStorm launch a few years ago. Looking at the landscape of the industry, we realized we needed to move our universe in a different direction, something that the “Big Two” couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do for a long period of time. And we decided that direction should be toward a sci-fi/horror direction of a post-apocalyptic setting (to a degree, an almost logical extension to where the WSU has been headed for years). There have been “visions” of a devastated, bleak future in other mainstream super-hero books, but nothing with the lasting impact or direction that the World’s End books will be tackling.[11]