My suggestion is to just turn Stormwatch into a group trying to take over the planet with Harry Tanner as leader and the members can include Engineer, Apollo, Midnighter and Jenny, and Stormwatch can fight super heroes instead.

I hadn't seen you in a while! was wondering where you'd gotten to. But yeah, i pretty much agree with everything in here, right down to the love of Thor. Man, that's a great book.

but yeah, Stormwatch... i keep reading it, and every once in a while there's a glimmer of hope that it may be improving, only to have those hopes crushed yet again. My one hope that remains is that aside from Angie, they can all still be saved, because while they've had some shitty dialogue come out of their mouths, and have been involved with wall banger idiot plots, when you really think about what's actually been DONE with them... it's not much. It's a crying shame, because they're awesome, and is one of the book's faults, but it also means they haven't been DAMAGED, at least not severely, and someone else can still do right by them. Especially Jack Hawksmoor who is still a COMPLETE blank slate. I will give Milligan credit in that he's done better with Apollo, Midnighter and Jenny than Cornell did. Man, did I hate Cornell's Midnighter in particular. Absolutely HATED. but 'better' doesn't necessarily mean 'good'

Angie though... I fear she's been ruined for good. Which i a shame, because she was an AWESOME character.

This issue in particular... the things that bugged me the most was that once back on the Eye, the Projectionist just VANISHED completely. Did they bring her back? did they leave her in Antarcitca? we don't know! It's not that I particularly like her, but it seems a rather large thing to just leave out. Shouldn't she have been the on with the biggest reaction to seeing Harry was still alive? I mean it was HER memories Harry tampered with, so...

And speaking of Harry... while I think he's a good villain, for a man who is supposedly a master of deception, none of his lies have seemed particularly convincing. I could accept it if it was revealed he has some form of telepathy that aids in people accepting his lies, and the fact that he was able to erase Emma's memories seems to suggest he might, but until that's confirmed it just makes all of them look VERY gullible to believe these half baked lies.

And Jack just kinda hanging out in the background popping in with a word from time to time to remind us he's still present... only for Angie to deem him so unimportant that she just ignored him when she did her heel turn.

but she ignored Midnighter too, despite Harry considering him the biggest threat. I think that's just to make sure the plot could advance.

'Halo effect' has been a pet peeve of mine since the first time it appeared. The way the characters, but Apollo is the worst about it, call out their powers is... just bad. It's like they don't trust the readers to be able to figure out what's going on without telling us. And it's not like Apollo's powers are all that complicated, or this gives us any valuable insight into what he's doing.

@RayeGunn: I guess you're right that not so much has been done that (most of) the characters are unusable. Maybe we can hope that in the aftermath of this cluster f_ck is a team of Midnighter, Apollo, Hawksmoor, Jenny and maybe a couple fitting DC characters (I really liked MM being there but that green ship has sailed) no longer connected to these stupid Shadow Lords. I still think the guest appearance in I, Vampire was a glimpse of how excellent the team could be and I'd like more of that kind of stuff.

@CitizenBane: It's a close competition for worst line and no matter which wins, the readers lost a long time ago.

I have to agree the shadow lords look real awful in Avalon and better to just forget the shadow lords nonsense being used to tie Demon Knights to Stormwatch. I prefer to remove the link between Demon Knights and Stormwatch. Adam One being Merlin was also weird and best forgotten.

I don't even get why the Shadow Lords are there at all. In Demon Knights recently, Arthur knighted them, and that was the beginning of Stormwatch. There were no Shadow Lords there then, just Arthur, so why now? I think the Shadow Lords as a concept do a lot of damage to these characters, because here we have the Authority characters who shouldn't be taking shit from anyone, who in Wildstorm had always been in charge of their own actions for better or worse, and they're blindly following orders from these mysterious Shadow Lord people, and we're given no good reason as to why.

And Apollo's dialogue, oh god, it's so bad, I cringe every time I see him talk, especially if he's using his powers. It's hard to pick which line is worse, but I lean towards 'Halo effect' because he keeps repeating it. I don't understand why Milligan, or maybe it's the editor, thinks he has to break into this incredibly cheesy dialogue all the time... But even with that, I think he and most of the others can be salvaged in the hands of someone who knows the characters and respects them...

Better to link Demon Knights with Justice League Dark instead of Stormwatch.

@Buckshot: Jim Starlin is pretty cool news though, right?

I dropped the series after I read #14 i think.

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@Buckshot: Jim Starlin is pretty cool news though, right?

I don't know Starlin's writing well enough to know if this is good or bad, but at least it's different. Hope I don't have to take this back later, but pretty much anything would be better than what we've got now. Here I go getting my hopes up. Honestly, I wish they had given the book to Fialkov. The few members of the team that appeared in I, Vampire were written excellently and his work on that title shows he can write a good story, and that's all I'm looking for.

@Buckshot: Yea with him not doing I, Vampire any more I would have been pretty happy if they had shifted him on to Stormwatch

I think Starlin may be too old-school for the Authority characters... but I have a hunch that may not even be an issue. I suspect that this group of characters won't be appearing in Starlin's run beyond the first issue or two, maybe the first arc, and instead we will get a new Authority book. I explain here

Okay... I was wrong about Authority... but did you see this?

Full cover for issue 19

Cover for issue 20

;)

@RayeGunn said:

Okay... I was wrong about Authority... but did you see this?

Full cover for issue 19

Cover for issue 20

;)

They look O_O

goddamn

@RayeGunn said:

Okay... I was wrong about Authority... but did you see this?

Full cover for issue 19

Cover for issue 20

;)

@Buckshot: Is it just me or does that look like the original Midnighter and Apollo as well as the New 52 version?

@Jonny_Anonymous: The New 52 versions, if you put the solicit, some comments from Starlin and that cover together, are being shunted off to another dimension, and from the sounds of it, they will never be seen again. Starlin says he will never draw those characters again after that one cover, and the cover for 20 has a new/old Midnighter, Apollo and Hellstrike. At first I thought we'd be following the New 52 characters, because DC seemed so committed to sticking with the relaunch designs and all, and i was hoping for an Authority book (this may still be a back door plan if Starlin's run flops) but it's looking like nope, they're just bringing in alternate versions and actually REPLACING them. It's as if DC finally realized how broken the new versions were and decided they weren't salvageable and are starting over (sort of). So yeah, the cover for 19 has both. but, while much closer to their Wildstorm looks, I don't think it's the actual Earth 50 versions of the characters. First of all, there's blonde Jenny. And Apollo looks to have gotten a bit of a costume change from Wildstorm, he's got a belt, and he's got metallic looking arm bands. But the chest emblem is the same as Wildstorm and he's got his hair back! Midnighter though, I actually got my issues of Hitch's Stormwatch and Authority out and compared and it is an EXACT replica of Hitch's original design for him, down to the tiniest detail. The panels on his cowl, the coat, the padding on his legs, the shape of the knee-pads, the shin guards, everything is exactly how Hitch drew him.

@RayeGunn said:

Okay... I was wrong about Authority... but did you see this?

Full cover for issue 19

Cover for issue 20

;)

@CitizenBane

That looks excellent. I'm not one for "calling" things, but this is more or less what I wanted. Never thought it would happen in a million years (and until it's written it hasn't cuz covers are just covers, and even after it's written, the new characters have to also not suck for it to be worth anything), but I wanted it to. This is from the Ask Buckshot thread just a few weeks ago:

@Buckshot said:

What I'd love more than anything would be if the actual Authority appeared. I'm talking about a story where Jenny comes back from wherever she vanished to when she took away the baby universe, gathers up Dr. Swift, Midnighter, Apollo, and Jack, gets on the carrier and tells the team that on her way back she found a new Earth that she wants to check out, and leads them to the DCnU. I don't know what would happen, because they couldn't exist too long in the current DC universe too long without one side or the other being drastically changed, but it would make me feel better to know that my Wildstorm Universe exists somewhere.

These may not be the actual Authority showing up, but it seems like it's as close as we'll get and if it's done well, I'll applaud the attempt. My only issue is that I don't see a "new" Jack Hawksmoor. Maybe they'll keep the New 52 one and turn him into the "real" one because he's practically a blank slate. I never needed the New 52 versions of Authority characters to be the same as the original, but they weren't even good characters in their own right. Maybe this go round things will be better.

@Buckshot: Yeah, I had little fantasies of the Carrier just coming out of the Bleed and the REAL Authority just taking their place, I was even going to draw some fan-art that showed that, but I kept putting it off, and I suppose there's no point now. But I never thought it would actually happen. It's a pretty drastic measure, it's basically DC saying "OK, we screwed up. Let's try this again..." and it kinda negates Stormwatch 1-18. I mean, it still HAPPENED, but they're basically just throwing the characters away. and this is after DC seemed bound and determined, for a year and a half, to not just stick with the characters they'd introduced, but refused to even change superficial things like their costumes even though they were widely disliked and mocked, especially Midnighter's. So to actually see that... just wow.

I have seen some people pretty upset about this, that they aren't continuing the story that's already been happening. Some just not liking the idea of it, seeing it as a cop out. And I guess I can understand that if you actually liked the books, and it just changes dramatically, but I'm being selfish here and I'm glad they're doing this, because I get an Apollo and Midnnighter I can actually recognize. Hopefully Starlin can do a decent job, but at this point i will settle for him not screwing them up.

But yeah, no Jack on the covers, and that's a bit worrisome... but on the other hand, from what I can gather, Starlin is cranking the cosmic up to 11 (as was to be expected, I suppose) and what's Jack going to realistically do on a team that's all cosmic focused? I have reservations about Midnighter being on a pure cosmic book, because I think he should be more justice/people based in the types of things he gets involved in, but his powers at least will FUNCTION in space, unlike Jack... The bright spot here is that he's not in the pile of bodies on the cover for 19, so he may be simply be moving to another book, where he'll have actual cities to interact with on a regular basis. He may fit in on JLD, or JLA, or... I dunno, there are a few options.

@RayeGunn: I had written more but something happened to my post and I only feel like retyping part of it.The Hawksmoor part of course.

Hawksmoor in space could easily work. Not that I don't love Hawksmoor's powers (I love Hawksmoor's powers) but he's more than them. Think back to Worldstorm and how well the character was written then. He was crippled for the first part because he was in a world with dead cities and that only served the development of the character. When they left for space he was without a city beside the Carrier and he didn't miss a step. He wasn't defined by his surroundings, he was defined by his personality, his drive, his leadership, how he thinks, how other characters respond to his ego, and how he responds to the events and characters around him. The character was written well so his lack of a typical city was never an issue or a limitation. And that's one way he could be written. Going in the complete opposite direction and focusing on his powers in space (and seeing the rest of him through that lens) could be amazing. A story of cosmic travelers could easily regularly come across alien civilizations and the places they live, and a writer that took the opportunity to delve into the (for lack of a better term) science fiction there could explore all sorts of ideas. Some of my favorite science fiction stories take aliens and look at how they're different, not just in how they appear externally, but also how their thought processes and cultures might be different from a human's, and turn that back around to look at humanity. If Jack connected to a truly alien city and had to navigate its consciousness (especially if they take the ideas presented in his Secret History when it comes to what cities are and what they mean), any kind of story could be told and almost any idea could be explored (even just in the background of whatever the rest of his team is getting up to that week). Aside from really working with the possibilities granted by alien cultures, you could have Jack on the ship and get to see who he is through how he lives without a city. What is the god of cities without a city? Who is he? Why does he matter? You could expand the ship-as-city concept to explore the relationships between the characters because his teammates on the ship would be the inhabitants of the city that he is connected to. You could work somewhere between those last two ideas (Jack without anything and Jack connected to everything/everyone) and just have him start a real relationship with the ship and explore the implications of that. Jack's potential is limitless and he may even be more interesting when separated from typical cities. If Jack stayed on Earth I guess he could be on the JL (cuz they need another white guy) and easily play a similar role as Cyborg (another character being underused).

All I'm thinking now is that I'd give all my money for Hickman to write The Authority.

Heh! yeah, Hickman's Avengers is very Authority-ish. He's never done anything for DC though, that I'm aware of, so i doubt he'd start now, but it would be cool.

And yeah, i guess you're right that Jack worked allright in Word's End. But he had been solidly established as a character in Wildstorm, he's still a blank slate here. I think he needs surroundings that are better suited to his powers until he's better established. We haven't seen him use a fraction of the abilities he displayed in Wildstorm that are city specific yet, like travelling between cities, seeing past events in windows, or even just crazy parkour skills. And his personality is pretty much nonexistent. I mean, we can kinda assume certain things about him have carried over, but we can't be sure, and people new to the character know next to nothing about him, still.

That's been one of the biggest flaws of Stormwatch with all the characters, but I think Jack got hit hardest. It was like, they just assumed everyone knew about them because they were existing characters from Wildstorm, only elaborating on things that had changed whenever it came up. Except they'd been rebooted into the DCU, we know damn well their old origins had to have changed, but we have still yet to learn how in most cases. New readers were left baffled as to who these characters were and what they were all about, and old readers weren't much better off. And it's really strange since at their core many of them aren't all that complex, they could be summed up fairly quickly by having each character have the spotlight for an issue or two, while still advancing the larger plot. They summed up Jenny in the 0 issue, and Midnighter and Apollo have gotten bits and pieces revealed about them, (but still not anything about the origins of their powers or anything) and we saw Angie's origin, so why not for Jack?

Here we go, the PERFECT book for Jack:

THE MOVEMENT #1

Written by GAIL SIMONE

Art by FREDDIE WILLIAMS II

Cover by AMANDA CONNER

1:25 Variant cover by CLIFF CHIANG

On sale MAY 1 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information.

We are faceless. We are limitless. We see all. And we do not forgive.

Who defends the powerless against the GREEDY and the CORRUPT? Who protects the homeless and poverty-stricken from those who would PREY upon them in the DARK OF NIGHT?

When those who are sworn to protect us abuse their power, when toxic government calls down super-human lackeys to force order upon the populace…finally, there is a force, a citizen’s army, to push order BACK. Let those who abuse the system know this as well: We have our OWN super humans now. They are not afraid of your badges or Leagues. And they will not be SILENCED.

We are your neighbors. We are your co-workers. And we are your children.

I prefer Stormwatch deal with human problems rather than cosmic aliens. Hopefully, there will be another Stormwatch reboot after the cosmic approach.

@RayeGunn: Continuing my theme of disagreeing with you on Jack Hawksmoor, I don't think he needs to be established to be put in situations that wouldn't be normal for him. That's not to say I'm ok with him being basically a blank slate. He's been in more than a year's worth of comics, that he's as nebulous and unexplained as he is, is a crime. That being said, I don't think you necessarily need to know whether or not he's like the original Jack Hawksmoor or if he's something else. What he IS needs to be established, but how similar he is to the original is irrelevant. And the establishing of his character could conceivably be done by showing how he is without what he or a reader would expect him to need most. It might even be better given his vague state at this point. About the only thing we know about this Jack Hawksmoor is that he's connected to cities, so finding out what it means when the only solid thing we know about him isn't the situation he finds himself in, could be really interesting. I wish I hadn't thought about Hickman's Authority. Now it's all I can imagine.

The Movement actually does look like it would fit Hawksmoor. Well, it looks like it would fit Wildstorm Hawksmoor. DC Hawksmoor hasn't really displayed the qualities that would make this his sort of thing. The creative team looks great though.

@buckshot: Interested in seeing what you thing of the #19 reboot?

@jonny_anonymous:

http://www.comicvine.com/profile/buckshot/blog/pay-me-no-mind-just-rambling-about-stormwatch-agai/90699/