WildCats # 11 - Alamo

The issue opens up with ‘Cats are now under attack on two fronts, Ladytron having a ball in the Halo Building reliving her ‘Die Hard’ fantasy, while the bulk of the ‘Cats are fighting to escapes Majestic’s Hawaiian kingdom. Nemesis makes the ultimate sacrifice by plunging her blades into the one man she loved for countless centuries. Lord Defile makes his way to the Halo building power source with plans to use it to rule the Deamonite Empire.

Gage does a fantastic job balancing the two paralleling stories lines between the siege of Halo and the ‘Cats great escape. Gage continues to write Ladytron in a way that I enjoy for the first time ever, which is no easy task.

The art chores are still handled the skilled Googe, while there were some panels that looked a bit rushed, over all he has don’t a superb job with these characters and makes Gage’s scripts see to leap off the page with each panel. It makes me sad that issue #12 will be his last issue on this title.

(No Spoilers)

After how intense last month’s #10 was, I was a little underwhelmed by this issue.  And I can’t exactly put my figure on why.  Ladytron’s defense of did have a cool surprise but as awesome as the moment was, it seemed futile by the outcome (which I guess is the point if you look at next month’s #12 cover).  And the decision Nemesis made was not hard to see coming.  I will admit that her final part in the events was a bit of a shock but it’s hard to get wrapped up in the moment knowing the pattern most comics follow with this kind of situation (man this is hard to discuss without spoiling anything!). 

One thing that really surprised me was Neil Googe’s art.  It’s funny, but I get the feeling he’s getting tired of drawing Wildcats.  Especially Nemesis.  I’m not an artist myself but I hang around with them all the time so they’ve taught me how to look at artwork and see where the artist took shortcuts.  The upside though, is there are several “money-shots” in this issue that Googe obviously spent more time on. 

Overall it was a good issue, but not a great issue.  There’s lots of setup which Gage has usually done a good job during his Wildcats run of paying off the following issue.

“Life and Deathblow” backup story.  It’s no spoiler (since the solicitation says it) that Deathblow died at the end of Deathblow Volume 2.  It’s also no spoiler that he’s been in the pages of Stormwatch P.H.D. since World’s End began.  Well, here we finally get to see why.  And it was almost one of those “of course that’s why he’s not dead!” moments.  It’s kind of like the explanation has been staring us all in the face and we just didn’t realize it (or want to realize it?).  But apparently there’s more to know about his story because we’ve still got part 2 coming in The Authority #11.