Waller vs Wildstorm Annotations: Issue 1
Waller vs Wildstorm
Written by Evan Narcisse and Spencer Ackerman,
colors by Michael Atiyeh, and letters by Dave Sharpe
Issue 1
Cover:
Battalion (Jackson King) looming over Amanda Waller, Lois Lane, a Checkmate soldier, Deathstroke, and Winter.
Page One:
Gamorra was a location in the Wildstorm Universe that first appeared in Deathblow #1 in 1993, created by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Steve Gerber, and Nick Manabat. Gamorra (or Gamorra Island or the Gamorra Protectorate) was an Asian Pacific island that was the primary location for the Cybernary series and used as a location throughout the Wildstorm books, especially during the "Fire from Heaven" crossover and the first arc of The Authority. It's basically a North Korean-type dictatorship with the addition of futuristic cybernetic facilities.
The dictator of Gamorra was Kaizen Gamorra, a major villain in the Wildstorm Universe. When he took over, he renamed the island, the nation, and the capital city after himself.
Lois Lane is, of course, the long time love interest of Superman and top reporter for the Daily Planet.
Page Two:
Parousia was the name of the island nation before Kaizen Gamorra took over.
Yukio Gamorra was Kaizen Gamorra's only daughter. Originally, her digital consciousness was taken and implanted in a woman code-named Cybernary who was part of the Gamorran Resistance Movement against her father, although she later came around to helping him.
Page Three:
Steve Lombard is another journalist at the Daily Planet. Originally, he was the sports columnist and former news anchor for WGBS, but here he appears to be the Deputy Foreign Editor.
Page Four:
The letter from Jackson King is on stationary saying "Office of the Inspector General" with the Checkmate logo. Checkmate was a US intelligence agency which first appeared in Action Comics #598 in 1988. It was basically a new version of "the Agency," the group headed by Amanda Waller that ran Task Force X in John Ostrander's Suicide Squad. The "Office of the Inspector General" in the US is a organization that examines the actions of a government agency, acting as auditor of their operations to make sure they are within compliance of the law.
Adeline Kane is the ex-wife of Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in the DC Universe. She first appeared in New Teen Titans #34 in 1983. She started out as Slade's drill instructor before marrying him. It appears in this world, she is the Bishop to Amanda Waller's Queen in Checkmate.
Page Five:
Jackson King or Battalion was a main character in Wildstorm's Stormwatch series, created by Jim Lee and Brandon Choi in 1993. He was the son of Isaiah King, a former member of the secret group "Team One," who had been exposed (alongside many other people) to the energies of a passing comet and gained superpowers as a result, as well as their children. Jackson, being one of these "Seedlings," had telepathy and telekinesis, which he used to operate his Battalion armor. Jackson eventually became the leader of Stormwatch, a UN-sponsored superhero team.
Page Six:
It appears in this universe that Stormwatch and Checkmate are linked.
Lois Lane is wearing a "MC" baseball cap. This might be a cap for the Metropolis Comets, Metropolis's former baseball team (they moved to Star City and became the Star City Comets).
Amanda Waller is, of course, the woman who leads the Suicide Squad in the DC Universe.
Page Seven:
The picture is of the frozen body of Hellstrike or Nigel Keane, the British member of Stormwatch Prime. His power was that his entire body was made of pure energy (or, rather, he was a "gaseous sentient posthuman entity") held together by a containment suit, allowing him to fire bolts of plasma and fly.
Page Eight:
These soldiers are wearing the logo of Checkmate.
Winter or Nikolas Kamarov was the Russian member of Stormwatch Prime. Winter, in the Wildstorm universe, was the son of two former members of Team One, Zealot and John Colt, who were secretly Kherubim aliens. As a result, Winter was physically stronger than most humans, immortal, and had the power to absorb energy, most often heat, resulting in cryokinesis.
Page Nine:
In the Wildstorm Universe, Winter was actually a very noble character and was eventually promoted to the leader of Stormwatch Prime, unlike here where he appears to be unhinged and a murderer.
Page Ten:
A direct hit from Battalion's guns would have killed a normal human, but, again, since Winter is secretly Kherubim, he's much tougher than normal and survives a hit here without injury.
Page Eleven:
"Civil rights enforcement" implies that Stormwatch was tasked with monitoring and investigating any violations of civil rights in the countries where they had jurisdiction. Which presumably is not Afghanistan.
Page Twelve:
"For the fighters against the Soviets." That would be the Mujahideen, whom the US and the CIA secretly funded and supplied with weapons in the 1980s in order to fight their proxy war against the Soviet Union. This was called Operation Cyclone.
Page Thirteen:
"Weatherman" refers to the person in charge of the Skywatch space station where Stormwatch operates. The Weatherman during most of the original Stormwatch series was Henry Bendix.
Page Fourteen:
A reference to Skywatch. In this universe, it appears to be operated by Checkmate, since Jackson felt that was his way into Skywatch.
Stormwatch appears to be a US agency and not a UN agency, like it was in the original Stormwatch series (hence why it had an international with members from Italy, Britain, Japan, and Russia).
Page Sixteen:
The first panel shows the following characters in front of Jackson: Fuji, Cannon, Diva, Winter, Amanda Waller, and Adeline Kane. "Alessandra" refers to Alassandra Fermi or Diva, the woman with the bluish-white skin who has sonic-based powers; "Toshiro" refers to Toshiro Misawa or Fuji, the giant armored member in the back who is also living gas inside a containment suit; and "Mitchell" refers to Mitchell Saunders or Cannon, the man in silver, blue, and gold, who can project plasma from various guns on his suit.
"Swigert Base" might be named after John Swigert Jr, a NASA astronaut who was the pilot for the disastrous Apollo 13 mission.
Page Eighteen and Nineteen:
The team here is made up of Grifter, Deathblow, Cannon, Dane, John Lynch, Wraparound, and Deathstroke. Of note, five of them (Grifter, Deathblow, Dane, Lynch, and Wraparound) were members of Team 7 in the Wildstorm Universe, so this might be this universe's version of Team 7.
Page Twenty:
The man in the first panel is John Lynch. In the Wildstorm Universe, he was a former member of Team 7 and International Operations who eventually went rogue from IO in order to protect Team 7's children, the group known as Gen13. He has vague telepathic and telekinetic powers.
The man in the third panel is Jackson Dane. In the Wildstorm Universe, he was also a former member of Team 7. During a later mission, a new team he led were accidentally bonded with "biological experiments" (the golden symbiote that covers his skin) and became the team known as Wetworks. He also has vague telepathic and telekinetic powers, with the addition of superhuman strength and invulnerability that the golden symbiote grants him.
Page Twenty-One:
The second panel is of Michael Cray or Deathblow. Deathblow in the Wildstorm Universe was another former member of Team 7 who became an independent mercenary after he and the rest of the team were exposed to a "Gen-Active" serum and gained their vague telepathic/telekinetic powers. In addition to those powers, however, Cray also gained a Wolverine-like healing factor, presumably due to the fact that (like Deadpool) he had cancer, in this case a brain tumor.
In the fifth panel, the man standing across from Jackson is Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke.
In the sixth panel, "Katrina Cupertino" is the real name of Cybernary. In the Wildstorm Universe, Katrina's body was implanted with cybernetic implants and the digital consciousness of Yukio Gamorra in order to become Cybernary, a fighter against Kaizen Gamorra's despotic regime.
Page Twenty-Three:
"Extraordinary rendition" is the term used for state-sponsored kidnapping, a term which gained notoriety during the War on Terror.
Page Twenty-Four:
In the third panel, the paper is from "DS Logistics." DS stands for Diplomatic Security, the security branch of the US Department of State and a part of the anti-terrorism security apparatus during the War on Terror.
You can clearly read "Crew: Wilson, Slade" on the page.
Page Twenty-Six:
The cards on the table are a Joker, two Eights, and two Aces, which means it's a Dead Man's Hand.
Page Twenty-Seven:
As previously stated, in the Wildstorm Universe, Katrina Cupertino was the body of Cybernary, although she was implanted with the consciousness was of Yukio Gamorra. Here, it appears that Katrina willingly had the cybernetic implants grafted to her and Yukio wanted them instead, getting Checkmate to kidnap and remove the implants for her.
Page Twenty-Eight:
The blueprints say "MK-1 CYBERNARY." This was the code name of Katrina Cupertino/Yukio Gamorra in the Wildstorm Universe.
Page Twenty-Nine and Thirty:
I had a hard time trying to figure out what Lois Lane's shirt had written on it before I went back to page five and saw that it read "Property of Metropolis University."
Page Thirty-Two:
And here's Deathstroke. And, as you can see from this page and his previous appearances, he has two eyes, unlike the current version of Deathstroke whose eye was shot out by his ex-wife, which means he is still married to Adeline Kane.
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