Writer Warren Ellis and artist Ramon Villalobos will revive the WildCATS comic this August.
The new book will spin out of Ellis’ soon-to-conclude The Wild Storm epic, a slow-burning 24-part collaboration with artist Jon Davis-Hunt. WildCATS will be a six-issue miniseries, with a first issue dropping on Aug. 28. In an announcement today from publisher DC Comics, Ellis said the first line he wrote for this story was “Saving the human race from the human race.”
This marks a continued re-imagining by Ellis of the WildStorm universe and characters. That effort started in 2016 with The Wild Storm and broadened with the 12-part mini-series WildStorm: Michael Cray, which launched in 2017. Despite other spinoffs being rumored, this new WildCATS comic is the third series within the reimagined Wild Storm universe to come to fruition.
The WildCATS team of heroes first appeared in 1992, created by writer Brandon Choi and current DC Comics head honcho artist Jim Lee. It was published then by Image Comics, who by the end of the ’90s went on to sell the characters to DC. WildCATS was the first book within what later become an interconnected Wildstorm Universe.
The WildCATS concept has long revolved around covert superheroics, sort of a combination of James Bond and the X-Men (that’s pretty reductive, but hey). The characters have also been turned into action figures and cartoons.
WildCATS progenitor Lee had this to say in the official press release:
Warren has created something truly spectacular with the relaunch of the WildStorm universe over the past two years. There are few visionaries in our business and few still who can elevate mythos with such vitality and spectacle. Paired with Ramon’s extraordinary artwork, I’m thrilled for fans to check this out come August.
If the new Wild Storm series is any indication, the forthcoming comic will represent a cerebral and modern take on the long-tenured characters, brought to life of course by Villalobos artwork, which is personally among my favorite in all of superhero comics. If you haven’t read his 2016 Marvel Comics series Nighthawk, do yourself a favor and pick up that trade. Also, this is far from Ellis’ first time writing within this universe. Indeed, Ellis has been writing seminal WildStorm comics dating back to 1996, creating a list of notable and influential works that range from Planetary to The Authority.
In other words, this is likely to be very good.
Anyway, the cover for the first issue above is by artist Jim Cheung and colorist Tomeu Morey, while the variant below is by artist Chris Burnham and colorist Nathan Fairbairn. How many days left until August 28?
So excited for this! The Wild Storm has been a really fun series and I was bummed it was coming to an end, so this is great news. Ramon and Tamra Bonvillain are a fantastic art team.
Also, Warren’s newsletter has been talking about him having 18 scripts left in his contract with DC. This would be six of those. I’m wondering what the other 12 are.
Excited here, too! Especially pleased to see Villalobos back on a high-ish profile book!
There’s been rumors that the other 12 issues are Batman-related with Bryan Hitch, but nothing confirmed yet.
i’VE found Wild Storm to be extremely boring. I know my opinion doesn’t matter since Warrren doesn’t get work in comics based on how many people buy his work, but I think someone needs to tell Warren Ellis he is not Neil Gaiman and is getting worse and worse at doing talking head comics.
Joe Casey’s WILDCATS is much better than whatever Warren Ellis will turn in.
If I wanted to watch a tv show where nothing happens, there’s always Netflix original programming. They are a better bang for my buck than awkwardly (quirky, indie)drawn storyboards trying to pass off as comic book stories.
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