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Wildstorm for the non-Wildstorm fan

With the news that Wildstorm is shutting down, here are a handful of their deeper catalog books that you may want to take a look at just to see some of the excellent work that they've put out over the last 18 years.

  • Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco- a fine, old fashioned adventure comic.  Pacheco really pulls off some classic artwork here.
  • City of Tomorrow by Howard Chaykin-- Maybe not Chaykin's finest hour but possibly the closest we'll see to a revival of Time2.
  • Desolation Jones by Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams-- This is one of those series that I wonder if we'll ever see the conclusion, with art by Daniel Zezjl, of.
  • Epicurus the Sage by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Keith-- Wildstorm has a lot of Keith books (Maxx, Four Women) in print but this may still be one of my favorite books of the 90s.
  • Gen 13-- I don't know if the final issues of the first series by Adam Warren and Rick Mays have ever been collected but they were a fantastic sendoff to these characters that really made me care for them for the first time.  Track them down if you can.
  • Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson-- almost any Astro City is good but the original is still the best.
  • Mr. Majestic by Joe Casey, Brian Hoguin and Ed McGuinness-- fun, over the top superheroics as only Joe Casey can conceive them.
  • Mysterius the Unfathomable by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler-- It's a crime that there hasn't been a followup to this series.  A CRIME!!!!
  • Steampunk V1 & 2 by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo-- I'm kind of surprised that only the first volume of this is listed on Wildstorm's website. It's incomprehensible but I can stare at the Bachalo artwork all day.
  • The Winter Men by Brett Lewis and Jon Paul Leon-- Russian superheroes long after the end of the Cold War.  I've been meaning to reread this one lately.
Another book that's never been collected but is worth tracking down is Joe Casey and Ashley Wood's Automatic Kafka, Casey's stab at recreating Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol.  It's another series that I've been meaning to revisit because the only issue I really remember is one featuring Charlie Brown and the cast of Peanuts as adults, maladjusted to life. 

Wildstorm will be remembered for WildCATS, Stormwatch, Gen13 and the Authority but there's a fantastic legacy to this imprint.  Hopefully some of the future, odder projects that they would have picked up won't be forgotten by DC.