Pre-Joe Casey Comics: Wildcats #7

[Concluding the build-up to Joe Casey's run on Wildcats. Yes, sir, this is indeed the last Scott Lobdell-penned issue. Starting Tuesday, it's nothing but Joe Casey (with the fantastic Sean Phillips on art). New posts Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.]

I thought about it and wanted to get the Lobdell stuff out of the way and start clean next week. I read issue seven and realised, yeah, it wasn't really worth getting its own day.

This issue accomplishes one thing worthwhile: it kills off Pike, some lame villain that vowed to kill a WildC.A.T. for some reason. He tries to kill Warblade in New York, but just kills his fiancee. Skip ahead six months and the two battle it out in Sarajevo after Warblade kills some people terrorising the innocent. This involves such witty dialogue as:

"One gurgle for yes, two gurgles for no."

And the baffling command by Warblade to the town's people that before they go, they "PAINTS THE TOWN RED!" which he feels the need to scream and become full-on Warblade to command.

In the end, Warblade kills Pike by using his control over every molecule--which is nearly clever.

The art is provided by Carlos Meglia and the less said about it there better. The arm hair he draws looks like little pieces of macaroni taped into place. It's weird--and so fucking typical of Wildstorm.

Since this issue finishes up Lobdell's tenure on the book (excluding a special that looked at Emp's transformation from "little person" to "troll"--and the "Golden Age" special from the crossover with the X-Men, which also featured Charest on art and introduced Kenyan), I should probably say a few words about the whole thing. What comes to mind is a line from "Make it Wit Chu" by the Queens of the Stone Age (who I'm currently listening to, coincidentally): "Sometimes the same is different, but, mostly, it's the same." That's Lobdell and Charest's run all over--promise of change, promise of new, same old bullshit, in more ways than one. The most notable is the artist who couldn't meet deadlines, but, also, a book that was artist-driven, resulting in horrible, cliched stories of little merit. It's a weird paradox to have an artist-driven book involving an artist who can't meet a deadline, or deliver work that warrants being the driving force. Lobdell talked a good game before taking over; he spoke of new ideas, a bold new direction and delivered none of it.

Bring on Joe Casey and Sean Phillips, I say.