The Wild Storm vol. 2

The cold war between the organizations which watch over Earth and Space is starting to heat up.  International Operations thinks that Skywatch is making a move on them because the tech used by Jacob Marlow’s Wild Covert Action Team is suspiciously like that group’s.  Never mind the fact that Angela Spica, who is now with Jacob’s team, and her high-tech exosuit were made from tech that I.O. purloined from Skywatch. While I.O.’s Chief of Analytics Jacklyn King cooks up a plan to raid Skywatch’s data servers for any info that will make them back down, Skywatch head Henry Bendix is all but visibly licking his chops at the thought of finally going to war with his most hated adversary.  While all this is going on, Jacob’s team is working its own independent agenda and doing his best to bring Angie into the fold by giving her the “easy reader” version of the history of his alien race. Meanwhile, Shen Li-Min and Jenny Sparks meet, go out for drinks, have some sex, and share their unique histories.

I could go into even more detail, but this second volume of “The Wild Storm” is really easy to sum up.  It’s very much one of those reads where if you liked what Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt were doing with the first volume then then there’s more of that to appreciate here.  Conversely, more to hate or be bored by, but I liked what they did there.  They continue to deliver some impressive action scenes, intriguing digressions (Jacob’s alien history!  John Colt as a samurai!), and further the slow burn as things start to ignite in the conflict between I.O. and Skywatch.  We also get to see more familiar WildStorm characters integrated here as some are brought over wholesale like Jack Hawksmoor, gender-swapped in the case of Jacklyn King, or conflated as Shen is now the Doctor instead of just being Swift.  All this and even a brief nod to a bit of “Planetary” history, so maybe we will see Elijah Snow and company in here after all. The way things are going now, I’d say that’s something to look forward to.