JSA Storytime: Captain Atom

Good evening owls,

The year was 2005, and reboots were in the air...

So we haven't gotten into this era of Wildstorm, but IIRC 3.0 ended in 2004, and things were generally limping along, am I right? It certainly wasn't dead, but a shakeup seemed in the cards.

Sick Pride costume, Cap.

(that means please don't ask me to explain exactly how every character got to where they are in this because I'll half-assedly wiki it)

I just bought the whole 80s Captain Atom run digitally for under 50 bucks

feels pretty good

some day we might re-read at least the opening of that to catch all the shit that becomes obviously set up on the second pass

I am so disappointed that this backstory recap omits the jokes Nate was making before he got blown up

...

is this the one where he explodes?
Wait...

(dat ass)

It kinda omits Megala entirely too.

...also just the notion that ANY of that research was ever declassified enough to be published...

But that's pretty nitpicky.

Did you read the latest Hydra!Cap issue? Not just because of magenta husbando but also because of Quasar.

ha ha

You'll see

Nick Spencer sure did read his Gru

I never exactly expected to see Kayla and the Starbrand referenced again in modern comics

Didja read Hard-Travelin Heroez?

...

Yeah. Say what you want about Spencer, but he knows and loves his Gruenfeld backissues. Wish the pacing on Hydra!Cap was less glacial, though.

>magenta husbando
Sinestro was in Hydra!Cap?

I thought this issue was kind of filler although some of the gags were great

Bald look for Nate is NEVER good look.

if exploding would make all my body hair fall off I'd try it

Zemo. As a kid with a fat little face, surprisingly cute.

I think I will enjoy it much more when it's done and all the plots can be appreciated laid out in full. That said, I really don't know where it's going, and that's novel.

I also suspect that Spencer likes FabNic's Helmut a lot more than recent Bru or Remender. WHich is just good taste.

I want to pinch his chubby cheeks

Spencer writing Zemo with his dad was a huge improvement on how he wrote Zemo at the start of this story. He laid it on pretty thick there.

uhoh

TIME FOR WIKI FILL-IN:

>Adrianna's spirit moved on and Void appeared in the Halo Corporation, home of former WildCAT Spartan, now known as Jack Marlowe. Void started working for Jack Marlowe, who was studying Void's ability to teleport. When she teleported, Void moved through Otherspace, a dimension filled with energy. Marlowe's assistant, Noir, saw the possibilities in harvesting Otherspace, but he saw Void as a threat. He sabotaged a nuclear reactor, causing a leak. The leak caused Void's physical form to slowly break down. Marlowe did what he could to cure Void, but in the end found out that without Adrianna, Void had no will to live. Marlowe offered his robotic body as a new host and Void and Marlowe merged, vastly increasing Marlowe's already impressive powers.

Going by his interviews he definitely prefers T-Bolts!Zemo. That talk about 'hard choices' and Zub's talk about killing off members of the team makes me worried where the potential confrontation between Zemo and the Buckybolts is going, though.

>Steve/Bucky fanfic will continue to dominate even though Spencer is pretty much literally writing shipping prompts at this point

And yes, that's the Kingdom Come suit Nate's wearing.

Let the first celebrity death of 2017 be Bucky Barnes.

there is truly no justice, we all know that

HI AUNT MADGE

I was personally also positively surprised by how he wrote Heinrich because Spencer wrote him with a bit of, dare I say, nuance? Restraint? Zemo's dad at least didn't come accross as a complete saturday morning cartoon.

so how are you owls this fine day

also, his name is Cole Cash, which is one of those names so stupid it's perfect.

I want Spencer to get a hold of Moonstone again and save her from whatever

Or, okay, I want a Jeff Parker Moonstone mini

>Bendis talks over Thunderbolts
>he writes Bucky like shit
>Bucky fangirls scream at him 24/7

please lord let me have this if that man ends up on Thunderbolts

In a perfect world, we get that Moonstone/Doc Samson/Foolkiller mini

You have to think that as thin-skinned as he is, the reactions to CW2 #8 have hurt him even if he won't show it

even the reasonably mild-mannered can have enough

good hero/villain pairs are so underrated

Maybe Moonstone stabs Bucky in the back in the upcoming 'Return of the Masters' arc and fucks off with Helmut to Steve's book. But on the other hand that would require the Bolts to be written as entities with agendas beyond fellating Bucky's character.

Well, he had a bit of sturm und drang going when he talked up the Nazi war machine but yeah, painting him as a real father is always going to give him nuance.

Helmut Zemo really was a SMCV in the first few issues of Cap, so it's a nice gear shift. Maybe Spencer just really digs the comedic side of Zemo. Maybe he's doing a complicated thing where Zemo's role in this story will reflect how he was chronologically throughout all his appearances.

Spencer surely remembers Helmut's unrequited crush on Karla

>Or, okay, I want a Jeff Parker Moonstone mini

I wouldn't mind a Moonstone/Songbird book that's mostly them sniping at each other.

>In a perfect world, we get that Moonstone/Doc Samson/Foolkiller mini
Just a one-off issue would be enough. Shit just a Christmas special story would be enough. You can end it on the punchline they level the building and somebody's gotta call in a negotiator.

An oversized one-off would be great.

So yeah, the Wildstorm Universe at this point in time is a very, very scary place.

;__________________;

you're on Edgeworld, Nate

>Oh god, it's a world where every hero was Major Force

Pretty much!

That's kinda heartbreaking, to be honest, that they are so afraid of him.

So when is The Wild Storm out, soon, right?

I think it starts in February.

This series has a lot of metacommentary about tone and the like

it's Maul and Griffles

Feb

Though the other titles are nowhere in sight

Day after Valentine's.

mai waifu

I think the Wild Storm is the launching issue/series, so they'll be solicited off the back of it. I wonder if that's a way to test the waters at all - probably not, doubt there would be enough time.

...

...

...

KEK

Major points for not forgetting Nate can do this. Most writers don't use it.

This is kind of hax and bullshit but I don't not like it?

jesus christ, Cole, that's a rapeface

>My name is Captain Atom. As in A-bomb...as in nuclear fission...as in...the end of the world.
I really like this line, but I feel like it should've been the introductory line to this story, not some witty bantz in the middle of a fight.

that's actually pretty sweet

It's hax to get Nate up to speed faster, so we don't have to spend more time on him getting info on the universe. I'm okay with this (and probably would be even more so if I was a regular Wildstorm reader).

Or I would have put it later in a more striking climax position

I'm not getting how it's working, really.

In-story exposition is a skill few writers are good at

Nate's good at general energy bullshit, and Mr. Miracle at hacking...

>dial phone number
>be in internet

it's simple, really

it's also funny because that's close to a traditional Ray Palmer skill

>guy melts telephone booth
>durrr r u alrite????
Idiots like this woman deserve what's coming to them.

d'awww

It feels totally new for Nate to understand energy-as-information as directly as that, but I'm not remembering. Still w/e, the reasoning has already been pointe dout.

Glorious golden ass.

and now, backstory

All true!

even Madge cannot fight the plot

The Kherubim/Daemonite thing is so dumb but also so comics.

Worker's comp must be total shit in the WU

>I want a Jeff Parker Moonstone mini
When was the last time Parker wrote anything Marvel? I'm still hoping to see him on JSA with wave 2.

I don't remember Earth-Low Res from 52!

Grifter should always be written as an excellent grifter

I want to say it was Dark Avengers/Red She-Hulk, and then he pretty much decamped.

I want him on a mainline DC book, yes.

(skipping solicits page)

we know who he's talking about, yes

How many things has Jeff Parker written that are genuinely bad?

He seems like one of those writers that is consistently okay to good and yet don't have a big fanbase.

...

>then he pretty much decamped
Did something happen over there?
Also I want him on Superman. Thomas should be relegated to Action. Tomasi is fun but he's not main book material.

LoSH or bust.

well, poop

I get the feeling that he was not terribly appreciated at Marvel, and he kept fixing things and then having them cancelled.

His JLU was pretty meh, although I really don't blame him for that.

Hey JSAnon. Welcome back.

Wendell referenced having sexually transmitted Starbrand!
Spencer may be mediocre/tainting his stories with SJW virtue signalling bullshit, but the man loves his Gruenwald!

I think Parker would write a very solid LOSH.

>the markings on this suit definitely go down to the ass

Spencer wrote John Walker pretty decently desu

Ah, Will Pfeifer. You did such good in H-E-R-O and were so generally underwhelming or Amazons Attack tier elsewhere.

Nick Spencer got mad at me on twitter once.

Is he a Legionfag? He does look like the guy who'd appreciate silver age fun stuff.
Also I just hope they go more of a camp route with Legion than edge route.

does spencer do things on twitter that isn't get mad