Warren Ellis will return to DC, to work on some of the characters that made him a household name among comic book fans, as the curator of a new pop-up imprint called WildStorm, ComicBook.com has learned exclusively.
Following on the heels of the success of Gerard Way’s Young Animal imprint, WildStorm will take a similar approach, with Ellis writing the “main” book and curating the others.
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WildStorm will debut mid-February 2017 with a regular monthly comic titled The Wild Storm, written by Ellis with art by Jon Davis-Hunt (Vertigo’s Clean Room). This ongoing series will reset the known WildStorm universe and introduce new iterations of WildStorm characters such as Grifter, Voodoo, The Engineer, Jenny Sparks and others.
“After long reflection, I couldn’t turn down the invitation to renovate the house that Jim Lee built, and refit its unique combination of cosmic paranoia and paramilitary conspiracy for the post-political space madness of the twenty-teens,” said Ellis. “Looking back to look forward.”
THE WILD STORM will serve as a launching pad for several future series: Michael Cray, WildC.A.T.S. and Zealot. No creative team announcements have yet been made for those books.
“There are precious few visionaries in our business and fewer still like Warren who can elevate mythos with both stylistic panache and idiosyncratic spectacle. His work at WildStorm remains the tone which best defines and reflects the WildStorm Universe,” said DC Publisher Jim Lee. “I know I speak for WildStorm fans the world over when I say I can’t wait to see what Warren and Jon have in store for fans in February!”
The original WildStorm imprint started up at Image Comics under Lee, who was one of that company’s seven founders. Launched in 1992, the imprint churned out a series of best-sellers during the boom of the ’90s. After dipping his toes back into the Marvel waters with Heroes Reborn, Lee decided that he would rather be an artist tan a publisher and sold WildStorm and its properties to DC Comics in 1999. Lee has worked exclusively for DC since, and currently (ironically) serves as one of their two publishers.
Other WildStorm titles not included in this announcement include Wetworks, Gen 13, and StormWatch. StormWatch is one of the few WildStorm titles (along with Grifter and Voodoo) to have been given a chance in 2011’s The New 52 relaunch. A Midnighter series was recently published at DC, to great critical acclaim but low sales. Its cancellation was quickly followed by the announcement that Midnighter writer Steve Orlando will write a Midnighter and Apollo miniseries for the publisher.
More information on the new imprint will be revealed on the “Meet the Publishers” panel at New York Comic Con on Saturday, October 8 from 4pm-5pm Eastern Time.
DC is making up-to-the-minute updates on their New York Comic Con announcements, panels and more through their DC All Access app, available on iOS and Android.
