Alan Moore: Wild Worlds
When acclaimed comics writer Moore returned to mainstream comics in the mid-1990s, his projects included these stories featuring superheroes published by Image Comics' WildStorm imprint. The Wildstorm characters, represented here by the Wild C.A.T.S. team, Majestic, Voodoo, and Deathblow, were standard-issue superheroes in the then-dominant Image mold, and since Moore wasn't given the freedom to revamp them as he had Image's Supreme, which he took over at around the same time, the results fell disappointingly short of his usual genre-transcending work. Only occasionally evident are the inventive plotting, incisive characterization, and savvy tweaking of superhero conventions for which Moore is renowned. Instead, here are mostly the grotesquely overmuscled men, ridiculously pneumatic women, and repetitious fight scenes that typified Image's output. Since no background is provided on the characters and their past story lines, fans of Moore unfamiliar with WildStorm may have a hard time figuring out just what's going on. Even so, the collection should hook followers of the WildStorm titles and staunch Alan Moore fans. Flagg, Gordon