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This is a collection of five stories by Alan Moore featuring various characters from Wildstorm comics.

The first story, ‘SPAWN/WILDC.A.T.S: DEVILS DAY’ starts with creatures outside space and time toying with our universe. Cut to our world where Spawn attacks the Wildcats because two of them attacked him. It turns out that it was not present day Wildcats but rather two from the future who came back to kill him. They turn up again and inform our heroes that in the future the world has been conquered by an evil demon called the Ipsissimus who used to be Spawn. By killing Spawn they hope to stop his terrible metamorphosis. The story is good but the ending is a bit weak. Spawn is pretty unique but the Wildcats struck me as X-Men clones. However, I am not familiar enough with the characters to make a final judgement.


The second story ‘WINDSTORM SPOTLIGHT #1 MAJESTIC: THE BIG CHILL’ features the end of the universe as entropy advances. The story follows the last days of a few god-like beings, doomed themselves and aware of it. There is some good invention here from the ever-inventive Alan and although the ending was predictable, retrospectively, I certainly didn’t predict it.

The third is ‘VOODOO: DANCING IN THE DARK’ a four-part story about an exotic dancer who gets mixed up with Gods in New Orleans. It was pretty good. The theme again was of celestial beings interfering in human affairs. I believe Moore fancies himself as a magician nowadays (like Dr Strange, not Tommy Cooper) so this sort of thing is his metier.

The fourth is ‘DEATHBLOW: BYBLOWS’ in which a young lady wakes up naked in a womb-like spacecraft, cuts the umbilical and is attacked by a tiger which she kills with a big thorn. Its coat makes a nice off the shoulder garment just big enough to cover her nakedness but still show a bit of leg and cleavage. Genevieve Cray is her name, according to a dog tag around her neck. She wanders off and meets many other new-born Crays on this strange world. Most of them want to kill her. She is strong and silent and good at fighting. The denouement reveals that Moore is the Phillip K. Dick of comics, always questioning the nature of reality. Maybe it’s the drugs.

The fifth and last is ‘WILDCATS #50: REINCARNATION’ which had some old villain becoming one with their building and attacking them. It was okay.

Overall it was an interesting collection of stories. The art is good but I was struck by the fact that the men have more muscles than even the most rigorous exercise could achieve and the women have bodies beyond the wildest dreams of a porn director. It’s fantasy on more than one level.

Clearly comics have moved on from ‘Bam! Pow!’ etc and fans are forever trying to get them accepted as ‘adult’, but that doesn‘t have to mean violent and pornographic. Moore has gone a long way in grown-up directions and the stories here are pretty good too. Not brilliant but no writer turns out brilliance all the time, not even the hairy wonder man of Norfolk. Worth a look though.

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One for Moore completists only. The highlights are the Majestic one-shot and the Deathblow miniseries and they aren't very good. You're left with the impression that Moore had some large bills to pay in a short amount of time in the mid 90s! ( )