The High-Strangeness of The Wild Storm: Issue 5 & 6

  
INTRO

THE GOAL OF THESE ANNOTATIONS:

• These “annotations” mainly focus on the conspiracy theories, and other real world strangeness The Wild Storm seems to draw from.
• “Annotations” will NOT cover every little detail, and may also include notes about the story/characters/etc.
• I am by no means an expert in any field, there will be errors great and small, let me know if you find one.
• Pages with ads are still counted but, of course, no notes will be given on them. Also, SPOILERS. UPDATE: Forgot to add that notes for issue 6 are from digital copy. Therefore, pages with ads not counted for number 6.
• Notes for a particular issue may have info relating/connecting to future issues.

ANNOTATIONS:

ISSUE #5

PAGE 6 PANEL 1: Lucy Blaze uncovers a mission patch from IO. Note that this patch did not appear on the outer garments of the Razors 3 team, we do not see it in previous issues, instead it seems to fall out from underneath their armor/gear.

PANEL 2:The Razors Team 3 circular mission patch. Grey/black border with the term “Imperium A Ch…[unreadable].” A skull symbol, white with a dark red background. The skull’s eyes aren’t cavities, instead they are the initials of IO in blue. “Imperium A Ch…” the “Ch” may be Christianum? Closest latin phrase I could find is “Imperium Christianum” which refers to the Christian Empire, and relates to Charlemagne. The skull’s jaw looks like a castle of some sort with windows or doors. Remember from the last post that sometimes there are hidden images/messages in the patches, can’t tell if this has one. Possible meanings: IO are the eyes of the world, or of death, or of the empire? The symbol of the skull in an older day would’ve been to remind people of their mortality. Here instead of “memento mori”(a reminder of one’s mortality and how life is fleeting) this symbol seems to suggest to remember IO instead of “remember that you must die”, so maybe “remember who you work for” or “remember who runs the world” ? Could make sense since one Razors member tried to take out Cole/Kenesha/Adri by suiciding himself with a grenade.

PANEL 7: Our first look at the Daemonites. The proximity to this entity seems to cause electromagnetic interference as has been reported with many UFO encounters. In the old Wildstorm Universe: “The Daemonites on Earth were mostly fanatical freedom-fighter/terrorist types who would do anything to defeat the Kherubim.” In TWS this Daemonite is a more imposing figure, and comes off as a kind of mastermind biding his time, waiting for the right moment to act. UPDATE: User Logan adds, “I’d say this is in line with the old WSU characterization of the Daemonites, actually. It’s true that they were very brute in the early days, but even then you had Lord Defile, whose entire shtick was plotting from the shadows. More importantly, the daemonite in The Wild Storm is almost identical to the daemonite of Wildcats Vol.2; using his abilities not to punch things, but to turn himself invisible, stop time and other devices with which to wait for the right moment to act.”

PAGE 10 PANEL 7: Daemonite says, “How can you have lived so long and yet never changed at all?” implying that Lucy Blaze has been alive longer than a normal human. He also refers to her as “adventurer.” This references the old continuity in which she originally took the name “Lucy Blaze” in the 1900s and became an adventurer.

PAGE 11

Title: “Incision” refers to the “Incision System,” an experimental form of “interstellar transfer” being developed by Skywatch. Theme here; Adrianna tried to cut into the bleed, as we’ll see in the next few pages, Cray is the surgical cutting tool of IO, and Jenny cuts into and out of media devices. That last one may be a stretch.

PANEL 1: Voodoo is dressed like Adrianna, and is standing in what looks like the bleed.

PANEL 2: Voodoo is dressed as Michael Cray, in front of an IO wall. Voodoo’s hand has the appearance of a Daemonite’s, with six fingers, sixth being an extra thumb. In the older continuity I believe Voodoo is part Daemonite.

PANEL 3:

Could This Be the Infamous Montauk Chair?

Voodoo is dressed like “Jenny”, but with an American flag in gold and black, sitting in some sort of chair, throne? I see, the chair is designed exactly like the ones from Montauk in issue 2/3. In one conspiracy theory there was a chair involved in some of the experiments which activated or enhanced psychic abilities. Could our Jenny have been subjected to experiments at Montauk? Did it give her abilities or enhance them?Monitors behind her may allude to the experiments she was put through?

“In The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, [Preston] Nichols writes of his time working at Camp Hero on the secret experiments. Specifically, during the 1970s, he claimed, he’d worked with [Al] Bielek on something called the “Montauk Chair,” a piece of furniture that used electromagnetics to amplify psychic powers.”

-Thrillist.com

PAGE 18 PANEL 4 Adrianna Tereshkova refers to herself as an “astronaut” and not a cosmonaut.

PANEL 7: The Skywatch vehicle, the Breslau II, is weirder than “a recovered alien spaceship.” Now that’s a tease. We also see in this panel that Adrianna is still learning about her new state. The water in the glass seems to start boiling. This is reminiscent of Michael Cray holding a cup and deflagrating a part of it in a previous issue.

PAGE 19 PANEL 3: Adrianna mentions that Spica’s suit and the Breslau II both have a similar “flight system” that uses “elecrogravity.” Jacob Marlowe, in issue 1 said he could smell electrogravity,  possibly because of the ionization, or because Marlowe may be non-human. Electrogravity was a prototype antigravity technology developed by Thomas Townsend Brown.

TT Brown Experimenting With Electrogravity

He, along with Dr Paul Biefeld, “proposed the Biefield-Brown [sic] effect.” “The Biefeld–Brown effect is an electrical effect that produces an ionic wind that transfers its momentum to surrounding neutral particles.”

“By the early 1950s, Brown had developed platforms, three feet in diameter, which he is said to have demonstrated hovering and rotating. The American military classified the results, but they neglected to support Brown’s research.”

Electrogravity is one of the explanations for UFO propulsion systems among some UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists. The technology still exists in the form of “lifters” or “Ionocrafts”  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CREATE A LIFTER YOURSELF.

PAGE 19 PANEL 4: “Cartesian theater” refers to the philosopher Descartes.  I believe philosopher Daniel Dennett used the idea/term as a criticism of Cartesian Dualism. On this page it’s a fancy term for the mind’s eye. Or to paraphrase Dennett: it’s the point where information from outside the mind converges and results in consciousness.

PANEL 9, 10, 11: Adrianna says Skywatch was testing a form of “interstellar transfer” called “the Incision System.” This is the title of the stills from Voodoo’s music video or promotional images on page 11.

PANEL 12: Adrianna is describing the bleed.

PAGE 20 PANEL 2,3: This is a Skywatch ship, it has the same insignia the Breslau II has; , the sword and golden star. Is this an updated version of the Breslau II? Remember the Russians pushed out the Germans from Breslau and perhaps confiscated some of their projects at the air base. Maybe in this series the fabled V7, or whatever project came out of Breslau, is this disc shaped craft that is referred to as the Breslau II.

“The Soviets are said to have seized the V7 prototype when they marched into the Breslau air base in western Germany – now Wrocław, Poland.” – The Daily Star

PAGE 22 PANEL 3: In the bleed we see a hand that looks similar to a Daemonite hand, it looks like it has two thumbs, but it only has 5 total digits while a Deamonite, and even Voodoo’s Daemonite-like hand has 6 digits.

PANEL 5: Adrianna says, “I was back in Russia.” Does this mean the ship originated from Russia? It would make sense since the Breslau II may have come from the German air base which was retaken by Russian forces toward the end of WWII. Do the Russians have some sort of understanding with Skywatch?

PAGE 27 PANEL 3: I believe this is Michael Cray’s father we see here wearing a medallion with the Black Power insignia on it. This corresponds to the Black Panthers “a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in October 1966.” The party was active between 1966 and 1982. An announcement for Michael Cray’s

 own title (pictured right) also shows a similar insignia with the slogan “All Power to The People,” which I’m guessing was a slogan for those aligned with the Panthers. This may put Cray and his family history in a position to connect with real world conspiracies like COINTELPRO, and some not-so-confirmed theories about government agents being responsible for the death of Malcom X. COINTELPRO was a program the FBI headed that spied on, infiltrated, harassed, and sought to ultimately end political activist groups it saw as dangerous between the 1950s and early 1970s.

PAGE 30 PANEL 7: Christine Trelane says she represents “a private organization called Executive Protection Services.” The acronym EPS we can see on Jenny’s board. It links to Skywatch, just like Trelane does, so it appears to be a branch of the “Division” which operates under Skywatch. Executive Protection is an industry for high-level, former military, former police that work as bodyguards for politicians, executives, celebrities and the like. This might mean we’ll see Michael protecting Henry Bendix? Scary thought.

ISSUE 6

PAGE 1 PANEL 4: “Two person Warblade unit.” Warblade is a reference to a Wild CAT from the older continuity. In this universe the character is nothing more than a unit designation of Cray’s employer, International Operations.

Warblade

PAGE 4 PANEL 4,5,6,7: Cray pinches the artery of one of the Warblade unit members. Some martial arts forms have hand configurations–which is what this looks like–to take advantage of the soft spots, joints, nerves of a target. Cray was former special forces, former SEAL, so he would’ve had hand-to-hand combat training consisting of the most useful bits of various martial arts.

PAGE 11: In this page we see Adrianna’s true form. It’s recalling her previous incarnation, pictured here. 

PANEL 10: It appears that Adri can use the bleed to create a miniature atmosphere, or raincloud.

PAGE 12 PANEL 3: Marlowe essentially states Halo’s mission statement: “I’m engaged in the project of brining the future on faster. The right future.” In a previous issue Grifter (Cole Cash) asked about Marlowe’s “project,” which Marlowe was adamant must not be disrupted at any cost.

PAGE 13 PANEL 4: Marlowe tells us that IO was started in the 1950s as “A classified joint intelligence commission…” That would place it at the start of the cold war, at the beginning of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, and the beginning of Project Bluebook.

PANEL 5: From left to right, team IO, Jacky King (her name pops up in ads for future issues, presuming this is her,) Ivana Baiul, Miles Craven, Razors team, Michael Cray.

PAGE 14 PANEL “There was a schism, and a tacit agreement that became a series of treaties.” Here Marlowe makes it clear that the NINE TREATIES from Jenny’s board may refer to the treaties between IO and Skywatch. He also mentions a “schism,” Jenny’s board mentions a HUMAN PROPERTY SCHISM.”

PAGE 15 PANEL 3: Marlowe mentions how much of a death trap Mars is. This is more of Ellis’ grounding us with the reality that interplanetary travel is a harsh difficult task.

PANEL 4: Astronauts on the International Space Station recycle their urine and use it as drinking water. Cosmonauts, however, do not. We see in panel 5, and panel 1 of page 16 the three people who “really want to” be in space. It is a bit of an odd remark though, considering Henry Bendix previous statement about hating the fact that every living thing on Earth farts, why would he accept drinking his own urine, or possibly someone else’s?

PAGE 16 PANEL 4:Marlowe suggests there has been a cold war between IO and Skywatch that has reached a tipping point. Also, apparently Bendix wouldn’t have to drink his own piss if he’s getting water from Earth as part of the set of treaties.

PAGE 17 PANEL 3: Angela Spica’s IO patch. It is similar to the Razors 3 patch. So similar I can’t tell if it’s the same but not fully colored or if it’s only lacking the red background. We can still see the castle shape at the bottom and skull shape at the top, with underneath the IO.

PAGE 20 PANEL 4: Lauren Pennington mentions a “tip from the surface.” Who could that be? Was it possibly Ivana Baiul? Jacky King? Jenny?

PAGE 21 PANELS 1, 4: The outer design of Angela’s suit factors into how detectable it is on radar. I’m not sure of the specifics of her suit here but it looks like a cross between the F117 Nighthawk and the Northrop B-2 Spirit. Both being designed to evade radar, the F117 with its flat panel design, and the B-2 with its curved top-half. In panel 4 Bendix mentions that the suit is redesigned from a 1970’s version of the Breslau II. I’m not sure if this puts the Breslau II disc we’ve seen before as originating from the 70s, or if there’s some other design we haven’t seen yet.

F117 Nighthawk (above) and the B-2 (Below)

PAGE 22 PANEL 3 We see Skywatch fighters heading to earth, their design may be similar to Spica’s suit tech, note the blue exhaust and the same black coloration.

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That’s it for issues 5 and 6. Let me know if you notice anything I should correct or add. UPDATE: 7/22/2017 Issue 6 notes posted.  Also there’s a rumor that there may be a month break at the end of this chapter of The Wild Storm.

For More Info on the Wildstorm Universe:

• WeatheringTheStorm’s site compares the old Wildstorm universe with the current Warren Ellis version.

• Carl’s site points out some interesting things on each issue as well, and also has a nice section with Jenny’s board.

• The Wild Storm Annotations