Writer: Matthew Rosenberg
Art: Stephen Segovia and Christian Duce
Colors: Elmer Santos
Letters: Ferran Delgado
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 14th, 2023
Cole Cash (AKA Grifter) is dead, his body revealed to the other members of WildC.A.T.s last issue. But in WildC.A.T.s #5, Zealot and Fairchild still aren’t convinced he’s really gone and they’re on a quest to find out what REALLY happened to him, dragging along a reluctant Voodoo also. Meanwhile, The Seven Soldiers of Victory (Halo Corporation’s other more public super-team) are dispensing justice in brutal chaotic fashion, which draws the attention of none other than Superman, and things go from bad to worse!
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The Story
The WildC.A.T.s series (both past and current) have always had the feel of the best espionage thriller literature. The team definitely has sci-fi trappings, but primarily has involved a lot of shadow ops combined with high-level secrets and conspiracies. WildC.A.T.s #5 has all that, with a couple of intriguing plots involving the mystery of Grifter’s death and secret dealings with Marlowe, the founder of Halo Corporation. In the midst of all this, we get a great confrontation with Superman, who has been monitoring The Seven Soldiers of Victory, who Marlowe brought together to be a very public “Justice League”-style group of heroes that can represent the company through heroic deeds, while the WildC.A.T.s work in the shadows, never showing their faces to the public and getting all the dirty work done. But The Seven Soldiers of Victory aren’t exactly pure as the driven snow. They like to throw their weight around and get delight in roughing up and maiming criminals. The most powerful member of the team is Majestic, who has Superman-like powers and claims he’s also from Krypton like Kal-El. Superman shows up to give the team some advice and confronts Majestic about his supposed Kryptonian heritage, and all hell breaks loose.
This section of the issue felt like pure superhero opera and I loved it, it was a great diversion from the undercover ops that dominates the rest of the book. Superman’s written wonderfully here, he’s polite, respectful, but isn’t averse to throwing down when pushed into it. As powerful as The Seven Soldiers of Victory team is, their reaction to Superman is priceless and how you’d expect even the toughest battle-hardened mercenaries to react when meeting a legend. I’m really digging this Seven Soldiers of Victory team, they remind me of Marvel’s Thunderbolts. The first Citizen V/Baron Zemo led version of the Thunderbolts, of course, not the later reworkings of them that got worse and worse over time. I’d love to see them get their own book and maybe have a run-in with Batman, which would be even more interesting than this issue’s confrontation. Elsewhere this issue, we follow Zealot, Fairchild and Voodoo as they do an investigation of Grifter’s death, creating some comical moments as Voodoo couldn’t care less about it and irritates Zealot to no end. Along the way, they uncover a couple of surprising secrets and the issue ends on a shocking note.
The Art
Stephen Segovia, Christian Duce and Elmer Santos’s art on WildC.A.T.s #5 handles both the street-level detective scenes and the high-flying superhero action with great detail.
There are over a dozen characters populating the book, and they’re each drawn with their own unique postures and aesthetics that give each of them personality.
The scenes with Superman seem subtly lighter and more bright than the rest of the book. The action scenes are fluid and none of the characters ever look stiff or posed.
Final Thoughts
WildC.A.T.s #5 is another great issue, the best of the series so far, with the perfect balance of James Bond-style intrigue and superhero action. There’s a great encounter between Superman and The Seven Soldiers of Victory and the mystery of Grifter’s death takes a fascinating turn. Highly recommended.