Hey there honorary Justice League members - it’s a new week which means it’s time for a new discussion thread!

• Beary's pick of the week:

For those who don't know: the way this works is that several comments will list this week’s releases, for any given title discussion you should respond to that comment. For example, Wonder Woman discussion would go in the replies to the "Wonder Woman" comment. Clicking the titles in this post will take you directly to that comment, too. In other words, you should only be replying to other comments. Do not post top-level comments.

Keep discussion civil. Do not harass other users for having a different opinion. Do not use this thread to push your personal one-sided grudges against creators. Reacting to a panel on Twitter is not the same as reading a book.

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^{How can you spot a nosy pepper? It gets Jalapeño business!}

DC and Imprints

^{Captain Atom is going to blow.... us away.}

Trade Collections

^{Coincidentally, the Titans and Swamp Thing are meeting up this week.}

Digital Releases

^{Remember, these are the short 'chapters' with a new chapter of a different series coming out daily. You can . This is also why these are in release order, not alphabetical. Some comics may release on DC Universe Infinite or WEBTOONS.}

TV Shows

^{Kite Man.}

Movies

^{Alan Moore wizard curse.}

^{This Week’s Soundtrack:}

Was the integration of the Fawcett and Charlton characters into DC Comics this awkward in the beginning as well? I've seen WildC.A.T.s shoehorned into different teams, some bastardized version of The Authority, the Carrier and The Drummer with the Outsiders(?) standing in for Planetary. Almost none of them seem like they fit at all.

Hey there honorary Justice League members - it’s a new week which means it’s time for a new discussion thread!

• Bahamut’s pick of the week:

For those who don't know: the way this works is that several comments will list this week’s releases, for any given title discussion you should respond to that comment. For example, Wonder Woman discussion would go in the replies to the "Wonder Woman" comment. Clicking the titles in this post will take you directly to that comment, too.

In other words, you should only be replying to other comments. If you have trouble understanding how to comment for a particular title, please refer to this . Any unwarranted top level comments will be removed.

Also, please refrain from posting short, low-content comments on threads for issues or episodes that have not yet been released. Put some effort to generate discussion. Instead of just posting "So excited!" or "Best book!", try something with a bit more substance, like "Punchline is such an amazing character! Can't wait to see how they explore her in more depth in this issue."

Join the Monthly Book Club! This month's book is Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and you can

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^{Grifter got run over by a reindeer, walking home from Zealot’s house Christmas Eve}

DC and Imprints

^{Enjoy stories that embrace the raw, edgy energy of WildStorm in the 30th anniversary special!}

Trade Collections

^{Top quality Superman stories releasing in this week’s new collections.}

Digital Releases

^{Remember, these are the short 'chapters' with a new chapter of a different series coming out daily. You can . This is also why these are in release order, not alphabetical. Some comics may release on DC Universe Infinite or WEBTOONS.}

TV Shows

^{The JSA continues their media takeover in Stargirl. Don’t forget to check out their new comic series releasing this week too!}

^{This Week’s Soundtrack:}

An unrestrained Authority book would be great to see in the hands of a writer that gets the team and their M.O.. Grifter would also be a character perfect for Black Label, maybe following him in a story not unlike Point Blank/Sleeper along with leading a darker WildC.A.T.s book. Any thoughts?

Wildstorm was Jim Lee’s imprint in Image Comics, debuting in 1992’s WildC.A.T.s #1. While Spawn was probably the crown jewel of Image, Wildstorm was very successful, giving opportunities to superstar artists like J. Scott Campbell and producing series such as the aforementioned WildC.A.T.s, Gen13, and StormWatch. It also contained sub-imprints like Homage (the original home of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City), Cliffhanger (Danger Girl, Battle Chasers), and ABC (Alan Moore’s imprint).

While the universe began with an obvious inspiration from X-Men, Jim Lee’s previous team book, it had an interesting evolution. Over time, the stories put heavy emphasis on themes of government conspiracies and geopolitics. The Authority was probably the best example of this, featuring stories of the team directly interfering in both fictional global affairs (going to war against the despotic Asian country of Gamorra) and real-life events like the 1999 Russian invasion of Chechnya. There were also strong metatextual elements in books like The Authority, StormWatch, and especially Planetary, all of which featured thinly-veiled analogues/parodies of Marvel and DC characters.

Despite Jim Lee selling the imprint to DC Comics in 1998, Wildstorm was kept as a separate continuity, which at the time, was a very good thing. Reading comics in 1999, it really felt like the Wildstorm universe represented the next frontier in superhero fiction. Just as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns pushed the genre in a new direction, it felt like Wildstorm was going to inform the next several decades of comics. In a roundabout way, it did – Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Ultimates was very much “The Authority meets the Avengers”, and that series in turn has had a large influence on the MCU. However, due to a number of factors (editorial interference, bad management, and changes in the cultural zeitgeist), Wildstorm dramatically lost popularity throughout the 2000s.

When DC relaunched with the New 52 in 2011, the decision was made to merge Wildstorm with the main Earth Prime continuity. DC has a long history of throwing their acquired properties into the mainstream universe (Fawcett, Quality, and Archie superheroes/Red Circle all found their way to Earth 1/Earth Prime), but it was still a surprising move given that they had owned the characters for over a decade at that point. In my opinion, this was terrible idea. The unique qualities of the universe and characters were stripped out to fit into the DC universe, and company themselves had, a decade earlier, published a story about how the Authority did not belong in Earth Prime (the famous and celebrated Superman story “Whatever Happened to Truth, Justice, and the American Way?”). They never found a way to make the idea of the Midnighter and Apollo existing in the same universe as Batman and Superman make sense.

So my question is, did anything good come from combining Wildstorm with the mainstream DC universe? I expect that, with the announcement that James Gunn has commissioned an Authority movie, that interest in the universe/characters will increase. Should DC focus more on better integrating Wildstorm in DC, or spin them back off into their own universe?