StormWatch Team AchillesThis is a featured page


StormWatch Team Achilles by Whilce Portacio
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Overview:
Originally a United Nations-based group of human Special Forces soldiers from all over the world, Team Achilles was charged with the elimination of out of control superpowered beings. With the Authority taking control of the United States, Team Achilles funding and legal authority, as provided by the UN, has been severed. Team Achilles remains committed to their mission, without government oversight and has gone underground.


SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!

Publication History:
In September 2002 the Stormwatch series was revived. Stormwatch: Team Achilles, penned by Micah Ian Wright, followed a mostly non-superpowered UN troubleshooting team dealing with superhero-related problems.

Stormwatch: Team Achilles differs from the previous Stormwatch series in that it centers on mostly 'normal' human beings from differing Special Forces/Counterterrorist organizations worldwide acting as a small UN troubleshooting team.

The series was basically a satire of both politics and comic books, with segments where the team replaced a Strom Thurmond/Jesse Helms-like Senator with a shape-shifter and a storyline where George Washington, reincarnated as a patriotic hero resembling Captain America, tried to overthrow the American government. It was most notable for throwing potshots at President George W. Bush's, the ineptitude of the United Nations and the frequent mockery of The Authority.

Some fans called Team Achilles "G.I. Joe for Grownups" and noted comics writer Kurt Busiek wrote "it's like Sgt. Rock, but with Superheroes." Although the enemies in the comic book have been the typical fantastic archetypes seen in comics, the weapons used by the Stormwatch team were mostly real-world weapons systems (such as the Barrett M82A1). Realistic weapons as well as tactics are used by the non-powered Team Achilles members to take down the physically superior enemies seen in the comic.

A major theme of the series was the non-superpowered team leader's distrust of superpowered beings, and of necessity Team Achilles took a detailed and pragmatic approach to superpowers, showing how it was possible to use intelligence and tactics to overcome physically superior foes such as Team Achilles often faced. The Authority were more than once brought low during the series' run. The series later became a satire of politics and comic books, with segments where the team replaces a Strom Thurmond/Jesse Helms-like Senator with a shape-shifter, and a storyline where a Captain America-analog (revealed to be the reincarnation of George Washington) tries to overthrow the American government.

Wright was fired after it was revealed that he had lied about being a US Army Ranger, with the result that Team Achilles was abruptly cancelled with issue #23 (August 2004), in the middle of a storyline. The planned final issue, #24, was never published, though the finished script is available online.

Controversy:
The book debuted to controversy from the first issue, which, due to changes in DC's printing schedule, came out not in October 2002, but instead on September 13, 2002, roughly the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To compound the problem, the first issue featured a terrorist superhuman attack on the United Nations, which many readers thought was intended to comment on the 9/11 attacks themselves, and thus in poor taste. Because Team Achilles (like all previous Stormwatch groups) was a United Nations entity, the book often dealt with realistic political details such as the U.S.'s refusal to pay its U.N. dues, political interference with the goals of the U.N. by conservative American politicians, and the U.N.'s own ineptitude and corruption. In the charged political air, the book accurately reflected the disdain that President Bush and his administration displayed toward the United Nations.

Detractors of the comic disliked the political tone of the book. Released during a time when the American public was 88% in favor of the Afghanistan War, George W. Bush enjoyed a 65% approval rating, and 72% of the public supported the invasion of Iraq, the book took shots at conservative politics in general, "weapons of mass destruction", the Department of Homeland Security, America's paranoia about terrorism and the accompanying culture of fear, and, some felt, President Bush himself. Although the President in the Wildstorm universe was not specifically named after any known politician, some readers stated online that they felt that the mumbling, incomprehensible, racist Southern murderer depicted in the book was a clear mockery of Bush.

Additionally, many superhero fans disliked and disbelieved the concept that 'normal' human beings could ever hope to defeat superheroes. This was notable, given that the main concern of DC Comics (WildStorm's parent company) was to revive and promote 'traditional' pure superhero comics over the darker characters pioneered by Image.


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