The other Weapon X one-shot this week is Wild Child's story, by Matt Nixon and Ethan van Sciver.

As with Sauron, Wild Child has been given a bit of an overhaul.  We've seen him in passing in Tieri's earlier stories - he's now mute and dresses like Nosferatu.  Doubtless that was a very amusing character design when it was first proposed, but I'm at a loss as to what it's supposed to be adding here.  The character isn't a vampire, and still doesn't have any vampiric characteristics.  And given that his schtick is all about agility and physical combat, why on earth is he wandering around in an outsize cloak that drags along the ground after him?  It's just too much, and it doesn't work for me.

Wild Child's mission is to recover the insane Aurora from a mental asylum, which he duly achieves.  The angle, basically, is that Wild Child is besotted with her but is rather cruelly rejected by her.  Presumably the point of this is to set up a subplot between those two characters for the ongoing series, and it achieves that well enough.  Nixon and van Sciver do at least succeed in building sympathy for the poor bastard.  Given the evident remit, there's nothing much wrong with the way they tell the story.

On the other hand, that's two stories about pathetic and abused characters in one week, and I'm still left with the sinking feeling that this is going to be a seriously unsubtle comic.  I just can't see there being an ongoing series in these ideas..

Rating: B-

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