Batman is using his special flashy flash karate moves, taking out the alien soldiers that are attempting to take over the city. In his gravely voice, he lets out an intelligent quip. Before one of the aliens, sneaking up behind him can attack, Superman flies down and blasts the baddy, into a pile of green goo, with his heat vision. Superman heads back into the stratosphere, but first he mentions to Batman that he had an amazing time in bed with him last night.

WHAT?

Oh wait, that wasn’t Batman or Superman, that was Midnighter and Apollo, the two most well known characters that have come from the WILDSTORM comic book universe. Give Midnighter horns, change his blank trench coat for a cape, and he is basically Batman. Apollo is superman with long blonde hair, and no cape. These characters are not blatant rip offs, they are like many other superheroes that aren’t made by either MARVEL or DC, characters that take qualities from some of the old school iconic superheroes, and give them a modern, and sometimes completely unexpected twist.

Now, your inner bigot might come out now, and be like “Fuck, homosexual superheroes. I am done reading this column. When did I schedule my manicure again?” but Midnighter and Apollo are made specifically for you. They are scary bastards, who also just happen to be happily married gay men. Midnighter can come up with fifty ways to kill you, right when he first meets you. He has two hearts (mostly so he doesn’t get worn out, during all that man-sex. Nah, just kidding) and cyberneticly enhanced reflexes. Apollo has no qualms about melting peoples flesh off with his heat vision, or punching a hole through someone’s chest. You would be worried for Batman and Superman, if they were to go up against these two.

You can tell that when a WILDSTORM comic book character is being thought up, the writer in charge is letting his or her inner comic book dork come out. He/She is thinking about a classic MARVEL or DC character, imagining what it would be like if their classic character was invented during the digital age as opposed to the cold war error.

What if there was a team of incredibly powerful superheroes who didn’t just respond to crisis situations, but attempted to change the way the government ran things and actively wanted to help the environment and humanity in general? That question led to the creation of the AUTHORITY, the team that Midnighter and Apollo are on. What if there was a race of aliens, like Kryptonians, that basically looked like humans, but were far more powerful, and they actually came to earth when humanity was just starting out, and has been influencing things from then until now. Those aliens are the Kherans, immortal supermen, who similar to fighters in films like “The Matrix” and the solid gold “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2:The Secret Of The Ooze”, use kick-ass martial arts and weapons of all different kinds. You can find them in WILDCATS, another WILDSTORM book.

I was recently homeward bound for the past few days, due to a high fever and a few other flue like symptoms. When I got bored of watching ‘The Price is Right’ (isn’t that what all of us do when we take a sick day, Dane Cook?) and countless “No one is home, this is perfect” masturbation sessions, I decided to go through the comics that I had let pile up, over the past few months.

By doing so, I came across (which is always messy. Once again, just kidding) a whole set of WILDSTORM books. I didn’t know what to expect, since the majority of WILDSTORM characters were created in the 90s, which if you read my earlier columns, you would know was the period of bland characters and unimaginative writing in comics. It turns out the current writers of WILDSTORM comics have been given free reign to do whatever crazy shenanigans they can come up with, since not that many people either know about, or buy their books. This leads to some pretty awesome storytelling.

In the past three days, I read WILDSTORM: ARMAGEDDON, WILDSTORM: REVELATIONS and NUMBER OF THE BEAST, all amazing books where writers Christos Gage and Scott Beatty basically destroyed the entire Earth. It was such a fun read.

The best part? All of the four flagship WILDSTORM titles are still being published, even though the superheroes lost and their world looks like ours will, in say twenty years or so (a giant ash tray). So, this is the best time for you to sign on, Closet Fanboy. You can start off in the brand new version of the WILDSTORM universe, one that not a lot of people know about. Even the guys at local comic shops don’t know a great deal about WILDSTORM books. It can be your own little playground.