the wildstorm univerise seems very very meh with the edgyness
Wildstorm was created under another name by Jim Lee, and was a portmanteau of Wildcats and Stormwatch. The world is essentially a version of Marvel and DC if brought up through the lens of XFiles. Multiple analogues of Superman and every other character you've seen elsewhere; sometimes more interesting, many times not really. Everything is conspiracy, at the start. You have superhumans as a result of too many methods-
Gen Factor: a mutagen that arrived with Sigma, an alternate universe related posthuman. This stuff kills people, melts people, and gives people superpowers. A terrorist blows up a plane over an American city with the stuff, and fucks up the lives of those living there.
Aliens and their Hybrid children: The universe has Kherans (Majestic, Zealot; these are golden age kryptonians), Daemonites (Voodoo, Stalker; these are aliens that shapeshift. Some have magic, some have psionic abilities and elders learn how to manipulate and control time. Initially they're shown to absorb people/meld into them and take them over but are eventually revealed to have chronal abeyance), the Drahn which enhance others (these arseholes took Majestic and turned him from a Golden Age Superman into a Silver Age Superman), Acurans (these were part of another imprint but Helspont is a daemonite that took one over, hence his superman-level durability), Titanothropes like Maul, and Shapers like Reno Bryce. Many of the Wildcats are hybrid children of extraterrestrial fuckery.
Comet Seedlings: sometime in the 1900s an extrasolar body passed over earth and changed some people in ways that enhanced them or mutated them or whatever. Also, in the 50s or 60s, an alternate United Kingdom was attacked with a bacterial weapon and tried to vent it into the wildstorm universe to stave off their own destruction. This didn't work, and what came through the bleed was mutated itself, causing more supermen of varying types among those infected.
Activated enhanciles: there are people, potentially affected by one of the above incidents, who have the ability to bestow bullshit traits onto others. A few of them are active in Stormwatch and do things like wander around giving criminals impossible powers as a way of distracting authorities and "throwing a wrench into the works."
Scientifically Modified Humans: Many IO agents like Ivana Baiul, Cybernary, Midnighter, Apollo, Jack Hawksmoore, Seth, the replacement Authority, these are people that superscience changed or rebuilt to be more than human.
Alternate Universe origins: The High, John Cumberland, was essentially a superman that was fired into the wildstorm universe from another reality.
Century Babies: "explained" as a mechanism of earth that generates people with impossible powersets for a given timeframe. Elijah Snow, Jenny Sparks/Quarks/Quantum, etc fall into this category.
The Doctors: Earths' shamanic Dr Stranges. Each one is exponentially more powerful than the previous iteration, and when a doctor dies, he or she goes to their own version of an afterlife which can be accessed by the current doctor at any time for communion and guidance. Every Doctor can essentially know everything that the previous Doctors knew, which makes one wonder how any of them ever die. Anyway.
Captain Atom is only outclassed by Mr Majestic, and maybe The High if he weren't a slurry in a barrel during his visit. Tho I suppose the Doctor could have dealt with him had the writer not forgotten about what he's capable of. Armageddon was great, otherwise. Love that art.
/tism'd out
