History ComicBook / Stormwatch

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Field Commander Jackson King (Battalion), who is eventually promoted to Weatherman after Henry Bendix goes rogue.

* FullFrontalAssault: Father, a NietzscheWannabe cyborg, and the first villain of Creator/WarrenEllis's run. As if being a mass-murdering ImplacableMan with no flesh on his face who quotes Nietzsche while killing people isn't unsettling enough, he is also naked, probably as a result of being an ArtificialHuman recently escaped from the base of his creator.

The third, going back to simply ''ComicBook/{{Stormwatch|2011}}'' again, is by Creator/PaulCornell and incorporates the team into Franchise/TheDCU as part of DC's line-wide relaunch in 2011 (the "ComicBook/{{New 52}}" or the "[[FanNickname DCnU]]"). Stormwatch is a covert organization of superhumans that has been protecting the Earth from within the shadows for centuries, and they regard themselves as the "professionals" compared to Franchise/{{Superman}} and the new wave of "superheroes" he inspired. The ComicBook/MartianManhunter was a member of Stormwatch this time around, after an offscreen period serving with the ComicBook/JusticeLeague that ended badly. He summed up the difference between the groups by saying that when he's with the League he's [[TheCape a hero]], and when he's with Stormwatch he's [[ShootTheDog a soldier]].

* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: Team Achilles'' member Avi Barak learns this when he first joins the team. His power, called "inductive telepathy", lets him see the true answers to whatever questions he asks someone. When he encounters Jukko, whose entire body is covered with scars, he asks on impulse what happened to him. He suffers a near-fatal seizure from the instant download of all of Jukko's traumatic memories, and in later issues, continues to have nightmares about them. Jukko himself could be said to qualify, as his power is hyper-empathy, which results in him feeling the pain of every being within a four mile radius.

* {{Roboteching}}: Flashpoint.
* RotatingArcs
* SealedBadassInACan: Rose Tattoo, the "Spirit of Murder".

* CatchAndReturn: Winter.

* EnergyBeing: Fuji, though he looks like a giant robot because that's the suit he inhabits. Hellstrike is another energy/gaseous being, but he has a much more humanoid containment suit.

* FullFrontalAssault: Father, a NietzscheWannabe cyborg who was the first villain of Ellis's run.

* CanonWelding: The incorporation into Framchise/TheDCU.

* [[AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome Alternate Universe Jack Hawksmoor Is Awesome]]: In "The Bleed", we see a universe where most of the membership of Wildstorm's other superteams like the ComicBook/WildCATsWildStorm, [[ComicBook/{{Gen13}} Gen13 and DV8]] are part of Stormwatch, under the leadership of Jack Hawksmoor.

The third, going back to simply ''Stormwatch'' again, is by Creator/PaulCornell and incorporates the team into Franchise/TheDCU as part of DC's line-wide relaunch in 2011 (the "ComicBook/{{New 52}}" or the "[[FanNickname DCnU]]"). Stormwatch is a covert organization of superhumans that has been protecting the Earth from within the shadows for centuries, and they regard themselves as the "professionals" compared to Franchise/{{Superman}} and the new wave of "superheroes" he inspired. The ComicBook/MartianManhunter was a member of Stormwatch this time around, after an offscreen period serving with the ComicBook/JusticeLeague that ended badly. He summed up the difference between the groups by saying that when he's with the League he's [[TheCape a hero]], and when he's with Stormwatch he's [[ShootTheDog a soldier]].

[[folder:The Original Franchise]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:The New 52 Version]]
* AbortedArc: When the Comicbook/MartianManhunter wants out of the group, the Shadow Lords say he can, but will one day owe them a favor, and that it will be something that he dreads more than anything else in his life. ... nope, never mentioned again.
* AscendedMeme: In the last few issues of the first 18, the characters themselves start cracking jokes and insulting Midnighter's chin-spike, and demanding he explain its purpose. Something that fans online had been mocking his new character design about for months.
* ButNowIMustGo: The ComicBook/MartianManhunter is as straight of an example as this can get. Out of the blue, he decides he must leave Stormwatch, because he has some kind of mysterious mission he must accomplish that he can not tell anyone. He then erases the memories of all the team members that he ever existed, and somehow struck a deal with the shadow lords to allow him to leave. Something that no one else was able to do in the thousands of years they have existed. He was then, obviously, never seen or heard from again.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the ''New 52''[='=]s zero issue, Jenny tells her team members in the final page "I've been watching a movie. But it had a downer of an ending. You really get into the characters and...and then everyone dies...". A rather dark warning to the readers that the series was on its way out the door.
* InNameOnly: The ''New 52'' relaunch contains only one prominent character from the original Stormwatch and the cast is being whittled down until only the members of ComicBook/TheAuthority remain.
* InSpiteOfANail: In the ''New 52'' version, Cornell established that Stormwatch had existed for hundreds of years, being a descendant organisation of Comicbook/DemonKnights, which in turn was inspired by several Camelots, all set up by Adam One/Merlin. In Starlin's first issue, the baddies kill Adam One at the beginning of the universe, meaning that none of this history exists. Why that hasn't led to humanity being taken over by the Daemonites/the Hidden People/the Evil Dolphin Army/the Questing Queen was never explained.
* MerlinSickness: Adam One, who was an old man at the beginning of the universe and gets younger as it gets older. Appropriate, since [[spoiler:he ''is'' Merlin]].
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Jenny Quantum's powers are... vague. She doesn't actually really know what she can do, or how she does it, and neither does anyone else. It seemed to generally be "If she needs to be able to do this at the moment, then that's what her powers can do."
* RippleEffectProofMemory: The Shadow Lords in the ComicBook/{{New 52}} version; when Stormwatch is removed from history, they just set it up again.
* SkyPirate: In ''[[ComicBook/JonahHex All Star Western]]'' #17, Jenny Freedom of the 19th Century Stormwatch clashes with Smokestack Jack; SteamPunk anarchist MadScientist based on a CoolAirship.
* StatusQuoIsGod: As mentioned in the description, the final issue of the New 52 ''Stormwatch'' reset the characters to where they'd been before the Kollective changed history. Except the Engineer, who got reset a bit further back, to before her FaceHeelTurn.
[[/folder]]

Ellis' run on the title introduced several memorable characters, such as the retired and cynical Jenny Sparks and urban empath Jack Hawksmoor. Ellis also didn't shy away from both political commentary (Stormwatch having to fight a corrupt and hostile U.S. government on multiple occasions) and commentary on the genre of comics as a whole (the history of Jenny Sparks). It also had the main leader of Stormwatch, Henry Bendix, reveal himself as a manipulative sociopath before he's forced to leave the organization. In 1997, most of Stormwatch was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed offscreen]] or PutOnABus in the IntercontinuityCrossover ''ComicBook/WildCATs[=/=]Franchise/{{Alien}}s'' when the title was cancelled, and Ellis turned the surviving black ops unit 'Stormwatch Black' into the nucleus of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.

* [[AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome Alternate Universe Jack Hawksmoor Is Awesome]]: In "The Bleed", we see a universe where most of the membership of Wildstorm's other superteams like the ComicBook/WildCATs, [[ComicBook/{{Gen13}} Gen13 and DV8]] are part of Stormwatch, under the leadership of Jack Hawksmoor.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Almost everyone who didn't join ComicBook/TheAuthority in the ''ComicBook/WildCATs[=/=]Franchise/{{Alien}}s'' crossover.

* TheRealRemingtonSteele: Kaizen Gamorra first appeared in ''ComicBook/WildCATs'', where he was revealed to be the original "John Colt" that team leader Spartan was based on. The real Kaizen was brought back in Stormwatch.

* InSpiteOfANail: In the ''New 52'' version, Cornell established that Stormwatch had existed for hundreds of years, being a descendant organisation of Comicbook/DemonKnights, which in turn was inspired by several Camelots, all set up by Adam One/Merlin. In Starlin's first issue, the baddies kill Adam One at the beginning of the universe, meaning that none of this history exists. Why that hasn't led to humanity being taken over by the Daemonites/the Hidden People/the Evil Dolphin Army/the Questing Queen has not yet been unexplained.