[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Stormwatch_preview_950.jpg]]

->''My name is Henry Bendix. I am'' The Weatherman.\\
''I am the controller of'' '''Stormwatch''', ''the United Nations special crisis intervention team. I am the'' world's ''policeman''.\\
''I am the Weatherman -- and I've got your New World Order right'' '''here.'''

''Stormwatch'' is a series originally created by Jim Lee and Brandon Choi under Lee's studio [[Creator/{{Wildstorm}} Wildstorm Productions]] in association with Creator/ImageComics in 1993. In 1996, Creator/WarrenEllis took over writing duties, making it a critical darling and fan favorite.

The comics follow the eponymous Stormwatch, a fictional United Nations-sponsored superhero team in the Wildstorm Universe (originally the Image Universe). Unlike traditional superteams, they receive assignments from the United Nations; the leadership of a UN member nation has to issue a formal request for Stormwatch to act. Once called, they partake in various endeavors, such as foiling terrorist plots, preventing national disturbances or thwarting aspiring super-villains.

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/WildCATsWildStorm[=/=]Franchise/{{Alien}}s'' when the title was cancelled, and Ellis turned the surviving black ops unit 'Stormwatch Black' into the nucleus of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.

The ''Stormwatch'' brand has been revived three times since then: first, ''Stormwatch: Team Achilles'' (2002-2005), a paramilitary team of BadassNormal CapeBusters. The title was cancelled unexpectedly when its writer was revealed to be faking the military background he was using to sell the book. The second incarnation, ''[[ComicBook/StormwatchPHD Stormwatch: Post Human Division]]'', drops the paramilitary and advanced tech aspects of Team Achilles, and has a even mix of supers and non-supers trying to do the job with a drastically reduced budget.

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 "[=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]].

As of issue 19, after the first try proved to not be as successful as DC had hoped, it got [[ContinuityReboot re-rebooted]], with writer Jim Starlin taking things back to something more similar to how they were in Wildstorm, complete with original logo. Previous stories were largely erased, Apollo and ComicBook/{{Midnighter}} went back to their old costumes, the Bleed was re-introduced, Skywatch was once again made their base of operations, and more classic Stormwatch characters like Hellstrike and Fuji were brought in. Though some elements of Cornell's set up remained, such as the Shadow Lords, it was pretty much a complete fresh start. The change resulted in a BrokenBase. Fans of the first 18 issues were NOT pleased with the change, due to it erasing events from {{continuity}} and heading in a whole new direction, while fans of the Wildstorm incarnation mostly rejoiced. Since the first storyline was "Something's happened to Stormwatch history; we need to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong", it's unclear how permanent Starlin intended the changes to be (especially given that the new set up contradicted ''Demon Knights'' and ''All-Star Western'''s "19th Century Stormwatch"). Unfortunately, the re-reboot didn't succeed in winning new readers, and DC cancelled the Stormwatch series, but not before the very last issue re-re-rebooted Stormwatch ''back'' to the #1-18 continuity.

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!!Tropes:

* [[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, and ComicBook/DV8 are part of Stormwatch, under the leadership of Jack Hawksmoor.
* AmazonianBeauty: Flint and Amaze, though this varies from artist to artist.
* AnthropomorphicPersonification:
** Rose Tattoo (of ''Murder'' no less).
** The Jennys are basically the AnthropomorphicPersonification of both the century and the concept they've taken as their surname. Jenny Quantum's power is unlimited, because she's the AnthropomorphicPersonification of science we don't fully understand yet (with the implication that, the more we understand of what quantum physics means - and ''doesn't'' mean - the more powerful she'll become).
* ArtShift: There is an issue where Jenny Sparks relates her historical adventures in the style of the cartoons from those periods. This includes duplicating the look of ComicBook/TheSpirit, ComicStrip/DanDare and ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}, amongst others.
* BaldOfAuthority: Field Commander Jackson King (Battalion), who is eventually promoted to Weatherman after Henry Bendix goes rogue.
** Amusingly enough, Bendix was a '''Bald ''White'' Leader Guy''' before he [[FaceHeelTurn Face Heel Turned]].
* BaldOfEvil: Henry Bendix.
* BlackAndGreyMorality
* BlindIdiotTranslation: In issue 42, Stormwatch face off against a Japanese cult with genetically engineered people of mass destruction. The head of this cult is named Raifu Waaku, which Fuji says translates to "life's work." Except it isn't a ''translation''; it's just a phonetic transcription of the words "life's work" into Japanese pronuncation.
* CanonWelding: The incorporation into Franchise/TheDCU.
* CapeBusters: The ''Team Achilles'' and ''PHD'' incarnations of Stormwatch.
* CaptainFishman: In the 90's, Nautika served as the token water-based hero. After a mission went bad and she and her husband ended up as hostages on Gamorra Island, she retired.
* CatchAndReturn: Winter did this with a lot of bullets from a gatling cannon (or two), thanks to his ability to absorb energy (kinetic in this case), then re-apply it in his chosen direction.
* CrazyPrepared: The Midnighter
* DarkerAndEdgier: Warren Ellis's run, which was almost completely considered a positive change for the series.
* DepartureMeansDeath: Jack Hawksmoor's Weaksauce Weakness is that he can't spend more than a few hours outside a city. Makes all-hands meetings on the team's space station base awkward. The ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'' version has found a way round that; the Eye of the Storm has a cathedral on board, to make it technically a city.
* DiplomaticImpunity: During the original run, members of the team had diplomatic immunity, which was also conferred on family members. In issue #1, Jackson King reluctantly invokes this to keep his little brother Malcolm out of jail after the latter gets involved in an armed robbery.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Almost everyone who didn't join ComicBook/TheAuthority in the ''ComicBook/WildCATsWildStorm[=/=]Franchise/{{Alien}}s'' crossover.
* {{Eagleland}}: Very, ''very'' Type 2 (evil!imperialist!America). Superpowered police brutality, supplying mutagen to terrorist groups, trying to hide chemical warfare exercises in U.S. cities -- the U.S. is practically the BigBad of Ellis' run.
** DefectorFromDecadence: The American members of Stormwatch like Fahrenheit and Jackson King tend to be portrayed this way.
* ElectricInstantGratification: Fuji is an EnergyBeing who's kept in a containment suit so that he doesn't dissipate into nothingness. Due to the conditions of his suit and the constant buffeting of his nervous system by his own energy, he has an orgasm every five minutes. No wonder he's so happy.
* EnergyAbsorption: Winter can absorb all forms of energy including kinetic and use it for everything from energy blasts and super-strength to flight. He discovered he had upper limits to this ability when he fought [[FlyingBrick The]] [[TheCape High]].
* EnergyBeings:
** Fuji, who wears a suit that looks like a giant robot and provides some... interesting side effects. [[spoiler: Due to his form being extremely sensitive to vibrations, he has an orgasm every five minutes.]]
*** This is explicitly said to be because he is made out of plasma (ionized gas), not PureEnergy.
*** Lately it was revealed his bosses found out about the orgasms and [[StopHavingFunGuy had his suit outfitted with dampeners]].
** Hellstrike is another energy/gaseous being, but he has a much more humanoid containment suit.
* EverybodysDeadDave: The end of the series has almost the entire team of superheroes killed by [[spoiler: xenomorphs]]
* EvilStoleMyFaith: One of the story beats in Creator/WarrenEllis's run, which carried over into ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' a few years later, was that God does not exist. The Doctor mentions it offhandedly in Ellis's final arc, and earlier, a "villain" called the Eidolon had come back from beyond the grave to try to convince people to make the most of their lives.
* ExpendableAlternateUniverse: "The Bleed". Weatherman Jackson King refuses to help the parallel Stormwatch when they're facing overwhelming danger, because he views his jurisdiction as just his Earth. Not everyone in Stormwatch is happy about this, and even King yields enough to send his counterpart Weatherman a key piece of information that helps save the day.
* FaceHeelTurn: Stormwatch has experienced a few over the years.
** Razer, one of the Mercs, was originally in Storrmwatch before she defected.
** Flashpoint became a spy for the Mercs after an ill-fated mission in Kuwait.
** Henry Bendix famously became a villain.
* FantasticArousal: Fuji's infamous revelation that he has the equivalent of an orgasm every few minutes, thanks to the oddities of the suit he inhabits.
* FarEastAsianTerrorists: The country of Gamorra ruled by Kaizen Gamorra. This island country is located "somewhere in the Western Pacific". Main exports include terrorism and... more terrorism?
* FromTheAshes: Creator/WarrenEllis ends the series with a prologue to his ''ComicBook/WildCATsWildStorm Wild C.A.T.s]][=/=]Franchise/{{Alien}}s''. In it, the entire Stormwatch team is killed off except for characters Ellis would later put on ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.
* FullFrontalAssault: Father, a StrawNihilist 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.
* GirlsNightOutEpisode: Averted in one issue, where female members realize they have nothing in common beyond their jobs.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: One character works as an assassin while having the power to make plants grow. He utilizes it by having [[BodyHorror seeds inside the digestive tracts of his targets grow and burst through them from the inside. Seeds specifically from the cereal they ate that morning.]]
* TheHeroDies: A lot of the team under Warren Ellis die during the ''[=WildCATs=]/Aliens'' crossover due to the Xenomorphs.
* HeroKiller: The creatures from the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise were used as this for Stormwatch to clear the deck for ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.
* HeroicSacrifice: Winter dies piloting the team's xenomorph-infested station into the sun.
* {{Human Popsicle}}s: This is how Stormwatch stores its prisoners; unfortunately, most of them are killed when Bendix powers down the satellite to escape Jenny Sparks.
* JurisdictionFriction: During Ellis's run, Stormwatch clashed frequently with the US, and was eventually banned from acting on American soil unless explicitly asked to do so by a Code Perfect. In the first story arc of volume 2, illegal superhumans were going to attack an American town and Stormwatch was unable to legally stop them, until Battalion found a loophole: [[spoiler:he found a visiting French national in the town, and called the French Premier and asked ''him'' to invoke Code Perfect, on behalf of his citizen.]]
* KnightTemplar: Henry Bendix.
* MadeOfIron: Flint is literally MadeOfDiamond, actually.
* ManipulativeBastard: Henry Bendix.
* MeatMoss: A village is accidentally hit with a biochemical that can activate superpowers (or it's ''intended'' to, and at least radically alters the human body). When a team is sent to investigate, they find the church overgrown with this, with a fleshy beacon outlined with fingers. One of the team figures out that those affected by the biochemical evacuated the other villagers there and then covered them over as they mutated into MeatMoss, and pulls it away to reveal the survivors.
* MoreThanJustATeacher: Black Betty is an incredibly powerful magic user, yet spends much of her time as a Professor of Metaphysics.
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong: Winter, ex-Spetsnaz, field leader of Stormwatch's "Prime" team, and total badass.
* MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning: Citizen Soldier.
* NighInvulnerable: Flint. So far, she's only been injured by [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorph]] blood in a crossover. The High, being a Superman Expy, is of course also.
* TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: The United Nations "Special Security Council" that Stormwatch's Weatherman reports to. In Ellis' run, it only exists to threaten Bendix about playing too rough with America.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: When Kaizen Gamorra causes 233 deaths with a mutagenic bomb attack and blackmails Bendix to prevent any overt retaliation, he launches a black op on Kaizen's homeland and orders Rose Tattoo to kill ''exactly'' 233 people in retaliation.
* PsychicStatic
* PutOnABus: Several characters at the beginning of Ellis' run; one character gets dishonorably discharged in the space of one panel, apparently just for the TakeThat value. It's a bit of RealitySubtext as well: Bendix's "housecleaning" of Stormwatch is Ellis' "housecleaning."
* TheRealRemingtonSteele: Kaizen Gamorra first appeared in ''ComicBook/WildCATsWildStorm'', 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.
* RedshirtArmy: The swarms of support staff on the Skywatch satellite base, as well as the security teams and fighter squadrons.
** OvershadowedByAwesome: ''ComicBook/StormwatchPHD'' makes it clear that the security teams and Stormforce consist of some of the world's best special forces agents and soldiers. They just tend to be horrendously outgunned by the rogue metahumans Stormwatch was created to deal with.
* RocksFallEveryoneDies: The transfer between issues 17 to 19 were... a bit sudden, to say the least.
* TookALevelInBadass: By the time of Wildstorm's cancellation, ''everyone'' who was alive by that point was tougher/stronger/faster than when they were first written.
** To give some context: Battalion goes from carrying guns and having some telepathy to [[OneManArmy taking out thousands of marauding mutants with little assistance]]. Fuji goes from being TheBigGuy to someone who could use his powers to save the entirety of Stormwatch even as their disintegrating space station fell from orbit. And finally Winter went from badass to, well, a badass who drove the vampire race to extinction within an hour of encountering them.
* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Notably averted; the "Changers" arc examines the trope in detail.
* {{Retcon}}: While still he's an evil arsehole, it's later revealed the Bendix killed by Sparks was actually a counterpart from an alternate universe. The original would later return to haunt the second incarnation of Stormwatch Black a.k.a. ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''
* RetrauxFlashback: Jenny Sparks' flashbacks to earlier in her life are drawn in period-appropriate styles (homages to influential series like ''ComicStrip/DanDare'' or ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'').
* Roboteching: In the earlier issues of ''Stormwatch'', Flashpoint (one of the members of Stormwatch Prime) also had the ability to control the direction and intensity of his eye blasts. It was ''very'' cool. Too bad the character was a prime {{Jerkass}} and TheMole (actually, all three members of Stormwatch Prime were moles, but he was the only one who enjoyed it and stayed evil. He [[KarmicDeath got his in the end]], too.)
* RotatingArcs: Noticeably averted in ''Stormwatch'' and ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', where the teams are really too small to divide everyone up.
** Stormwatch does a LampshadeHanging on this in "Bleed", where, after viewing a parallel world where there are several Stormwatch teams, Winter remarks "You can't put twenty superhumans in the same '''town''' without them picking fights with each another."
*** It can be argued, though, that these comics do a mini rotating arc within the issue by pairing up some of the characters: for example, in ComicBook/TheAuthority, Midnighter and Apollo, and Jack and The Engineer usually work together as well as being romantically linked while Shen and The Doctor alternate between teams/partners or work alone. Oh, and Jenny (both versions) does whatever the hell she likes.
* RussianGuySuffersMost: Unlike most of his comrades, Nikolas Andreyvitch Kamarov aka Winter, did survive the [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorph-invasion]] of Skywatch but shortly afterwards suffered a horrible FateWorseThanDeath [[HurlItintotheSun after piloting the Xenomorph-infested Skywatch-station into the sun]].
* SealedBadassInACan: Creator/WarrenEllis' ''Stormwatch'' had Rose Tattoo, the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification "Spirit of Murder"]], who, in between missions, was kept in a maximum security cell under armed guard on Stormwatch's satellite base.
* SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan: Both Fuji and Hellstrike due to their transformations into energy beings.
* SorryImGay: In ''Comicbook/{{Stormwatch}} 46'', a rare BreatherEpisode, Fahrenheit, Jenny Sparks, and Flint are at a restaurant in Paris, and Fahrenheit has already picked up a hot guy, but when she calls Flint over to translate what he's saying, it turns out what he was trying to tell her was he's gay. Fahrenheit jokingly suggests that the three women kidnap him and "[[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale keep at him until he starts liking girls]]..."
* SpiritualSuccessor: Most famously, ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', made up mostly of characters Ellis created during his run on ''Stormwatch''. ''The Monarchy'' tried to follow in its footsteps with other Stormwatch members.
** Also, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'''s portrayal of the League as a larger organization with [[SpearCarrier support crew]] and political conflicts with the United States was also influenced by ''Stormwatch''.
* SpotlightStealingSquad: Unless they appeared in The Authority, don't count on many characters sticking around too long.
* StockSuperheroDayJobs: All are full-time superheroes, with their private lives and out-of-costume identities rarely examined too deeply.
* SuperEmpowering: Christine Trelane from the Creator/{{Wildstorm}} Universe possesses the superpower to activate latent powers in humans and transform them into post-humans.
** Wish, one of the Changers from Creator/WarrenEllis[='=] run on ''ComicBook/{{Stormwatch}}'', was also an Activator.
* SuperheroPackingHeat: Jackson King in his pre-Weatherman identity as Battalion used to focus his telekinesis through dual wielded guns.
* SuperhumanTrafficking: International Operations begins finding superhumans and cutting out their organs to transplant into their own soldiers late in Ellis' run of the comic.
* TeleportersAndTransporters: Uses a communicator[=/=]beacon to find its target, which gets used and abused as much as would be expected.
* TheNoseless: Nautika has no nose. Might have something to do with her living underwater and more or less being a humanoid electric eel.
* UnitedNationsIsASuperpower: The Stormwatch was a UN-founded superhero team and with people like Bendix in charge it became much more dangerous [[spoiler:because he was using them as pawns to try to take over the world.]]
* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Fuji has a Japanese flag pattern painted on his face. ''Icons: The DC & Wildstorm art of Jim Lee'' shows that in the original concept for Stormwatch, the entire MultinationalTeam wore their flags on their faces.
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