I KNEW IT! As soon as I saw Starlin teasing his new project I had this hunch it was Stormwatch. Last ditch effort from DC to save it.

I am making another prediction based on this solicit.: "Team StormWatch is lost in a dimension shift—so what team will rise and take their place?" New Authority book in May.

I think the solicit means the Shadow Lords (who appear to have gotten a redesign) go looking for replacement team members once their current puppets go missing to be a NEW Stormwatch. a ‘dimension shift’ could equal the current team being lost in the Bleed. How will they get back? oh, I dunno, maybe a ship designed to travel between dimensions? They’ll need to call themselves something else when they get back… I’m calling that now. Stormwatch is getting a whole new cast of characters (hopefully with some old WS characters in there, like Jackson King, Winter etc. though we know for sure Lobo and The Weird are among the new members) and the mystery book to replace one of the two cancelled series (I, Vampire, which I am very sad about, I loved that book, and DCU Presents) is The Authority. ;) My pick for creative team: Brian Azzarello and Yanick Paquette.

This would solve many problems. It gets the Authority characters out from under the control of an outside influence, no more Shadow Lords overseeing characters who by all rights should be calling the shots themselves, it re-introduces the Bleed, the Carrier, and lets the New 52 Stormwatch continue being this cosmic book with a cast of characters better suited to that.

Well, at least this gives them another fresh start with the WS characters. They've been so poorly treated across the board since the reboot.

Stormwatch needs to become a team who can take on the whole planet and other super heroes so governments, super villains and super heroes will all fear Stormwatch.

@colonyofcells: nonono... THE AUTHORITY! See, they're gonna get lost in another dimension, maybe see or experience something there that makes them take a more pro-active stance on things, then when they make it back to the DCU, they're gonna be stepping up their game, so they can live up to the Authority of old.

I also hope Stormwatch will soon start behaving like the Authority of old. It would be nice to see Apollo and Midnighter kill lots of people.

@colonyofcells: But what I'm saying is, when that happens, I don't think they will be calling themselves Stormwatch anymore, they'll be called The Authority, in a brand new book. Stormwatch is becoming something totally different, more cosmic, with different characters. Assuming I'm right, of course.

I kinda hope you are right. I stopped reading Stormwatch after issue #10. They really need to fix that book.

I called that also about an Authority book coming out. As in what dimension is the team going into? are they gonna wind up in Earth 2 or another universe entirely? I love the cast but I have to say Stormwatch needs a better writer or rather those select characters of Jenny Quantum, Engineer, Apollo and Midnighter along with Jack Hawksmoore. I want them to punch a hole in the DCU as The Authority and make the other heroes of the DCU question their own morals. Similar to the Superman vs Elite story but with the ACTUAL Authority rather than a knock off like the Elite.

Wildstorm has lots of characters so I do hope they split Stormwatch and Authority into 2 titles. Lobo and Weird are better utilized in Threshold. Both Stormwatch and Authority should have no need of the shadow lords so just get rid of the shadow lords. Authority should have Midnighter lead Apollo, Engineer, Harry Tanner, and Jenny Quantum. Stormwatch can have the other Wildstorm characters like Weatherman, Battalion, Majestic, Rose Tattoo, etc.

Looks like i was actually wrong and colonyofcells was closer... the new Stormwatch lineup is Apollo, Midnighter, Engineer, Hellstrike,The Weird, a new Jenny, and a few new characters. But from another dimension! So... looks like no Authority.... But on the other hand, they're doing a complete do-over with Stormwatch, basically just wiping the slate clean. Apollo and Midnighter are in costumes that more closely resemble their Wildstorm looks, Apollo has long hair and a simple circle in a triangle logo again, and Midnighter is in an EXACT copy of Bryan Hitch's original design for him, from the details of his cowl to the design of his shin guards, to his coat, yes, HIS COAT IS BACK. Engineer may be getting a complete reboot as well. I hope so, she was the most badly damaged of all of them, imo.

Full cover for issue 19

Cover for issue 20

This is a fairly mixed bag for me. Semblance of the old Wildstorm characters is good, but basically negating the past two years of the series seems like a cop out.

@The_Tree: Normally, I'd kinda agree... but as a fan of the characters but not the book, I'm just glad to have something resembling the versions I actually like back. The Stormwatch versions of characters were VERY broken in some cases, and to get them back to being cool again without throwing out the past stories would have taken a whole lot of retconning and changing of their current personalities and in some cases powers. Stormwatch has not exactly been well received, it started out with a decent chart position but fell very rapidly and STILL hasn't found a level, it's selling about 15,000 copies a month at the moment, and still losing around a thousand readers a month. If they didn't do something drastic, it was going to be cancelled soon. This is a drastic measure to try and save it, they needed to catch the attention of people who dropped the book and let them know they're going in a new direction, that's hard to accomplish with subtle changes overtime to inch them closer to what fans want. If it fails, it will just mean it got a few extra issues than it normally would have.