Wizard: The Comics Magazine #15
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWizard: The Comics Magazine #15 (November 1992) marks the first gatefold cover in the title's history and serves as the primary early public showcase for Whilce Portacio's Wetworks — a team concept that had been announced as one of Image Comics' founding titles but was then delayed nearly two years before its own series launched. The issue's 'Getting Wet' feature, bundled with a dedicated Wetworks poster insert, gave readers their most sustained early look at characters like Colonel Jackson Dane, Mother-One, Claymore, Jester, and Grail at a moment when Portacio's involvement in the Image launch remained one of the era's most-discussed stories in the hobby press. Because Wetworks ultimately became a 43-issue ongoing series under Jim Lee's WildStorm imprint, this Wizard issue stands as a key document in the Wildstorm Universe's pre-history.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Raw — VF/NM ▾ $4.98–$9.98 3 listings
Raw — VF ▾ $5–$45.98 3 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $1.88–$48 17 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Wizard Entertainment's monthly magazine had been running for just over a year when issue #15 debuted in November 1992, and the editorial team used the occasion to introduce the first gatefold cover format that would become a signature of the publication through the rest of the decade. The spotlight on Wetworks was editorially logical: Whilce Portacio had been publicly positioned as a would-be seventh co-founder of Image Comics, and his absence from the line's August 1992 launch — caused by a family tragedy — left readers eager for any glimpse of his creator-owned project. Portacio both drew the cover art and participated in a featured interview inside, making the issue a rare instance where the magazine's cover subject was also its primary editorial interviewee.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: November 1992; published by Wizard Entertainment as part of their monthly comics-guide magazine series that launched in July 1991.
- First gatefold cover in the Wizard magazine series — the format would continue as a recurring feature through the rest of the 1990s.
- Cover art drawn by Whilce Portacio, depicting the Wetworks team; the issue was polybagged and included a dedicated Wetworks poster insert.
- The 'Getting Wet' feature previewed the Wetworks concept — a team of black-ops soldiers who become bonded with golden symbiotes — created by Whilce Portacio and writer Brandon Choi.
- Characters previewed include the core Wetworks roster: Colonel Jackson Dane (team leader, original Team 7 member), Mother-One (Rachel L. Rhodes, cyborg), Claymore (Clayton H. Maure), Jester (Cord Dexter Lemoyne, shapeshifter), and Grail (Salvador Joel Alonday, energy being).
- Wetworks had been solicited as one of Image Comics' original 1992 launch titles; the series was delayed until 1994 because of the death of Portacio's sister, making this Wizard preview an extended preview of a book the public had been waiting nearly two years to read.
- Additional editorial content included an article on the then-upcoming X-Men Animated Series, a Dark Horse Predator/Aliens feature, a William Shatner interview about his TekWorld comics, and an in memoriam piece for Superman co-creator Joe Schuster (1914–1992).
- Regular columns present include David Quinn's 'Writing at the Edge' and Bart Sears' 'Brutes & Babes,' reflecting the magazine's mix of craft discussion and 90s-era genre enthusiasm.
Cast · 10 characters
Full credits
Key issues in Wizard: The Comics Magazine
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.