The Weatherman was Henry Bendix, who had cybernetic implants connected to his brain to better monitor the world situation and his Stormwatch teams in action.
In the intertwined miniseries, the groundwork for both teams was laid in the mid-1960s by a core group consisting of Saul Baxter (Lord Emp), Zealot, Majestic, John Colt (the template for Spartan), Backlash, a young Bendix and Jackson King's father Isaiah, all of whom would be members of (or figure prominently in) the later Stormwatch and WildC.A.T.s teams.
In this series "WildStorm", the publishing imprint name, was a code word used by the United States Government: "Wild" was extraterrestrial life-forms, and "Storm" was invading forces.
His version of Stormwatch injected sexual and horror elements, thinly-disguised political commentary and criticism of the United States government into the stories.
The accompanying art was toned down from the more-exaggerated 1990s superhero-style, which dominated the early Image Comics, helping to emphasize the science fiction aspect of the storylines.
Most of the Stormwatch characters Ellis had not created were killed off in this story while the surviving characters he had created became the main cast of Ellis' new series, The Authority, including Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, Apollo, the Midnighter, and Swift (who debuted in Stormwatch vol.
1 #28, written by Jeff Mariotte) as well as two new characters who were successors of the Engineer and the Doctor from Ellis' "Change or Die" storyline.
[11] Rejecting the title "superheroes", Stormwatch — Jack Hawksmoor, Apollo, Midnighter, Jenny Quantum, the Engineer, the Martian Manhunter (who left the team after wiping everyone's memory of him),[10] and three new characters: Adam One (an immortal born during the Big Bang,[12] who was later revealed to be Merlin),[13] Emma Rice,[14] the Projectionist (who controls the mass media) and Harry Tanner, the Eminence of Blades (the world's greatest swordsman)[15] — exist in secret and consider themselves professional soldiers.
Apollo and Midnighter were returned to their original costumes as the core of a new Stormwatch team with the Engineer, Hellstrike, the Weird and new characters Jenny Soul, the Forecaster, and Force.
[18] After Starlin's run ended with #29, Sterling Gates wrote the series' 30th and final issue which restored the previous version of the team.