Originally founded as an independent company established by Jim Lee under the name "Aegis Entertainment" and expanded in subsequent years by other creators, Wildstorm became a publishing imprint of DC Comics in 1998.

[1] Until it was shut down in 2010, the Wildstorm imprint remained editorially separate from DC Comics, with its main studio located in California.

Its creator-owned titles included Red Menace, A God Somewhere, and Ex Machina, while its licensed titles included Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, StarCraft, the Dante's Inferno game, The X-Files, and the God of War video game series.

[citation needed] Apart from McFarlane's Spawn, Wildstorm produced the most consistently, commercially successful comics from Image.

[citation needed] This era produced a number of titles of varying popularity including Gen13, WildC.A.T.s, Stormwatch, Deathblow, Cybernary, and Whilce Portacio's Wetworks.

A Saturday morning cartoon series of WildC.A.T.s lasted only a single season (1994–1995), while a full-length animated version of Gen13 was produced but never released in the United States.

[citation needed] In 1995, Wildstorm created an imprint called Homage Comics, centered on more writer-driven books.

[citation needed] The imprint started with Kurt Busiek's Astro City and The Wizard's Tale, James Robinson's Leave It to Chance (with Paul Smith), and Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise.

Subsequently, the imprint featured works by Sam Kieth, including The Maxx, Zero Girl and Four Women, three of Warren Ellis' pop-comics mini-series, Mek, Red, and Reload, and Jeff Mariotte's weird western Desperadoes.

In 1997, Cliffhanger debuted a line of creator-owned comic books which included such popular works as: J. Scott Campbell's Danger Girl, Joe Madureira's Battle Chasers, Humberto Ramos' Crimson and Out There, Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo's Steampunk, Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco's Arrowsmith, Busiek's Astro City and Warren Ellis's Two-Step and Tokyo Storm Warning.

[citation needed] In 1999, WildStorm launched several new titles, including The Authority, a dark and violent superhero comic whose characters fought dirty and had little regard for the rights and lives of their opponents; their only goal was to make the world a better place.

Ellis and artist John Cassaday created Planetary, about "explorers of the strange", an experiment that merged pop culture, comic book history and literary characters.

[citation needed] WildStorm launched a new imprint titled America's Best Comics as a showcase for Alan Moore.

The line includes the titles Promethea, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tomorrow Stories, Tom Strong and Top 10.

After the Point Blank mini-series, Ed Brubaker developed the same themes into the critically acclaimed Sleeper,[16] set in the WildStorm universe.

[citation needed] WildStorm varied its publishing with licensed properties, such as: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mirror's Edge, World of Warcraft, The X-Files, Dante's Inferno, and God of War.

WildStorm has also published original graphic novels from writers Kevin J. Anderson, John Ridley and David Brin.

The initial wave of relaunched titles included: Voodoo and Grifter solo series, a revived Stormwatch title featuring Jack Hawksmoor, Midnighter, Apollo, the Engineer, and Jenny Quantum,[21][22][23] and a revived version of Team 7 with non-WildStorm characters Deathstroke, Amanda Waller and Black Canary.

Following the conclusion of The Wild Storm DC Comics announced that a new Wildcats six issue mini-series was to debut August 28, 2019, again penned by Ellis with art by Ramon Villalobos, but was cancelled in 2019.

[33] The Wildstorm characters were then officially reintroduced into DC Universe continuity later that year in Batman: Urban Legends #5[4] and Superman and The Authority.

[40] In 2023, James Gunn of DC Studios announced that a film based on The Authority was in development and would help form the basis of the new DCU.