While everyone else is busy laughing at Micah Wright's service record, WildStorm has taken the opportunity to overhaul their line again. This time round, they've announced three new brands within the WildStorm imprint - and by implication, got rid of the three they already had.

Now, I'm all in favour of branding, when it's done well. A carefully cultivated brand is a valuable thing. Vertigo, for example, has always been able to shift at least a few copies to people who'll try anything from Vertigo. These people aren't slavish zombies. They just associate the Vertigo imprint with the sort of material they like, so they're more prepared to give it a shot.

An imprint like Vertigo is extremely valuable, because it really does draw in readers who would otherwise ignore a book altogether. For smaller publishers, of course, the issues are slightly different. Publishers like Oni, AIT/PlanetLar and Slave Labor are effectively brands in their own right. But larger publishers - even Marvel, but especially DC, Dark Horse and Image - put out such a range of material that the publisher's name carries only a relatively vague message. If you want to send a more specific message, you need an imprint.

'A carefully cultivated brand like Vertigo is a valuable thing.' DC loves imprints. Unfortunately, it's not always clear that DC knows what they're for. Even outside WildStorm, things tend to get a bit blurry. Most people have a reasonable fair idea of what Vertigo's meant to represent, but a curious muddle of mature readers comics bearing a normal DC Bullet logo has sprung up around the edges. It's perhaps understandable that FALLEN ANGEL has been bracketed with the superhero comics, but LIGHT BRIGADE? A "war and horror" series featuring angels in World War II? Is there a single good reason why that wasn't in the Vertigo imprint? It's not even a marginal case - it's the sort of premise a Random Vertigo Miniseries Generator would come up with.

Meanwhile, Vertigo itself ends up carrying books like LOSERS, primarily a straight-ahead action story. And a very good one. But why is LOSERS a Vertigo book and not CAPER - a title far more in keeping with Vertigo's image? Is there any rationale to this at all, aside from an arbitrary determination based on who edited what book?

The general impression of cluelessness isn't helped by the fact that CAPER, LIGHT BRIGADE and FALLEN ANGEL were all bafflingly solicited under the heading 'DC Universe'. Which they aren't. Seriously, if you were trying to find LIGHT BRIGADE in Previews, would you look next to the Sandman spin-offs, or would you check next to the Legion of Superheroes? DC, blithely ignoring the value of the Vertigo brand, went for the Legion option.

DC Focus works a little better. At least it's clearly delineated, and people have a reasonable idea what it stands for. Shame about the name - what does 'DC Focus' have to do with any of the titles involved? But at least it's got a fairly specific identity. It's a start.

WildStorm, though. What a mess.

'DC loves imprints, but it's not clear that DC knows what they're for.' Quirks of history have resulted in WildStorm having a plethora of hair-splitting sub-brands, of somewhat debatable value. WildStorm originated as Jim Lee's segment of Image back in the early nineties. In those days, it was very clear what the WildStorm name meant. It meant Jim Lee and Jim Lee clones. You knew where you stood with a WildStorm book. And the name wasn't unreasonable, given the sort of books that Lee was producing in those days.

Over the years, WildStorm has drifted almost completely from its roots. In many respects that's a good thing, because the quality and range of their output has improved dramatically. A set of imprints had already sprung up before DC acquired them, such as Homage - basically, a vehicle for creator-driven books quite distinct in tone from the other WildStorm titles.

Of course, as a subsidiary of DC, WildStorm retains a degree of autonomy. And Jim Lee is still involved. But it is no longer a stable built on Lee's name and style - books like WILDCATS bear little resemblance to the original book of the early nineties. Instead, WildStorm has become a mishmash of entirely different styles. Some of the titles have an obvious and sensible claim on the WildStorm name because they're continuations of the universe Lee created in the early nineties. Others, including entire imprints such as Homage, seem to be under the WildStorm banner more to reflect internal DC administrative arrangements than sensible branding. What on earth was the difference between Homage and Cliffhanger? Why have two brands at all?

WildStorm has done something to alleviate the confusion by getting rid of Homage and Cliffhanger altogether - along with failed adult-superhero imprint Eye of the Storm. Instead, WildStorm books will bear one of three new imprints. WildStorm Universe is self-explanatory. WildStorm, confusingly, is "for licensed properties such as THUNDERCATS and others." One might have thought toy adaptations belonged more comfortable in DC's licensed titles section, but there you go.

'WildStorm has drifted almost completely from its roots.' Then there's WildStorm Signature Series, a general imprint for "creator-driven projects... that are not part of the WildStorm Universe". It seems to be a conflation of Homage and Cliffhanger. It begs the question, however, of why exactly WildStorm needs a sub-imprint to carry comics that don't bear much resemblance to other WildStorm books. No doubt it reflects the administrative arrangements behind the scenes, but if you're going to have a WildStorm imprint, it needs to stand for something coherent. Instead, it stands for three completely unrelated things at once - descendents of Image comics, toy licenses and ASTRO CITY.

And really... WildStorm Signature Series? Did they pay somebody to come up with that name? It sounds like a range of collector plates. "Every week, you'll receive another beautifully hand-painted plate, featuring Zealot in a thong." Well, maybe it sounds better to American ears.

Anyway, DC seems to have a lacuna where comics set outside the DC Universe are either shoehorned into a brand where they don't really belong (like LOSERS and ASTRO CITY) or blithely dumped in the DC Universe section of the catalogue in complete disregard of their contents (like CAPER and FALLEN ANGEL).

In fact, by my count, the 'DC Universe' solicitations for July contain ten books that aren't in the DC Universe at all - including the entire DC Focus line. Meanwhile, 'DC: Beyond The Universe' contains five cartoon adaptations and, er, an ELFQUEST hardcover. Are these books being assigned at random? What's the point of having a section headed 'DC Universe' if it isn't remotely accurate? This can't be the most effective way of promoting titles outside DC's mainstream continuity.

WildStorm's brand identity isn't best served by turning it into a three-way split personality, even if that does reflect the true position on the ground. DC would be better off turning 'Signature Series' - with a better name, obviously - into a general imprint for creator-driven books that fall outside any of the other imprints. For some time now, titles have been arbitrarily slipping through the cracks between imprints. DC's imprints and brand names can be put to far more effective use than this.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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