The Hard Call is a comic book format story set in the fictional Wild Cards universe. First published in 2008 it ran as a six-issue limited series. The plot revolves around Alex, who inadvertently triggers a Wild Card outbreak in a Colorado high school science fair. He and two others students who were involved in the accident survive and find themselves changed in ways they would not have expected. Alex soon crosses paths with Croyd Crenson and the pair form an unlikely partnership when they set out to solve two mysteries at once.