By: Ethan Van Sciver & Gail Simone (writers), Yildiray Cinar (artist), Steve Buccellato & Hi-Fi (colorists)
The Story: Everybody, run for cover—Firestorm’s comin’!
The Review: You’ve heard the old line about too many cooks in the kitchen, right? Well, that same logic tends to apply to comics writers as well. It’s one thing to have well-established partners like DnA or Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti working on a project together, but quite another thing when you have one writer sponsoring the story outline and another executing it (see Batman: Gates of Gotham for an example of outsourced plotting gone downhill).
It’s my understanding that most of the underlying ideas of this series come from Van Sciver, in which case he deserves some praise. The premise of each country having an atomic-powered metahuman as a kind of low-cost mode of M.A.D. makes sense in our increasingly volatile world. It’s also an interesting bit of social commentary that only countries with nuclear programs already in place get access to this technology—at least initially.
What throws these otherwise sound concepts off track is the confusing fragmentation of information. We learn here that Dr. Stein was selling Firestorm Protocols to rather unsavory nations (“To North Korea. To Iran. And to Libya.”), but you don’t know if that has anything to do with Dog Team’s search for rogue Protocols in the first issue. You also don’t know if these rogue Protocols (the same one that transformed Jason and Ronnie) are the same ones already used in select countries or if they represent an advancement in Dr. Stein’s original discovery.
You can set all that aside in trust for future clarification, so long as the ongoing action keeps your interest. To a certain degree, it does. Simone brings some of her trademark grimness in explaining boss-lady Zither’s personal connection to the Protocols, specifically with one of its crazed hosts. And you do somewhat empathize with Jason and Ronnie being thrust into a situation where they have to grow up before their time.
Sadly, the writing lacks Simone’s usual subtlety. Her talents have always centered on dialogue among strong personalities, which we don’t get here. Instead, we have lines that use aggression to give the illusion of character (“What I have, Doctor, is the names and immediate locations of three separate targets. I believe you call them your daughters.”) and some melodramatic narration (“The girl I love may be dead, and I never even told her. And it’s my fault.”).
Flaws also riddle the characterization of Helix, our primary villain. The patriot who gets deformed and deranged in service for his country is nothing new. In fact, just three months ago, within the pages of Flashpoint: Project Superman, we had that very story (and told with great and suspenseful credibility, too). In contrast, Helix gets introduced to us unhinged, and we can make any number of clichéd guesses as to how he got that way.
The most insurmountable problem with this title may lie with the immature art. Cinar’s merely competent figures and imagination can’t live up to the dark overtones of the script. Just looking at the cartoony way he draws fire, lacking all sense of heat or danger, you can imagine how unthreatening the rest of the issue looks. Buccellato’s pasty colors do little to overcome that trend. Actually, I can imagine with edgier art, this title would work quite a lot better, so in this case, Cinar’s art may truly prove a detriment to this series.
Conclusion: There’s just enough integrity left in the story to keep me in at least one issue more, but I bet it won’t be enough to hold onto me after that, especially since there’s no sign of any change-up in the awfully mediocre art.
Grade: C
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I still find the concept of merging Firestorms together to create one tank of a Firestorm pretty silly. It’s also a little too much of a gag to have Jason angry for the merge to happen, encouraging Ronnie to taunt him, “You do know I’ve seen Tonya naked, right?”
Grade
Conclusion