Stormwatch #7 – Review

By: Paul Jenkins (writer), Ignacio Calero (penciller), Sean Parsons & Julio Ferreira (inkers), Pete Pantazis (colorist)

The Story: Add one more item to the “Nuclear Risks” list: alien beacon.

The Review: I’m just gonna put this out there: I believe Paul Cornell is one of the burgeoning great comic book writers out there.  Sure, he doesn’t have nearly the recognition that Grant Morrison, Matt Fraction, or Geoff Johns do, but I’d argue he can pen a script with the best of them.  Like all the greats, he has a very recognizable storytelling style completely idiosyncratic to him, which from the start made Stormwatch a totally distinctive series of its own.

In a way, such strong and inimitable writing is a double-edged sword; you really feel the painful end of it when once the writer departs and someone takes his place.  It’s not that the new guy (or gal) is necessarily deficient or ineffective in any way; it’s just not the same without the original around.  Unfortunately, that was always going to be the case with this title once Cornell left.

Then again, you can make the argument that Jenkins simply doesn’t have what it takes to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps.  If you have any experience with Jenkins’ writing from DC Universe Presents, you already have a good idea of the range of his ability: competent, wordy, and mostly blunt in the way he tackles theme and meaning.  Hence you have the personification of Pripyat (the Soviet Union town emptied by the Chernobyl disaster) hacking and wheezing into an oxygen mask as suffers the spread of his cancer.

Truthfully, Jenkins’ work would be serviceable enough if not for his completely bland take on the characters, characters whose voices have developed tremendous personality over the course of six issues, only for it all to be abandoned here.  All the wit, intelligence, and boldness you’ve grown to love have gone.  Perfect example: Jenny Quantum used to sport the perfect blend of precociousness, youthful malaise (“Okay.  I vote for you.  Whatever.”—one of her best lines, from #6), and pep.  Jenkins has reduced her to a default “action-exposition” dialogue and a running gag about wanting a puppy (“Pleeeaase?”).

Every character has lost much of what made them so appealing before.  Forgive me, but I’d go so far as to say Jenkins doesn’t seem to know these people he’s writing.  The more intelligent and complicated the character, the more apparent this problem becomes.  Cornell set up Midnighter as basically the guy who gets a handle on any and every situation the moment he enters the scene; you’d never expect the phrase, “I don’t know,” or, “I’d have to guess…” to come out his mouth, but there it is—and it completely undermines Midnighter’s hyper-competence.  The same thing happens to Engineer the moment she lets out a little rant about ex-boyfriend Harry Tanner.  Having made up her mind last issue to destroy the lying weasel herself, it doesn’t seem natural for her to permit her resentment about his betrayal to affect her work, even so far as to snap a tad snappishly at Apollo’s innocent remark, “How am I supposed to look, exactly?”

If only Miguel Sepulveda was here to assure us that not all is lost.  Alas, Calero, while having a fine, detailed, appealing style all his own, does not have nearly Sepulveda’s subtlety—especially where his body figures are concerned.  He’s very much of the Implausibly Proportioned school of character drawing.  It’s been a while since I’ve been so distracted by fictional butts in a comic—male or female.  It seems half the times Engineer and Apollo show up, their behinds are popping out with worrisome prominence.

Conclusion: Competent enough on its own, the story, both on a written and artistic level, suffers by comparison to the giants who came before.  Imagine J.K. Rowling writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings and you’ll get a sense of the change here.  Dropped.

Grade: C+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – On a further note about the art, I’m particularly troubled by Calero’s Engineer; compared to the classy, professional woman we’ve seen in past issues, she’s been turned to your run-of-the-mill buxom babe here.  Take away her metal, and she’s pretty much buck naked.  Just imagine it for a sec, see how excited you’ll get, and you’ll know that I’m right about this.