Written by Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver
Illustrated by Yildiray CinarJason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond. These two high school students are worlds apart–and now they’re drawn into a conspiracy of super-science that bonds them forever in a way they can’t explain or control. The dark secrets of the murderous Dog Team and its Firestorm Protocol force them to put aside their differences to confront a threat so terrifying that it may lead to a new Cold War!
I can’t say I’m a long time fan of the character of Firestorm, but I do have to say, I dug Stuart Moore and Jamal Igle’s One Year Later stuff with Jason Rusch as the lead, and I enjoyed the dynamic between Rusch and the other Firestorm Ronnie Raymond. So I’m a person bordering on being a fan of the character.
Did this first issue from Simone, Van Sciver and Cinar take me the rest of the way?
Find out after the jump.
There’s a really short answer to the question I asked in the introduction and there is a longer answer. We’ll start with the short answer: no, this book did not make me a Firestorm fan.
In fact, this book ensured that I would not be picking up another issue of The Fury of Firestorm anytime soon.
This issue is rife with problems, and that is while you completely ignore potential continuity issues given that Blackest Night and Brightest Day are supposedly things that happened in the DCnU and this book clearly indicates that these characters were no part in it.
Really, there was an actual point in the midst of this issue that made me realize how strongly I would dislike it. About half way in, soon-to-be Firestorms and current high schoolers Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are in their school’s locker room. Jason is there to interview star QB Ronnie, and in the process, the most forced point of animosity ever is created. The gist is this: the two guys have a conversation and in the midst of it Jason decides Ronnie is a racist, thus the schism is created between them!
All of the issue is similarly clunky, from the opening in which a little kid is positioned as a terrorist by a group of mysterious mercs and then murdered along with the rest of his family (and their entire city block), to the ending in which “Fury” (who seems a lot like Blackest Night Firestorm) is created from the pairing of the two new Firestorms amidst their childish bickering.
Sigh…
The art is a bit better, but still rough. Yildiray Cinar’s art has never been my favorite, but he’s a solid enough artist in his own right. The more action packed sequences with the Firestorms (and Fury) are a little too busy and hulked out for my taste, but most of the storytelling is well done and the facial expressions and body models are well crafted. He creates a pretty good atmosphere for the book and his environments are pretty detailed.
Not to be too nit picky, but the football sequence might have bothered me the most for all of his art (Ronnie is apparently a QB who throws sidearm, meaning he is the only person in the history of football who does that). That said, if that was the biggest moment of bother in terms of art, it’s an overall fairly solid issue.
Oddly enough, I initially had hesitations about the art more than I did about the writing. Cinar ended up during in a decent effort, but the duo of Simone and Van Sciver (who I both enjoy generally) ended up turning in a clunky, muddled issue with unlikeable leads. The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclearn Man #1 gets one distinction from me at least – it’s the worst book of the last wave of the New 52.
Final Verdict: 4.0 – Burn
