Darkly comedic dialogue, consistently well rendered character designs and Dave Stuart’s wonderful colors all tend to feel a bit squandered in a book that’s losing focus as it comes to the end of the first major story arc. (Warning: contains minorspoilers.)
Written by Jody LeHeupCover by Nathan Fox
Illustrated by Nathan Fox
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Steve Wands
Nathan Bright is in the clutches of the Pearl and the clock is ticking. Agent Cross must choose between her own desire for vengeance and protecting a man who, though drenched in the blood of billions, might still be innocent.
“Weatherman” is definitely the kind of series where the creators expect the reader to follow the story closely to fill in the blanks. Visually, the story is told in a series of rather small panels, typically five per page, that often feel like small jump-cuts from one point in time to another. In certain ways, it almost feels like we’re seeing the highlights or watching some sort of recap rather than experiencing the story in real time.
Clearly, the purposely frenetic, staccato pace is meant to reflect “race against time,” high pressure dynamic that nearly overwhelms the protagonists as the fate of an entire planet hangs in the balance. As we enter the fifth and presumably final installment of the first arc, however, I can’t help but feel like a little less ambiguity and a little more flow would help drive the story forward with maximum intensity.
Don’t get more wrong, I appreciate the fact that not everything is clearly spelled out. One of the more captivating features of the series thus far is its moral ambiguity, wonderfully personified by the titular character’s decidedly dualistic nature. In the guise of Nathan Bright, he’s a happy-go-lucky goofball who makes us laugh and smile, whether we actually think he’s funny of not. Prior to that (before his memory was wiped clean), he was known as Ian Black, the despised terrorist responsible for the murder of billions back on planet earth – a monumentally horrific event we’ve heard about but never seen.
Therein lies the problem. In the end, Jody LeHeup’s darkly comedic script, Nathan Fox’s frenetic action sequences and Dave Stuarts wonderful colors feel squandered on a story that asks big questions about big subjects, but doesn’t seem particularly interested in providing any answers.
Consistently, the creators manage to pull off a wonderful balancing act between dark, sardonic humor, full throttle action-adventure and genuine pathos, but in the never ending cavalcade of new characters who insert themselves into the story, the focus remains muddled.
LeHeup, in particular, intermixes some genuinely funny, laugh out loud lines with moments of tenderness and despair. For example, after explaining the ‘action potential’ of electrical impulses in the brain, a smarmy male scientist says to his female colleague, “Oh, hey, speaking of action potential…you comin’ over later?” It’s a loutish bit of humor that comes right on the heels of an explosive action sequence – a well timed bit of comic relief – but it’s also said by a tertiary character we’ve never seen before, pulling the focus even further away from the central story line and making it sound like a throwaway line. Honestly, to that point, I wish that the it had been said by the smart-ass weatherman Nathan Bright instead of some rando, but that iteration of the aforementioned weatherman hasn’t had very much screen time for many, many pages. His presence is definitely missed.
In the end, I’m not entirely sure why the creators feel compelled to keep introducing more and more new characters, and I’m even less certain where the story is headed. Fox’s character designs continue to be on point, no doubt. Render, for example, is an exquisitely rendered, squirm-inducing cyborg straight out of your post-technological nightmares. He appears so late in the game, however, it can’t help but feel semi-random and somewhat gratuitous. I can’t actually tell if the story should slow down to indulge in more backstory and context, or simply trim away everything that feels even vaguely extraneous to keep the plot more streamlined.
Needless to say, with a story set on Mars that invokes a “memory wipe,” the reader can’t help but hear echoes of Philip K. Dick. This too is a double-edged sword, probably causing us to make some faulty assumptions while we try to guess where we think the story is headed. It’s all a bit tricky and cluttered, introducing and referencing tropes that it may not fully intend to but definitely can’t avoid.
Ultimately, they key ingredients of a great series are undeniably here. LeHeup’s idea-packed script definitely has moments of greatness. Fox’s character work is exceptional throughout, even if he could use a wider variety of camera angles, panel sizes and framing. Stewart’s color palette feels simultaneously futuristic and refreshingly different, far from the same old gleaming sci-fi cliché. There’s a great concept buried deep inside here, but it feels like the storyline is slowly drifting away from the original idea.
Final Verdict: 7.1 As the series heads toward the end of the first story arc, it’s getting hard to separate key moments and plot points from potentially extraneous details.
