Post by ryokowerx on Sept 12, 2011 12:46:54 GMT -5
(cross-posted from my Facebook account. I hadn't originally intended on picking up all the new #1s but the 50% off deal at DCBS turned out to be too good to pass up. Feel free to discuss, agree or disagree)
So what the hell is this? I'm going to try to write a review of each of the new #1 issues put out by DC Comics. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, DC Comics (home of Superman, Batman, etc.) is completely restarting most* of the history they have established with their comic books since 1939. (* some continuity remains but all events that remain are considered to have happened within a five year span of time) If you're still confused, think of it as everything being set back to square one and all these superheroes are new things to show up rather than a given part of the world.
Anything I say from this point on is my opinion and reflects only my feelings. Please take your nerd rage elsewhere if you disagree or at least be civil in your disagreement.
NOTE: I have not read Flashpoint #5 which kicks off this new history so I'm going to try to approach these issues as if someone completely new to comics were picking them up for the first time. If you're interested in what I have to say, I'd encourage you to go to your local comic book shop (if you have one) or you can buy them digitally at Comixology (http://www.comixology.com).
PLOT SUMMARY:
The story opens with Stormwatch HQ existing in hyperspace. Aboard it, The Engineer is complaining about how they pulled a team member off from a mission in Moscow. The Moscow Team (Martian Manhunter, The Projectionist, and Jack Hawkssmoor) is trying to recruit a superpowered being who has been dubbed Apollo who wants nothing to do with them. In the meantime, the recalled member, Harry Tanner, has been redirected to the moon because the moon is growing giant claws and threatening to attack the Earth. Underneath the lunar surface, Tanner encounters a giant eye calling itself the Scourge of Worlds and that it must devastate the Earth to prepare it to survive what is to come. After reading Tanner's mind, the Scourge takes over his body with plans to use Stormwatch to prepare the Earth. In the Himalayas, we met Jenny Quantum and another member who appears to have lived a very long time. They find the "horn" that was talked about at the beginning of the comic and prepare to enter it. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, the team there has decided that, if Apollo can't be recruited, they'll just bring him in. As the fight breaks out, the team is ambushed from behind and defeated by a armored figure calling himself The Midnighter who asks for Apollo's help in killing a bunch of evil bastards.
THE ART:
Miguel Sepulveda does the art. The art is only average in my opinion and there are some oddities with anatomy on occasion as well as sometimes not giving enough detail to figures so they lean more towards a cartoon-like feel rather than a actualized person. The art gets the job done but could be better.
THE STORY:
Paul Cornell is the writer and I will say, up front, that this does not work very well at all for a new reader. Characters are introduced (or not as in the case of the man with Jenny Quantum) and their powers (some of which are quite vague) detailed. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the alien menace story but it is very rushed here in a effort to hook the reader and get across a lot of high concepts quickly. It doesn't work well. Most of the comic is centered around the efforts to recruit Apollo - something that I'm not convinced really needed to be told - but I also don't know what is planned either so maybe this is critical but it just read like a unnecessary subplot.
VALUE FOR YOUR MONEY:
Stormwatch sells for $2.99 but I wouldn't recommend paying that for it. Things are just too disjointed now and, while I have every reason to believe that a good story will evolve out of this (Paul Cornell is a excellent writer), I'm not willing to pay out month after month for it. I'll pick it up once it is collected in a trade paperback and save myself some money.
NEXT WEEK:
Batgirl #1, Green Arrow #1, Hawk and Dove #1, Justice League International #1, Men of War #1, and O.M.A.C. #1.
STORMWATCH #1
So what the hell is this? I'm going to try to write a review of each of the new #1 issues put out by DC Comics. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, DC Comics (home of Superman, Batman, etc.) is completely restarting most* of the history they have established with their comic books since 1939. (* some continuity remains but all events that remain are considered to have happened within a five year span of time) If you're still confused, think of it as everything being set back to square one and all these superheroes are new things to show up rather than a given part of the world.
Anything I say from this point on is my opinion and reflects only my feelings. Please take your nerd rage elsewhere if you disagree or at least be civil in your disagreement.
NOTE: I have not read Flashpoint #5 which kicks off this new history so I'm going to try to approach these issues as if someone completely new to comics were picking them up for the first time. If you're interested in what I have to say, I'd encourage you to go to your local comic book shop (if you have one) or you can buy them digitally at Comixology (http://www.comixology.com).
WARNING! SPOILERS OFF THE PORT BOW CAP'N!
PLOT SUMMARY:
The story opens with Stormwatch HQ existing in hyperspace. Aboard it, The Engineer is complaining about how they pulled a team member off from a mission in Moscow. The Moscow Team (Martian Manhunter, The Projectionist, and Jack Hawkssmoor) is trying to recruit a superpowered being who has been dubbed Apollo who wants nothing to do with them. In the meantime, the recalled member, Harry Tanner, has been redirected to the moon because the moon is growing giant claws and threatening to attack the Earth. Underneath the lunar surface, Tanner encounters a giant eye calling itself the Scourge of Worlds and that it must devastate the Earth to prepare it to survive what is to come. After reading Tanner's mind, the Scourge takes over his body with plans to use Stormwatch to prepare the Earth. In the Himalayas, we met Jenny Quantum and another member who appears to have lived a very long time. They find the "horn" that was talked about at the beginning of the comic and prepare to enter it. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, the team there has decided that, if Apollo can't be recruited, they'll just bring him in. As the fight breaks out, the team is ambushed from behind and defeated by a armored figure calling himself The Midnighter who asks for Apollo's help in killing a bunch of evil bastards.
THE ART:
Miguel Sepulveda does the art. The art is only average in my opinion and there are some oddities with anatomy on occasion as well as sometimes not giving enough detail to figures so they lean more towards a cartoon-like feel rather than a actualized person. The art gets the job done but could be better.
THE STORY:
Paul Cornell is the writer and I will say, up front, that this does not work very well at all for a new reader. Characters are introduced (or not as in the case of the man with Jenny Quantum) and their powers (some of which are quite vague) detailed. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the alien menace story but it is very rushed here in a effort to hook the reader and get across a lot of high concepts quickly. It doesn't work well. Most of the comic is centered around the efforts to recruit Apollo - something that I'm not convinced really needed to be told - but I also don't know what is planned either so maybe this is critical but it just read like a unnecessary subplot.
VALUE FOR YOUR MONEY:
Stormwatch sells for $2.99 but I wouldn't recommend paying that for it. Things are just too disjointed now and, while I have every reason to believe that a good story will evolve out of this (Paul Cornell is a excellent writer), I'm not willing to pay out month after month for it. I'll pick it up once it is collected in a trade paperback and save myself some money.
NEXT WEEK:
Batgirl #1, Green Arrow #1, Hawk and Dove #1, Justice League International #1, Men of War #1, and O.M.A.C. #1.