The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Men #1
By Hervé St-Louis
October 4, 2011 - 22:06
DC Comics
Writer(s): Ethan Van Sciver, Gail Simone
Penciller(s): Yildiray Cinar
Inker(s): Yildiray Cinar
Colourist(s): Steve Buccellato
Letterer(s): Travis Lanham
Cover Artist(s): Ethan Van Sciver, Hi-Fi
$2.99 US
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The Firestorm reboot is a logical extension of what has happened to the character since Blackest Night. Jason Rush and Ronnie Raymond will now share the body of Firestorm, allowing DC Comics to keep both its black and white teenaged Firestorm. The way this is handled here, however is a little more gracious than in Blackest Night and the following Brightest Day maxi-series. In Brightest Day, it was hinted that Rush was the smart one and Raymond the jock. But both were angry at each other because of the circumstances that had brought them together to share Firestorm. Also, only one of them could dominate the Firestorm body at once. Here, Van Sciver and Simone clean all of that mess and start with a clean slate. The boys already hate each other before joining up to create Firestorm, but because of who they are in society, in their high schools, instead of because of actions related to Firestorm. DC Comics has also conveniently de-aged Ronnie Raymond who in the last few years at DC Comics had become teenager again, even if he had completely aged elsewhere.
The irresponsible Ronnie Raymond is gone too. Now he’s just a jock who means well. He came off as the most likeable of the two. Jason Rush who is now smarter than he was before, is just a jerk in this book and already responsible for the death of a few characters. He’s so smart and deeply involved with secrets involving firestorm, yet, he’s too proud to ignore the mild threat that Raymond pose to his masculinity. The whole concept of this new Firestorm is the Ying and Yang and it’s so obvious, it’s somewhat ridiculous. It’s like DC Comics is trying really hard to show us that they can pull this off with the opposite attract type of casting. For one thing, this issue establish the hate between the two Firestorm and the fact that there are two of them now will make things interesting in the future.
The artwork was very super hero-like and therein is my main criticism. Why are the boys so muscular when they are teens in high school? Ok, Raymond is a jock and football player, but out of costume, he doesn’t seem so big or muscular. But when he and Jason transform, there is no in between. They automatically gain the traditional six-pack and super muscles of other super heroes. Nevertheless, this series should be a fun read.
Rating: 8.5/10
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