Firestom 1
Written by Gail Simone Art by Yildiray Cinar
And co-Plotted by Ethan Van Sciver
I have never been a fan of Firestorm. I always thought the character was too emo and too poorly laid out. When I heard that Ethan Van Sciver was the one who came up with the concept for this complete reboot I was pretty excited. I had and have high hopes for this book.
Ethan is mostly known for his artwork on Green Lantern but he is also known for working very closely with Geoff Johns on the Ring wars and is completely responsible for the ROYGBIV rings concept. At Philcon this year he spoke on a panel and went on at length about how excited he was about this book.
When Ethan gets excited about a character usually great things come out of it.
With all of this information I picked up this first issue with some excitement. Not knowing what to expect other than not what came before it.
And that is what I got.
This book is a total reboot of the character. There are certainly similarities to the original character but beyond the surface level it's a whole new ballgame.
Let us start with the fact that there is more than one Firestorm. Let us continue with saying that apparently when a firestorm matrix is formed it effects two people nearby and they get what appear to be similar powers as we are used to.
Our main characters are still Ronnie and Jason and in this world they went to Highschool together and HATE each other at an almost primal level. They can't seem to help themselves when it comes to taunting the other.
Gail Simones writing was good but I think perhaps she went a little overboard on the whole "testosterone driven teenage boy" thing.
the art in the book is ok, but not great. My biggest issue with it is that it is not consistent.
I will stay on this book at least for the first arc to see where Ethan and Gail's brainchild goes.