Greetings Escapist.
I've been a DC fan for a long time, even though I've always been more of a Marvel guy. But how could I deny my heritage in DC when old Batman and Justice League cartoons basically raised me? I followed the DC Animated Universe for so long that one day I said "enough" and decided I'd get in the comics.
And although I gleaned some enjoyable experiences from the books, the horrendously tangled continuity soon put me off, especially since I had basically no idea where to begin.
So, I figured that I was the exact person that DC's New 52 was aiming at - I had an interest in the characters, but wasn't too hung up on their histories that would get gravely altered.
And so, I bring you...
Deep down I know this is something I should be outraged about, but the book sounded like a great idea. StormWatch, an organization that's protected Earth on the sly for centuries, seems way more suited to J'onn's style than beating up random super villains every week.
So StormWatch instantly became my most anticipated New 52 book. I'v since bought issue one and two, and I'll review them for this site along with whatever other titles I purchase.
StormWatch is NOT a team of Superheroes, as Jack Hawksmoor states
"Do we look like Superheroes? They're amateurs. We're the professionals."
The team is comprised of Jack Hawksmoor, the man who can communicate with cities, the robotic Engineer, the sort-of-a-leader Adam One, Jenny Quantum, Harry Tanner the "Eminence of Blades", a woman named Projectionist, and Martian Manhunter. With that as our cast, onward with the review.
[HEADING=1]Summary[/HEADING]
Some spoilers, none too drastic
Issue One, without wishing to spoil too much, starts out with three of these members on a recruiting drive, three at the command deck, and one sent to investigate a bizarre occurrence on the moon.
J'onn, Jack Hawksmoor and the lady named "Projectionist" are hunting down a supposedly Superman-level guy named Apollo, who is none to pleased with the idea of joining their team. Eventually, the three StormWatch members get taken out rather embarrassingly quick by a new face, Midnighter, who offers Apollo a very similar partnership, but just the two of them.
No homo, right? Hehehe... Oh. These two are actually a very well known gay couple in the WildStorm universe.
Well that shut me up, StormWatch. This is pretty great, since I'm gay and you don't see too many blossoming gay superhero relationships.
Meanwhile, Harry Tanner is investigating an otherworldly being on the moon, which is turning out none too promising for Earth.
Issue Two begins, and we see how awesome Martian Manhunter is. He has a really awesome scene in issue #1, but now even Midnighter admits it by straight out calling J'onn a badass. Fair enough. Then, after a short tiff between Adam and the Engineer, Adam teleports down to his team and Apollo and sets some shit straight about StormWatch. We also see a bit more of Projectionist's Media-warping powers which are, I admit, really cool.
Then a cut back to what's a pretty interesting development between Harry and this freaky alien invader thing on the moon, which has disastrous consequences when an all out attack is launched on the Earth's surface. The issue ends with a widescreen shot of some freaky alien structure thing attacking a farm, and I can only assume that this will be the rallying cry to unite StormWatch for it's first mission.
[HEADING=1]Dialogue and Characters[/HEADING]
So far, I'm loving StormWatch's cast.
Adam One is a seemingly immortal man who has lived for centuries, as he continuously reminds us, and as such employs his experience in a tentative command role for the team. He remains aloof even when staring down a heavy hitter like Apollo, but he becomes easily miffed when people are challenging his leadership. Which is understandable - He is essentially babysitting humanity his whole life, and they keep back-seat driving. I love some of Adam's dry wit and bordering-on-arrogant pridefulness, and his habit of casually disregarding crucially important factors, like throwing in the fact that he advised "That fat guy who ran Britain in that World War thing."
Jenny Quantum is a "Century Baby" with extremely loosely defined powers linked to the 21st Century. It's Adam One's job to look after the Century Babies, so the two have a potentially interesting relationship.
The Engineer is some sort of machine lady who seems to think she could do a better job of running StormWatch than Adam. Harry Tanner, the eminence of Blades seems pretty cool. He hasn't interacted with any of the other characters so far, but I like how he is perceived as a "Prince of lies and misleading" by Jenny and the Engineer, which makes sense for a Swordsman.
As I said before, Martian Manhunter is just damn awesome and, though a man of few words, his presence is significant enough in these issues. Apollo is your stock standard reluctant hero so far, though it is pretty refreshing to see a Superman-like hero who isn't addicted to the limelight. And Midnighter, uh, well he seems pretty good at punching people.
As for dialogue, it won't blow your mind but it's more than adequate. In these early issues, a lot of it is still expository, though there's enough colourful conversations here to make up for a lack of any razor sharp exchanges.
The Dialogue's best strength is the way it demonstrates how dysfunctional StormWatch is. There's infighting, mockery and competition between the would-be saviours. For a team that's been around for centuries it doesn't act like it at all. It's almost reminiscent of Watchmen the way the team is a warped version of the iconic view of a superhero team. StormWatch's members are all vulnerable to the same petty flaws of humans whilst being powerful as gods.
[HEADING=1]The Art[/HEADING]
Settings and Figures
From what I do know of WildStorm comics "StormWatch" and "The Authority" they are known for their "Widescreen Paneling" as it's called, and that's definitely evident here. There are some breath-taking scenes here, such as a distorted moon surface, a huge alien structure frozen in the snow and plenty of beautifully coloured cosmic scenes.
Not a lot of attention is given to the characters, from what I can tell. The designs are solid enough, I love the Manhunter's costume, but Midnighter's doesn't work too well. Some of the human features don't hold up too well in close ups where dynamic colouring and setpieces aren't able to augment the portrayal, but all in all there's nothing that really mars the rest of the book.
[HEADING=1]Final Thought[/HEADING]
In closing, yeah, these two issues are fantastic. Considering they had twenty pages in issue one to explain what all the WildStorm characters were doing hanging out in DC, it was pulled off in a really classy way. There's reasonable explanations for where StormWatch has been all this time and why Apollo and Midnighter aren't hanging out with the Justice League every other week. Stormwatch so far has a lot of big ideas, not all of which it has pulled off without a hitch, but there is enough here to convince me to come back.
This comes strongly recommended. If you're like me and don't know where to start, StormWatch seems like a good place, or at least a counterpart to one of the more mainstream books.
Next time I'll review Teen Titans #1-2.
Leave a comment, and I'm open to how I can improve on this reviewing method.
(A lot, I'm sure, this was rather hastily formatted)
I've been a DC fan for a long time, even though I've always been more of a Marvel guy. But how could I deny my heritage in DC when old Batman and Justice League cartoons basically raised me? I followed the DC Animated Universe for so long that one day I said "enough" and decided I'd get in the comics.
And although I gleaned some enjoyable experiences from the books, the horrendously tangled continuity soon put me off, especially since I had basically no idea where to begin.
So, I figured that I was the exact person that DC's New 52 was aiming at - I had an interest in the characters, but wasn't too hung up on their histories that would get gravely altered.
And so, I bring you...
[HEADING=1]New 52 Reviewed[/HEADING]
StormWatch, Issues One and Two
Upon hearing about DC's new 52, I immediately thought "Martian Manhunter! Solo series? MUST HAVE!" but then I learned that not only would J'onn not have his own book, he wasn't even in the new Justice League series. Well, consider my enthusiasm for this reboot drained. But alas! The Martian Manhunter could be found in StormWatch, which was previously a WildStorm book but is now being squashed in with the rest of DC, thus completely RUINING all of the continuity that I didn't know existed. StormWatch, Issues One and Two
Deep down I know this is something I should be outraged about, but the book sounded like a great idea. StormWatch, an organization that's protected Earth on the sly for centuries, seems way more suited to J'onn's style than beating up random super villains every week.
So StormWatch instantly became my most anticipated New 52 book. I'v since bought issue one and two, and I'll review them for this site along with whatever other titles I purchase.
StormWatch is NOT a team of Superheroes, as Jack Hawksmoor states
"Do we look like Superheroes? They're amateurs. We're the professionals."
The team is comprised of Jack Hawksmoor, the man who can communicate with cities, the robotic Engineer, the sort-of-a-leader Adam One, Jenny Quantum, Harry Tanner the "Eminence of Blades", a woman named Projectionist, and Martian Manhunter. With that as our cast, onward with the review.
[HEADING=1]Summary[/HEADING]
Some spoilers, none too drastic
Issue One, without wishing to spoil too much, starts out with three of these members on a recruiting drive, three at the command deck, and one sent to investigate a bizarre occurrence on the moon.
J'onn, Jack Hawksmoor and the lady named "Projectionist" are hunting down a supposedly Superman-level guy named Apollo, who is none to pleased with the idea of joining their team. Eventually, the three StormWatch members get taken out rather embarrassingly quick by a new face, Midnighter, who offers Apollo a very similar partnership, but just the two of them.
No homo, right? Hehehe... Oh. These two are actually a very well known gay couple in the WildStorm universe.
Well that shut me up, StormWatch. This is pretty great, since I'm gay and you don't see too many blossoming gay superhero relationships.
Meanwhile, Harry Tanner is investigating an otherworldly being on the moon, which is turning out none too promising for Earth.
Issue Two begins, and we see how awesome Martian Manhunter is. He has a really awesome scene in issue #1, but now even Midnighter admits it by straight out calling J'onn a badass. Fair enough. Then, after a short tiff between Adam and the Engineer, Adam teleports down to his team and Apollo and sets some shit straight about StormWatch. We also see a bit more of Projectionist's Media-warping powers which are, I admit, really cool.
Then a cut back to what's a pretty interesting development between Harry and this freaky alien invader thing on the moon, which has disastrous consequences when an all out attack is launched on the Earth's surface. The issue ends with a widescreen shot of some freaky alien structure thing attacking a farm, and I can only assume that this will be the rallying cry to unite StormWatch for it's first mission.
[HEADING=1]Dialogue and Characters[/HEADING]
So far, I'm loving StormWatch's cast.
Adam One is a seemingly immortal man who has lived for centuries, as he continuously reminds us, and as such employs his experience in a tentative command role for the team. He remains aloof even when staring down a heavy hitter like Apollo, but he becomes easily miffed when people are challenging his leadership. Which is understandable - He is essentially babysitting humanity his whole life, and they keep back-seat driving. I love some of Adam's dry wit and bordering-on-arrogant pridefulness, and his habit of casually disregarding crucially important factors, like throwing in the fact that he advised "That fat guy who ran Britain in that World War thing."
Jenny Quantum is a "Century Baby" with extremely loosely defined powers linked to the 21st Century. It's Adam One's job to look after the Century Babies, so the two have a potentially interesting relationship.
The Engineer is some sort of machine lady who seems to think she could do a better job of running StormWatch than Adam. Harry Tanner, the eminence of Blades seems pretty cool. He hasn't interacted with any of the other characters so far, but I like how he is perceived as a "Prince of lies and misleading" by Jenny and the Engineer, which makes sense for a Swordsman.
As I said before, Martian Manhunter is just damn awesome and, though a man of few words, his presence is significant enough in these issues. Apollo is your stock standard reluctant hero so far, though it is pretty refreshing to see a Superman-like hero who isn't addicted to the limelight. And Midnighter, uh, well he seems pretty good at punching people.
As for dialogue, it won't blow your mind but it's more than adequate. In these early issues, a lot of it is still expository, though there's enough colourful conversations here to make up for a lack of any razor sharp exchanges.
The Dialogue's best strength is the way it demonstrates how dysfunctional StormWatch is. There's infighting, mockery and competition between the would-be saviours. For a team that's been around for centuries it doesn't act like it at all. It's almost reminiscent of Watchmen the way the team is a warped version of the iconic view of a superhero team. StormWatch's members are all vulnerable to the same petty flaws of humans whilst being powerful as gods.
[HEADING=1]The Art[/HEADING]
Settings and Figures
From what I do know of WildStorm comics "StormWatch" and "The Authority" they are known for their "Widescreen Paneling" as it's called, and that's definitely evident here. There are some breath-taking scenes here, such as a distorted moon surface, a huge alien structure frozen in the snow and plenty of beautifully coloured cosmic scenes.
Not a lot of attention is given to the characters, from what I can tell. The designs are solid enough, I love the Manhunter's costume, but Midnighter's doesn't work too well. Some of the human features don't hold up too well in close ups where dynamic colouring and setpieces aren't able to augment the portrayal, but all in all there's nothing that really mars the rest of the book.
[HEADING=1]Final Thought[/HEADING]
In closing, yeah, these two issues are fantastic. Considering they had twenty pages in issue one to explain what all the WildStorm characters were doing hanging out in DC, it was pulled off in a really classy way. There's reasonable explanations for where StormWatch has been all this time and why Apollo and Midnighter aren't hanging out with the Justice League every other week. Stormwatch so far has a lot of big ideas, not all of which it has pulled off without a hitch, but there is enough here to convince me to come back.
This comes strongly recommended. If you're like me and don't know where to start, StormWatch seems like a good place, or at least a counterpart to one of the more mainstream books.
Next time I'll review Teen Titans #1-2.
Leave a comment, and I'm open to how I can improve on this reviewing method.
(A lot, I'm sure, this was rather hastily formatted)
