Writer Gerry Conway oscillates between serious and sort of bemusing throughout the first issue of the second Firestorm series. He’s got to recap a bunch–the original series, then the backups in The Flash–and he comes up with a few narrative devices to get it done with brevity.
He’s also got to establish his characters for this series, which leads to a lot of brief introductions, but he gets the A plot up and running fairly soon (he’s got a great juxtaposing of early morning routines). The main plot involves a Native American high school teacher getting possessed by an angry shaman and running amok. Oddly enough, one of Firestorm’s alter egos just happens to be in this guy’s class.
There’s an excellent action sequence in the museum; Penciller Pat Broderick isn’t always successful–usually with depth–but he’s always ambitious; it’s a great looking sequence.
The end’s a little heavy, but otherwise….
B+
CREDITS
Day of the Bison; writer, Gerry Conway; penciller, Pat Broderick; inker, Rodin Rodriguez; colorist, Gene D’Angelo; letterer, John Costanza; editor, Len Wein; publisher, DC Comics.
I think Bates must have just learned the word “erg” before writing this issue because he uses it ostentatiously.
It’s a good issue for Bates and Infantino. Bates comes up with a lot of set pieces, but doesn’t hurry them. Infantino actually has time to make them visually interesting.
I was hoping Bates would keep Flash running smoothly after the previous issue, but this one doesn’t bode well for the series keeping up. Even more than usual, Barry–and the Flash–are less characters in the comic than they are movable pieces for Bates’s plot. There’s not even the attempt at showing the Flash’s fantastic powers. Instead, Bates shows him doing what equates to a grade school science project without the traditional verbose, fantastic explanation.
Bates seems a lot more comfortable and assured this issue–maybe assured isn’t the right word. He’s ambitious again, both in plotting the feature story and how he gets through it. The only weak part is when the Flash has to beg for Barry Allen’s job back. It reveals how little work Bates does on either character.
It’s too bad, but not even the Infantino art can make this issue particularly worthwhile. There’s a real lack of personality to all of it; Bates is just building towards the big event with Barry’s evil father (I wonder if he’s secretly Reverse Flash, could he be) in the next issue. Not even a scene with Barry’s dad holding a gun to his head (while Barry is sleeping) has any weight.
I’m not sure how to phrase it exactly, because Bates hasn’t exactly dumbed down The Flash for Infantino’s return to the book, but he’s definitely dulled the characters down. It’s like he’s changing the audience, aiming younger. There’s no character development anymore and the character details are lame. One colleague of Barry’s wonders if he’s always running off because the guy has bad breath.
There’s something a little off about this issue. While Infantino is (hopefully) the new regular artist and he definitely has some good work in the issue–he can turn the smallest panel into the fullest one with all the movement and action–Bates is a little tone deaf.
What’s strange about the feature is how much better Bates writes Elongated Man and Sue Dibney than he does Barry and the Flash. There’s a lot of charm to his characterizations of the Dibneys and it breathes a lot of life into the story.
Heck gets lazy on the strangest stuff for the feature in this issue. It’s not the super gorillas or all the different locations in Bates’s script… no, it’s the people. Whenever Heck is drawing a person, it just doesn’t work out. It’s like he spent all his time on everything else and rushed through the faces.