Stormwatch #6 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Alex Sinclair & Pete Pantazis (colorists)

The Story: Just ‘cause you’re dying in space doesn’t mean you can’t get a little flirting on!

The Review: Ahh…nothing like a bunch of creative shake-ups to get the emotions flowing, huh?  By now, DC’s first wave of cancellations, replacements, and switcheroos is old news, but I’m sure the heated and anxious talk about it will go on even after the actual changes take place.  For the most part, I think DC made wise decisions across the board about what goes and what stays and who gets on or gets off which title.

Of all these, Cornell’s departure from Stormwatch signals much uncertainty for this title’s fate.  I don’t know if his leaving was a choice he made or one made for him, but whatever the case, it doesn’t bode well.  No offense to his replacement, Paul Jenkins, but after reading his largely pedestrian material on DC Universe Presents, I don’t have much confidence he has what it takes to follow in Cornell’s distinctive footsteps.

Over the course of a half-dozen issues, Cornell has established a very specific style and tone to Stormwatch, a potent mixture of lofty, breezy, and erudite which, you might imagine, very few writers can pull off.  Then there’s the sheer brilliance of his imagination.  Suppose someone other than Cornell—Jenkins, perhaps—had launched this title.  Would he have conceived of an alien city-space station hidden in Earth’s hyperspace, or a man for whom lying is a superpower, or moons that threaten planets with outstretched claws?  I tend to doubt it.

Very few other writers could have handled the developing attraction between Apollo and Midnighter with the respect and taste it needs to be taken seriously.  Too easily do people get caught up in the sensationalism or political implications of such a relationship.  Cornell shrugs all that off, letting the spark between the two heroes smolder until it finally comes out (so to speak) at a very sensible point, though “God, you’re hot” does throw subtlety out the window.

Stormwatch #5 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Allen Passalaqua (colorist)

The Story: You won’t believe what a liar he can be.

The Review: Sooner or later, Cornell had to address one of Stormwatch’s pet conceits: the premise that it’s been around since time immemorial, protecting Earth from all manner of threats from beyond the planet itself, resourced and funded by a mysterious, all-knowing group.  If Cornell really wants to sell this to us, he has to make the folks behind Stormwatch as impressive as he rumors them to be, otherwise Stormwatch as a whole loses credibility.

You see, the team itself is so chock-full of strong, take-no-nonsense personalities that whoever calls the shots on them has to be pretty powerful, both in ability and manner, to be taken seriously.  So it makes perfect sense when from out of nowhere, a supposed Cabinet man arrives, takes the team to task, and reorganizes them within the span of a few pages, with nary a care to their protests.

He doesn’t throw his weight around with just words, however.  Though we only get a glimpse of him in action, he seems capable of performing physics-bending feats almost negligently (“Let’s see, do I remember–?  Death pit, death pit…”), as when he sentences Adam One to death.  Don’t worry—as it turns out, death in the Stormwatch world is considered a kind of promotional stepping stone, a fact which tells you quite a lot about the exact nature of the Shadow Cabinet.

In assigning new leadership to the team, the Cabinet man spends some time musing over each member’s background.  While most of this is an annoying summation of everyone’s powers and abilities, which we’re pretty well-acquainted with by now, we do get some novel bits of info, some more useful (“[Jenny Quantum’s] father is a high-ranking military man, who still thinks she was murdered by terrorists.”) than others (“[Jack Hawksmoor] has sex with wells.”).

The most brilliant twist in the issue is the choice of who will ultimately be Stormwatch’s new leader: spoiler alert—Projectionist.  There’s poetry in this development for a lot of reasons.  Since #1, she’s bemoaned how no one appreciates her, and how all she wants is recognition, which may explain her rather dramatic past (“…there was the life of crime, the suicide attempts, the murders—”).  Now that she has all the attention she can hope for, it’s entertaining to see her overwhelmed in her new position (“…an emergency?!  Already?!”).  Great choice.

Stormwatch #4 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Alex Sinclair (colorist)

The Story: This alien apparently never learned not to scarf its food.

The Review: In my mind, the big appeal of Stormwatch is their incredible scope.  Between their ages-old mandate and their huge variety of abilities, nothing seems off limits to them, not even the boundaries of time and space (that tends to be the case when one of your members comes into existence at the start of the universe and is destined to end it as well).

So having the team defeat a massive extraterrestrial creature by resurrecting an ancient city beneath the surface of Colorado and using its alchemical powers to transform the creature into glass?  That seems to be a typical day for Stormwatch, but thrilling reading for us.  Initial issues hinted at the kind of power this team possesses, but here, for the first time, they really come together and deliver some fairly epic feats—not too shabby for the first story arc.

This rallying of the team comes at a cost, though.  Adam’s erratic behavior renders him completely impotent at the climax of the crisis, and Engineer finally takes lead in his stead.  But she also reveals her actions aren’t truly motivated by a thirst for power: “…I’m an engineer.  I fix things.  And this was so not working.”  It’s unclear if she’ll take point permanently, but from the looks of things, she seems perfectly suited to do so, even earning street cred with Midnighter.

And getting that dark knight’s approval is no easy feat, since he apparently only gives it to those who reach his high standards (“Good,” he remarks of Engineer’s orders, “That’s how I’d have called it.”).  Despite earlier claims of being a lone wolf, he quickly insinuates into the team as a master tactician, singlehandedly devising a strategy to free the absorbed members of Stormwatch from the creature, with a bit of legwork from Projectionist and Apollo.

Speaking of which, Midnighter and Apollo share a fairly significant moment in this issue when they find that it’s up to the two of them to save the day.  Cornell doesn’t go overboard with it, but when he has Midnighter place his hand on Apollo’s face, asking, “Do you trust me?” and the other man replies, “I—yes,” the exchange has a tenderness that definitely represents more than just a rapport between fighting partners.

Stormwatch #3 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Alex Sinclair & Pete Pantazis (colorists)

The Story: Cloudy, with a chance of meteors that may devastate the planet.  Bundle up!

The Review: Whenever you have a band of super-powered individuals banding together to fight evil, comparisons to the Justice League are inevitable.  Since the League is universally regarded as the primo superhero team in the DCU, and often includes the most recognizable icons, every other team has to not only distinguish its mission statement, but its members as well.  It’s a challenge, all right: how do you beat characters like Superman or Batman?

Stormwatch doesn’t make it easier on itself with such obvious analogues to the World’s Finest in Apollo and Midnighter.  This issue has Apollo flying into space, where direct exposure to the solar radiation that fuels him puts him into overdrive mode.  Good thing, since he does the heavy lifting, destroying a massive asteroid singlehandedly.  Meanwhile, Midnighter has to get over his loner methods to work with a whole gaggle of extraordinarily empowered people, and he feels out of place fighting space creatures when the only thing he can really bring to the table is his tactical mind (“I know how to kill anything.”).  Sound familiar?

That said, we also get plenty of evidence Stormwatch is nothing like the League, especially where power sets are concerned.  Here, you finally get a better understanding of how some of the team’s more bizarre gifts work, like Jack Hawksmoor’s.  As it turns out, when he says he talks to cities, it means he literally sits down among them—elegant Paris, modern It-girl Metropolis, and demonic, rambling Gotham—and has a pleasant chat (“Paris sends her love.”).

Stormwatch #2 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda & Al Barrionuevo (artists), Alex Sinclair (colorist)

The Story: I’m guessing none of these people played “Follow the Leader” very well as kids.

The Review: Paul Cornell has certainly set aside for himself a quirky territory in the world of comics.  Almost everything he writes has a sincerely strange flavor, but one that can also be strangely sincere.  Whether you’re dealing with Skrulls disguised as the Beatles, a bar where heroes and villains of varying quality rub shoulders and share a hot toddy, or a genius with a fetching robot companion, you can always count on Cornell to deliver the very odd goods.

It doesn’t get much odder than opening on the beginning of all beginnings, the Big Bang, and finding a member of Stormwatch already there.  Adam One appears as befuddled to discover himself in existence as we are, as well as a bit disgruntled at his craving for a “pint,” though “pints” haven’t been invented yet.  An off-panel voice observes, “Ah, so this is the moment you age backwards from the start of the universe!  One day you’re going to try to kill me.”

Cut to a little over a dozen billion years later, and we find Harry looking quite dapper in his middle ages (relatively), but also harried from the multiple demands of his team.  Any group that gathers for a higher calling rather than kinship will have its conflicts, and Stormwatch has plenty, with Engineer brazenly vying for leadership, and Harry Tanner referring to his team in quotes.

Harry becomes increasingly compelling over the course of the issue.  In comparison to the more expansive abilities of his teammates (Jenny Quantum: “Hey, I can do force fields!”  Engineer: “Yes, your dark matter DNA means you can do anything at the moment.”), he doesn’t come off as the most valuable Stormwatcher.  But as Engineer perceptively remarks, “…he’s the greatest at misdirection.  That’s his main power—he’s the prince of lies.”  And so it seems, as he pulls the wool over even the big giant eye of the lunar monster who’s got its tentacles inside his brain.