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Title: Stormwatch: Change or Die by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1-56389-534-X Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: How Superhero comics ought to be
Comment: I think this comic cemented Warren Ellis as one of my favorite writers. He takes the idea of superheroes as they had been for so long (Stormwatch) and played them off superheroes as they were conceived (The High's group). Each group thinks its ideas are right. Stormwatch is only interested in the status quo, and maybe some beneficial changes slowly introduced over time. The High's group sees the world as in need of fast, massive improvement, and they set out to do it.
The only reason I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 is that the 2nd part simply doesn't flow from the first. Still an interesting read, but more padding than anything else.
Rating: 5
Summary: The superheroes hit the fan
Comment: In StormWatch: Change Or Die, the third collection of Warren Ellis work on StormWatch, bad things happen. Worse than even Jenny Sparks has seen before.
If you were thinking Henry Bendix (Chief Officer or "Weatherman" for the organization) was a little too tightly wound before now, you ain't seen nothing yet. The member nations of the U.N. were already worried about him, but now the team members are as well. He's sent them to stop a renegade super-powered group that's threatening to...make the world a better place.
I can't really tell you more about it than that without giving away the biggest thrills in the storyline. But I can say that this collection delivers on everything Ellis has been building up to as he's been systematically tearing down everything that this series used to symbolize. Meaningfully, he finally shifts over to multi-issue stories, leaving the book's traditional single-issue adventure format in his dust. And the art finally measures up to the demands of the writing for what turns out to be Tom Raney's swan song on the series.
It's a different world from here on out...
Rating: 4
Summary: CITIZEN BENDIX
Comment: "Change is what we wanted, right? It's what you told me you wanted," Jenny Sparks says, "it's what I signed up for."
"No," Henry Bendix answers, "I want change, yes. On my terms."
The first half of this StormWatch collection (#48-50 of vol. 1) is the conclusion of Warren Ellis' 14-issue run on the superhero series. All the loose plot points from the previous two collections (Force of Nature and Lightning Strikes) draw to a close here, as we learn what Henry Bendix's intentions have been all along.
Warren Ellis' favorite movie is Citizen Kane (his affinity for journalism shows through in his science-fiction satire Transmetropolitan), and here he takes Charles Foster Kane's tragic flaw and applies it to the commander of StormWatch, the UN's superhuman crisis intervention team. Kane wanted love on his own terms, Bendix wants order on his own terms. Their arrogant and sprawling desire for these intangibles bring their incredible authorities and powers crashing down upon them.
As the book begins, Jenny Sparks, leader of StormWatch Black barely survives an assassination attempt, and apparently, Bendix couldn't care less. He's more concerned with a superhuman from the 40's named "The High", who is gathering a force of superhumans from around the world to make a sudden and startling shift in society, using their power and science and magic to cure all of mankind's ills, with no strings attached. Bendix doesn't trust them, of course, for reasons he won't share with StormWatch. But the silent, mysterious assassin Rose Tattoo knows all about The High and his allies, and she's eager to help Bendix stop them.
'Change or Die' is a story of benevolence and selflessness being crushed by selfishness. The High is the classical idea of a superhero. His naivete and idealism still live inside the bitter, cynical shell of Jenny Sparks and so she is affected deeply by his tragic ending. Call it 'Watchmen for the 90's, by way of Citizen Kane'.
The second half of the story, "Strange Weather" (issues #1-3 & preview of vol. 2), has the surviving members of StormWatch, now under the leadership of Weatherman Jackson King, tracking down a rogue government agency using superhuman enhancements for wargames in America's heartland. There's more of the political flavor that made parts of StormWatch vol. 1 so unique among the superhero dreck clogging the graphic novel shelves at book stores. There's also lots of great characterization here, and dialogue that makes superheroes a bit more believable. When the officers of SW get together and sit in a bar, they talk about sex. Imagine that.
The art is this volume is phenomenal stuff, Raney does great, high-energy layout and action scenes on "Change or Die". His work does seem to slip a little bit from the previous collection --- it's not as crisp, and the faces lose some detail --- but it's still miles above the unreadable stuff that occupied the pages of StormWatch before he and Ellis took over. Oscar Jimenez handles most of the art on "Strange Weather", and it's truly wonderful. Jimenez and Ellis didn't hit it off working on the book, and he is replaced by Bryan Hitch as of the next collection (A Finer World), but Oscar does do some great work on this book --- his facial expressions and body language are dead on, and he communicates humour excellently in these pages. Judging by his work on The Flash and StormWatch, I'd have to say that Jimenez would be much better suited to a social-fiction or humour title rather than an action-based superhero comic. Still, it's exquisite work and great to read.
The major problem? It's a REALLY uncomfortable and sudden shift from the tragic, emotional ending of "Change or Die" into the less-serious, action-based story "Strange Weather". It's clear that StormWatch vol. 1 was meant to be read in one sitting: the first two collections and this first half of this one should have been one book. It would've heightened the reading experience for both halves of THIS one.
Minor quibbles aside, StormWatch: Change or Die shows you why Warren Ellis is one of the only superhero comic writers of the last decade worth your time. Check it out.
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Title: Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority by Mark Millar ISBN: 1563897695 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Authority, The: Under New Management by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563897563 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Authority, The: Transfer of Power by Mark Millar, Tom Peyer ISBN: 1401200206 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Authority, The: Relentless by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563896613 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Authority: Earth Inferno And Other Stories by Mark Millar ISBN: 1563898543 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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