Comic Info
Comic Name: The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Joe Harris/Ethan Van Sciver
Artist: Ethan Van Sciver/Yildiray Cinar/Daniel HDR/Marlo Alquiza/Norm Rapmund/Walden Wong
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: 2013
Reprints The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #0, 7-12 (May 2012-November 2012). Rogue Firestorm Protocols are popping up all over the world, and Ronnie and Jason have been separated. While Ronnie finds himself teamed with a Russian Firestorm Protocols agent named Pozhar, Jason teams with a French Firestorm Protocol agent named Firehawk. As both seek the stop the threat of the Firestorms, the real danger is exposed and Jason uncovers something about Zithertech that could bring the whole Firestorm Protocols program crashing down.
Written by Joe Harris and Ethan Van Sciver and featuring art by Van Sciver, Yildiray Cinar, Daniel HDR, Marlo Alquiza, Norm Rapmund, and Waldon Wong, The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men Volume 2: The Firestorm Protocols followed the first volume of the New 52 series relaunch The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men Volume 1: God Particle. This volume marks the end of the The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men title before a slight name change to The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man.
Firestorm was one of those characters I had a connection to growing up. It wasn’t that he was a great character or I really liked him, but he was “new”. I remember when Firestorm was introduced to the Super Friends series and always felt that I grew up with him a bit. Unfortunately, Firestorm has always been a really inconsistent character and the New 52 version didn’t help much.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men series is too full of techno-garble. The basic fun of Firestorm was that he was a little bit Green Lantern (thought projections) and a little bit Superman (strength and flying). This was combined with a schizophrenic personality. I never got into the Jason Rusch character and missed the original Stein/Ronnie combo. Here you have a Firestorm program and tons of Firestorms…it just makes it lose all its appeal.
This is aided by a rather splash-paged filled comic book. There was a lot of fighting in this volume and pages upon pages of flashy fights that seemed repetitive due to the similarities of the villains. I do like that the Firehawk character was brought into the New 52 universe and it was fun to have the Justice League International stop by…but I would have preferred a solid story that didn’t drag.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men 2: The Firestorm Protocols is a slight improvement over the first volume which was filled with tons of bad dialogue, but it still has a ways to go before it would be a “good” comic. Firestorm unfortunately doesn’t get the chance to become a good comic because the next storyline is the final storyline. The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men 2: The Firestorm Protocols is followed by the final volume The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man 3: Takeover.
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