Thursday 28 June 2007

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 5: Final Orbit

The final chapter of Stormwatch suffers from not being about Stormwatch. Sorry if I'm sounding like a broken record, but Ellis clearly has nothing but contempt for the characters by this point.

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 4: A Finer World

This, for me, is probably the low point of Ellis' Stormwatch. The basic problem is that Ellis is clearly bored of writing the book. On the one hand, fair play, if you're bored you're bored. On the other, why keep writing it? It also doesn't make for a spectacular SW collection. Both of the stories contained within do have their merits, don't get me wrong, it's just that if you've got here on the back of the tight SW characterisation of the previous three books, you're going to be disappointed by this one.

Tuesday 19 June 2007

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 3: Change or Die

Just a warning, I've tried to steer clear of spoilers for these reviews, but "Change or Die" isn't a set of stories that can be discussed without them, so read on with that proviso.

Tuesday 12 June 2007

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 2: Lightning Strikes

The second volume of Warren Ellis' excellent Stormwatch run contains arguably the weakest set of stories from the first volume. This is relative, of course, and it's still good stuff. The first three episodes focus almost entirely on single characters.

Tuesday 5 June 2007

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 1: Force of Nature

This is really where Warren Ellis the mainstream visionary got started. While his Excalibur run undoubtedly showed his skill for humanising and revitalising characters, the freedom given by Wildstorm allowed him to remould a whole series in the space of an issue. When Ellis arrived, Stormwatch was pretty much a dying book. It was never one of Image's biggest hitters in the early days and rapidly became one of those books no-one cared about. The series was hampered by having to keep in line with the 'Images of Tomorrow' gimmick put in place early in the run, and then by a ludicrous number of new characters thrown at the book by desperate writers.