Fury of Firestorm #2 review

Illustrator Rafael De Latorre’s elegant take on Leonard Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is a cracking image to kick off a book that looks inside the Nuclear Man. And Marcelo Maiolo’s muted colours cleverly deny the flashy fun we associate with Firestorm.

Last issue saw a cold, inhuman version of our hero using his matter rearranging abilities to ‘experiment’ on a small US town. A horrified military had Firestorm’s fellow nuclear hero – and sometime girlfriend – Firehawk, Lorraine Reilly, try to get through to him. He sent her packing with untrammelled fury as Firehawk realised half of the Firestorm Matrix, Professor Martin Stein, was absent.

This issue begins with the other 50 per cent, Ronnie Raymond, detained in some mysterious metaspace, remembering life before he became a superhero.

It’s tough to pretend you can understand deeply complicated physics but Stein reacted kindly when the truth of Ronnie’s educational limits came out. Rather than boot Ronnie out of the office, he took things slowly, patiently explaining his work, becoming Ronnie’s mentor.

One night, summoned to a lab on campus, rushing past protestors, Ronnie found Stein edgy…

… and in a cupboard, Stein found a bomb. Student and teacher shared the impact of the blast, and where two people stood, loomed something new, something more.

And so the adventure began.

The vivid memory fades as Ronnie faces… himself?

Oh dear, it looks like Ronnie, already in trouble, is about to be extinguished as writer Jeff Lemire continues his mini-series. Given Lemire’s recent announcement the run has been extended from six to nine issues, readers, retailers and the DC higher-ups are impressed. Me too. Yes, I knee-jerk pulled a face at origin details being changed from pre-Crisis – Ronnie being older and working for Stein when the explosion came – but every hero with any longevity has seen tweaks. Demonstrations at nuclear facilities haven’t been a thing for years, so a slight reordering isn’t necessarily bad.

What would be bad were this to be leading to the canonisation of the Doomsday Clock Superman Project business.

Fingers crossed Lemire is toying with those of us who read the 2019 series and that Stein actually groomed Ronnie in a positive sense; it’s 2026, comics does not need second-hand Alan Moore. And that would mean Firestorm’s hero history, given a brighter, nostalgic treatment by De Latorre and Maiolo, is what it seems, Firestorm vs crooks, not other government-created superbeings.

We’ll see. For now, Lemire still has my attention and goodwill, with this fast-paced but not insubstantial chapter.

The issue ends with The Firestorm confronted by a posse of Justice Leaguers; there’s no obvious cannon fodder there, leftover Titans or forgotten Outsiders, so that’s refreshing – no deaths.

Firehawk isn’t around this issue, presumably she’s off finding the bedraggled real-time Stein from the end of last issue, who we saw burning copies of a classified ‘Project Firestorm’ dossier. Don’t let me down, Jeff…

I’m enjoying the art hugely, De Latorre is a terrific storyteller, it’s always obvious what going on, the characters’ moods are easy to read via the subtle body language and expressions. And clever layouts evoke the feeling of fragmentation marvellously. Then there’s that splash of the Firestorm fusion – wow.

Maiolo’s colouring is brilliant, letting us know whether we’re in the real world, the metaspace or Ronnie’s memories. Lucas Gattoni is doing something similar with the narrative boxes, it’s clever stuff, and attractive. Thanks also to editors Marquis Draper, Andrew Marino and Brittany Holzherr for talent and ideas wrangling…

…but please, don’t let this mistake through again!

It’s particularly unfortunate given the great Gerry Conway has only just died.

Fury of Firestorm #2 is a well-crafted, great looking, affair. Recommended.