Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Stormwatch: Force of Nature by Warren Ellis, Tom Raney, Randy Elliott ISBN: 0-613-33971-1 Publisher: Bt Bound Pub. Date: October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.55 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Entertaining but lacking.
Comment: I've heard a lot about Warren Ellis' "The Authority." I've been wanting to read it for a while, but I decided to pick up his Stormwatch work, as I know that is preceded Ellis' newer series. I this up the other day and read through it fairly quickly. If it is anything, it is slick and entertaining. I really love the art, cuz I'm a sucker for that slick superhero jazz. The characters and their powers are unique and interesting, to say the least. It is also clear that Ellis had a very definite plan for where to take this series. What it is lacking is a certain depth of storyline. Each issue is a completely self-contained story, which is fine, but they feel a bit rushed. They all probably could have been better served over a 2-issue story arc. Still, the characters are intriguing, as are the ideas of doing good at all costs and the ends justifying the means, two common themes with which the stories flirt. While I've read a lot of reviews bashing the pre-Ellis Stormwatch material, it would probably be helpful to get a bit of a summary of what went on before, just to acquaint yourself with the particulars of the characters and the world which they inhabit. Still, an altogether entertaining, if light, collection. I look forward to reading more Stormwatch, end eventually getting right into the thick of the Authority.
Rating: 4
Summary: Warren Ellis is making me buy comic books!
Comment: In the beginning, StormWatch was a monthly series from the WildStorm imprint of Image Comics - a creator-owned company all the flash & dazzle comics illustrators formed in the early Nineties. In the beginning, StormWatch was a blatant copy of The X-Men created by one of the most famous artists associated with the X-Men, Jim Lee. In the beginning, StormWatch was written and illustrated by Jim Lee. In the beginning, StormWatch sucked. A lot. For three years.
Then Jim Lee called Warren Ellis and said something to the effect of, "Please help me. I'll let you write it any way you want as long as it's good and people will buy it." Ellis probably replied something to the effect of, "That's such a stupid idea I'll do it just to surprise people. But watch out, I'm going to write it the way I want."
StormWatch: Force Of Nature collects the first six issues of Ellis's eye-opening run on the series. Picking up right after a member of the team turned traitor and almost got everyone else killed before being taken out himself, Ellis decides that this is a great chance for a new beginning. The group's leader, after finding out that StormWatch's charter as a U.N. sanctioned and supported emergency security force has become a decidedly more sinister arrangement, decides that if they are going to set up to fail, they might as well suspend all the "rules" of superheroic engagement and do some lasting good on the way down. "A band-aid on a cancer" is what he calls their previous efforts, and sets out to do something about it.
Ellis proceeds to throw out half of StormWatch's cliched superheroes in favor of three decidedly unusual characters of his own creation: Rose Tattoo, a speechless psychotic with superhuman weapons accuracy; Jenny Sparks, the alcoholic "Spirit of the Twentieth Century"; and Jack Hawksmoor, a multiple-abductee whose body has been genetically re-engineered by aliens as the perfect urban organism. Not your father's superheroes.
Ellis takes this book and these characters and places them in moral dilemmas out of one's worst nightmares and gives consequences to their actions. The results are ugly, ethically disturbing and riveting to read.
Tom Raney's art, while in keeping with Jim Lee's established visual style, is simply unsuited and unable to keep up with the whirlwind of intelligence, cynicism, and psychological subtlety that Ellis's scripts require. That's okay though, because you can almost see Ellis carrying the book on the writing alone -- and succeeding.
And this is only the beginning. Force Of Nature is more than StormWatch 2.0; it's the prologue to The Authority Ellis's truly ground-breaking evolution of the superhero team. This collection feels like the first act of a gripping performance.
It's the sort of thing that gives you faith in comics again.
Rating: 4
Summary: It's dark...It's ugly...And oh it's so good
Comment: I had never heard of Stormwatch before but I had heard of Warren Ellis that was enough for me to buy this book...It was also it seemed enough for me to love it. Ellis's take on the world of Stormwatch is not the touchy-feely world that is often associated with comic books. It is set in the dark near-future with the Stormwatch team carrying out international police actions under the authority of the UN. The writing is great clearly up to Ellis's standards but it is the characters themselves that make Stormwatch so memorible. Jenny Sparkes and Jack Hawksmooor were my favorites. It's an original work and as the first of four collections definitely worth reading.
 |
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 |
 |
Title: Authority, The: Under New Management by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563897563 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
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 |
 |
Title: Authority, The: Relentless by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563896613 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
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 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
