blurred_view's Stormwatch #4 - The Dark Side, Part Four review

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    Who Will Avenge the Earth? Think Tony Stark Said He Would.

    Despite having its best issue so far, Stormwatch remains a pale imitation of what it could be and what some of these characters have been. Why that is the case is made pretty clear here. What Stormwatch is trying to be exceeds the intelligence of Paul Cornell's writing.

    That may sound harsh at first, but I'm not commenting on Cornell's own intelligence. I'm not throwing out insults. This is about his writing and how it doesn't live up to the concepts he wants to handle. This issue features a monster fight against a creature that takes on the combined powers of Adam One, Jack Hawksmoor, Jenny Quantum, the Engineer and Martian Manhunter, but it actually never even uses them and just smashes stuff instead. Midnighter, the brilliant tactician, survives this by running and flipping. Jack Hawksmoor's complex connection to cities is portrayed by him loudly declaring how he is the god of cities and speaking plainly with personifications of cities. There is just a wealth of clever ideas in this series, but it is all being written without a hint of cleverness.

    But this issue isn't terrible, giving us a decent enough big monster fight. It includes good moments for Apollo, Midnighter and the Engineer while moving the ongoing story, whatever that actually is, forward at a good pace. It does nothing that really impresses, though. There is a bit too much deus ex machina or overall plot convenience going on with Midnighter's "intuitive understanding of control systems" and the ultimate defeat of the monster. There is also a bit too much of characters standing around in the background as a few members of Stormwatch are present but inexplicably contribute little.

    The plot point this issue really pushes forward is the matter Adam One's fitness to command. Unfortunately, this is a story that is also one that just doesn't work. It's not the kind of story you can start a series with. Am I expected to be at all invested in Adam One or his place of leadership over Stormwatch? Because this is only the fourth issue, and I've been given no reason to be. It's nothing technically against Adam as a character. He seems potentially interesting. But I don't know the context of him as leader of Stormwatch. Was he ever a good leader? I haven't a clue. And if I am really pushed to care one way or another about it, it would not come down in his favor because I am a preexisting Stormwatch fan who would automatically much rather see Henry Bendix, Battalion or Jenny Sparks.

    This issue having basically the same art team as usual surprises me, because it feels like the art is an improvement on the norm. There is just something tighter and better composed about it than what I have seen in previous issues. It could be a case of Miguel Sepulveda getting more accustomed to drawing this characters.

    While I don't welcome the coming of Paul Jenkins, I am not going to miss Cornell after his final issue on this series. I enjoy his Demon Knights, but Stormwatch has not been a good fit for him. This will hopefully be the last time that he and his editors make the mistake of thinking he can be Warren Ellis.

    Other reviews for Stormwatch #4 - The Dark Side, Part Four

      Targeted here 0

      The final issue of the first arc doesn’t fix anything for this series, not does it make anything particularly worse.  There is still generally a lot going on here that doesn’t have much back story to it.  For instance the power struggle for control of the team between Adam and Engineer is well handled, but hasn’t really been built up all that well to already reach a kind of crisis point here.  The character development for the other characters is well handled as well at times, though at some poi...

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      The Eye of the Stormwatch 0

      The Good: Miguel Sepulveda is the master of drawing covers that I should not like at all, but definitely do. It's Apollo struggling to hold something up and not be dragged down. Boring? Surprisingly not. Again, he wields an interesting perspective and a great balance of elements to create a surprisingly compelling cover. Things continue the intensely climactic tone, feeling some of the most genuinely potentially catastrophic of many comics I've read lately. Things are absolutely huge, an immense...

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