Falling Apart In the Fallout
The Fury of Firestorm covers have been EXTREMELY hit and miss. The first issue had a fantastic one, but the second issue had an utterly HORRENDOUS one. 3 and 4 had great ones, but 5's was kinda bad. But this issue has the best cover yet. Both main Firestorms, as small as can be, in the empty crater. It really captures the hollow sorrow of the moment this issue begins in, and then adds an extra layer of eeriness with the secondary craters mimicking the Firestorm symbol. And finally, the extra text actually for once enhances the cover. This cover almost feels like the cover to a trade the way the word Consequences is so boldly displayed.
And oh boy are there consequences. Superhero guilt over failure can get a bit cliche at times, especially if its over exaggerated. But Ronnie's crushing blow of depression is perfectly handled. He was the one who far more idealistically believed in Zither, truly believed that he was doing things good. Being a hero. And he wasn't super arrogant about it, he was caught up in the moment of being a hero, but he was genuinely heroic. And this idealism has literally blown up in his face. The moment where he realizes he's breathing the ashes of two thousand dead people is a powerful blow. And in this moment of tragedy, these two opposites come to a point of closeness like never before, kneeling down together to pray, neither of them really knowing why or how.
And then Pozhar steps in, connecting threads of the world wide Firestorm web of conspiracy, and severing the closest connection our heroes have had yet. The fallout from last issue began to bring things to a harmony, and its the fallout from Pozhar's arrival that breaks the ties. Pozhar shows us just how little Jason and Ronnie are in the grander scale of things, and he shows us a softer side of himself, leaving us unsure exactly how villainous Pozhar is; he's actually quite possibly a hero. This uncertainty mixes with the shock of his power, causes a schism that surprisingly leaves the more hesitant Jason to end up staying with the Zither he so vehemently opposed. The constant questioning of morality keeps this series constantly unexpected, with characters changing up their decisions based on the wide range of worldly experience they're rapidly gaining.
And again, the artwork is so much better than the first four issues. There's actually a sense of coherence instead of surrealism.
In Conclusion: 4.5/5
I'm still not ready to go all the way to the top with this series. But once the art cleared up, it's been much easier to appreciate the intense depth to the morality quandaries and conflicts in this series. The Firestorm world has been completely reinvented, and its wide scope leaves vast possibilities to be tapped into. And it's already tapped so many.
