Customer Reviews

StormWatch, Vol. 1: Force of Nature

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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.

That's what StormWatch is. Didn't begin that way, however. Before Warren Ellis began his run on this title, it was exactly an Image book: X-Men ripoff superheroes spewing unbelievably bad dialogue while fighting cliched villains. Need proof? Take StormWatch's grim, bald Weatherman/Commander-in-Chief Henry Bendix, put him in a wheelchair and sit him next to the X-Men's grim, bald leader Charles Xavier. Need I say more?

It's here, however, that Ellis begins his assault on the superhero status quo. Most folk picking up the four StormWatch collections will be doing so because of the strength of its new, cult-favorite spin-off, The Authority, which acts to redefine superhero comics on a monthly basis. In Force of Nature, with the additions of the scenery-chewing Jenny Sparks, "The Spirit of the 20th Century", and Jack Hawksmoor, "The God of the Cities", Ellis makes a move away from the standard heroes with stupid codenames, who wear, as Ms. Sparks puts it, "those damnfool spandex body-condom things" --- to reluctant (and incidentally, well-dressed) men and women who do what they do because they want to change the world. This volume is, in essence, the first step in changing StormWatch, an ineffectual "band-aid on a cancer" as Weatherman puts it, into a fighting force for a better tomorrow. Into The Authority, bluntly.

Ellis' three main drawing points are his mad ideas, his utterly cool dialogue and the epic scope of his stories. These are all present here, but not to the extent that they are in The Authority. The six individual issues collected herein are each a stand-alone story instead of one or two massive, multi-part storylines, and that's one of the minor complaints I have with this, and the second StormWatch volumes. When I read a TPB, I expect a full, large and complete story, not a handful of several 24-page mini-stories. You can, however, do a lot worse than reading Warren Ellis' stand-alone comic stories, and each tale does have an element or a theme that leads onto the next one, so it's not as jarring as single-part story collections often are.

The first story deals with Weatherman recruiting new members into StormWatch, and eliminating old ones. He divides the team into three parts: StormWatch Prime, Red and Black; the latter of which contains Jenny Sparks, Hawksmoor and Shen Li-Min currently of Authority fame. In their first battle, SW Prime does battle with one of the most original super-villains in quite a while. Chapter two has Fahrenheit, Hawksmoor and Hellstrike (the team's requisite amusing Irishman) tracking down the murderers of an ex-StormWatch member, only to stumble across a far-reaching conspiracy directly concerning the team. Chapter three sees Black battling a team of super-powered racist police officers (don't let Giuliani see these... he'll get ideas). Chapter Four deals with a passenger jet downed by a terrorist missle, in a story that sows the seeds of a future Authority arc. In Chapter Five, we get to see a day in the life of StormWatch recruitment officer Christine Trelaine. Finally, Chapter Six is a look at the kind of widescreen, double-splash-page action that we'll come to expect from The Authority, as Tokyo is destroyed by genetically-engineered super-children, whose creator has a personal tie to StormWatch officer Fuji.

This realistic take on a United Nations-sponsored hero team is a great, fun ride, with sinister overtones of twisted politics, grey morality and dangerous ideologies. These are real-world superheroes, and Ellis portrays them as such, succeeding in the nigh-impossible task of taking an assortment of bland Image characters and turning them into dedicated soldiers and flawed, fascinating people. Tom Raney's art is wonderful (though he seems to conserve his best work for the covers), a combination of the energy and detailing of StormWatch creator Jim Lee and the pacing and figure styles of manga-influenced artists like Humberto Ramos. Also helping Raney out on the penciling chores are Pete Woods (of Deadpool fame) whose humorously-slanted art works wonders in "Black", especially Jenny Sparks' witty dispatching of a hormonal hotel clerk; and Michael Ryan, an Image veteran.

If you're a fan of Authority (and if you're not, order the first collection, Authority: Relentless NOW), read this book. Force of Nature, along with the other volumes of Warren Ellis' StormWatch run, provide great stories, art and insight into beloved characters, even if it isn't up to the standards Ellis would set for himself later.

In the past, Stormwatch was rarely a hot book, or one that many people read except perhaps for the creator's families. With Forces of Nature, Ellis and Raney set out to change that. In so doing, they sewed the seeds of what would later become the Authority.

The Good: For a whole new concept, it's not the worst intro book out there. You get an idea of who the new characters are and where this overall long term plot might be going.

The Bad: The art is not Raney's best, not by any means. Also, since so many new characters are being established, the previous characters do not get a chance to shine, which is fine for long time fans of Stormwatch. However, if this is your first Stormwatch book, you might be left with the 'who are those guys?' feeling.

The Indifferent: The plot is at times intriguing and at times infuriating in equal parts. I think it's because Ellis was completely changing the direction of the book. It's very hard to cram new characters, old characters, new villains and old villains all into one book and still have it come off as brilliant.

All in all, if you love Ellis or Authority, you'll probably want this book in your collection. However, if you've never heard of either one, you might want to barrow this and check it out before you make the investment.

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.

I did not come to this stories when they came out, so the paperback has given me the option to read them without the pain of ordering back issues. Warren Ellis is quickly becoming a figure of the size of Miller, Gaiman and Moore. For those who like superheroes who really face important problems and not just the "save the universe (again) scheme" this is for you.

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.

There's no doubt that Warren Ellis' work on Stormwatch was groundbreaking, but not much of that can be glimpsed in these first issues of the Ellis run. While these stories do much to vitalize the previously lifeless Stormwatch series, they're only decent in comparison to what comes later. The writing is decent, the characterization is mostly bland, and the art is often confusing (too many characters look like one another, especially Jenny and Christine). All of this was a drastic improvement over what had been done with Stormwatch previously, but it's not Ellis quality.

From a continuity perspective, none of these issues are essential for understanding later Stormwatch and Authority stories. The first story in this collection features a lot of dramatic changes for Stormwatch, but all of these changes are explained clearly in later volumes. These early stories do provide some background for Jenny's hostility toward Henry Bendix, but that may not be reason enough to pick up this volume.

All in all, these aren't bad stories. It won't hurt you to give them a read, but I would personally begin in a more exciting place, probably with the "Change or Die" volume.

Henry Bendix does some manipulation of the UN via Stormwatch Black. Stormwatch has to deal with Kaizen Gamorra and his crazies.

Stormwatch Prime has problems in Japan with a nihilistic group, with a tripartite psionic being at its heart. Fuji uses a bit of literature to help.

Christine is in the field, in power activator mode.

I really did not like this as much as I thought I would. I really liked the Authority and thought this would be good as a back staory and it really was not. The story was all over the place and you did not get a good sence of the characters. Oh well