{"id":6179,"date":"2011-02-08T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T06:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=6179"},"modified":"2011-02-12T23:28:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T23:28:28","slug":"stormwatch-lightning-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2011\/02\/08\/stormwatch-lightning-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormwatch: Lightning Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Warren Ellis<\/strong>, Tom Raney,<\/strong> Jim Lee<\/strong> & various (DC\/WildStorm)
\nISBN: 978-1-84023-617-0<\/p>\n

StormWatch was a paramilitary Special Crisis Intervention unit tasked with managing global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications; operating under the oversight of a UN committee. From their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Skywatch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d satellite in geosynchronous orbit above Earth they observed, waiting until a member nation called for help\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The multinational taskforce comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Weatherman\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

StormWatch was born during the comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major \u00e2\u20ac\u0153work-for-hire\u00e2\u20ac\u009d publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles, it started with an honest hectic enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.<\/p>\n

Warren Ellis took over the ponderous feature with issue #37 (see the previous collection StormWatch: Force of Nature<\/a><\/strong>) and immediately began beating life into the title. Soon \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just another high-priced team-book\u00e2\u20ac\u009d became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch<\/strong> out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

StormWatch: Lightning Strikes<\/strong> collects issues #43-47 of the comicbook, taking short, hard looks at individual cast members and also features a spectacular gallery of covers and variant-covers by Tom Raney & Randy Elliot, Mark Irwin, Gil Kane and Jim Lee.<\/p>\n

The incisive explorations begin with ‘Jack Hawksmoor’<\/em>, a human subjected to decades of surgical manipulation by aliens to become the avatar of cities. Drawn to the scene of a serial killer’s grotesque excesses Jack uncovers a festering government cover-up which reaches deep into the soul of America’s most revered idols and threatens to rip the country apart if exposed.<\/p>\n

But the apparently untouchable murderer will never cease his slaughter-campaign unless someone stops him\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Jenny Sparks’<\/em> follows the cynical Englishwoman whose electrical powers were an expression of her metaphysical status as incarnate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spirit of the Twentieth Century\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: a captivating pastiche of fantasy through the last hundred years as the jaded hero recounts her life story (see also Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority<\/a><\/strong>) in a dazzling series of pastiches referencing Siegel & Shuster, Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare<\/strong>, Kirby, Crumb and the horrors of Thatcherite Britain in a gripping tale of betrayal, whilst the terse thriller ‘Battalion’<\/em> sees StormWatch’s normally non-operational, behind-the-scenes trainer fall into a supremacist terror-plot whilst on leave in Alabama and forced to call on skills and abilities he never thought he’d need again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Rose Tattoo’<\/em> was a mute and mysterious sexy super psycho-killer recruited by Bendix as a walking ultimate sanction. When her super-powered team-mates go on a hilarious alcoholic bonding exercise she finally shows her true nature in a tale which foreshadows an upcoming crisis for the entire team\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and planet.<\/p>\n

Following Raney & Randy Elliot’s sterling run of the previous four tales Jim Lee & Richard Bennett illustrate the concluding ‘Assembly’<\/em> as Bendix sends his core-team into the very pits of Hell in a bombastic action-packed shocker that acts as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153jumping-on point\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for new readers and a reminder of what StormWatch is and does\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 preparatory to Ellis kicking the props out from under the readership in the next volume\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

One again skilfully mixing the traditional with the outrageous these episodes offered a fresh take on the costumed catastrophe genre that energised once-jaded readers and paved the way for the graphic phenomenon of the Authority<\/strong>. Darkly anarchic, funny and frightening these tales celebrate the best of what has gone before whilst kicking in the doors to a bleaker more compelling tomorrow.<\/p>\n