DCU Comic Book Reviews

FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MAN #23

A Hawk In The Nest

May 2006

Written by Stuart Moore

Pencils by Jamal Igle

Inks by Keith Champagne

Cover by Brian Stelfreeze

Synopsis

One year later…the military is conducting routine test of a new nuclear weapon with 25 times more power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima designed by LexCorp from Thangarian technology.  The bomb explodes, releasing more radiation than projected, but Firestorm is there to clean up the cloud dust from reaching Las Vegas.  Once everything settles, a strange body is found in what looks to be a coffin.  Firestorm leaves the investigation to the military and flies away to a secure area in the desert.  Firestorm separates back into Jason Rousch and Lorraine Reilly (aka Firehawk).  Jason is still reeling from the disappearance of Professor Martin Stein.  Suddenly, masked men materialize and grab Jason and throw him into a truck.  As they take him away, they attempt to finish Lorraine, but she turns into Firehawk.  In the truck, Jason tells them that since the merge, he and Lorraine can’t be more than a mile apart.  At that moment, Jason and Lorriane become unstable and an explosion rocks the desert.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

A good start, I would say.  I like the choice of Firehawk as the new person within the merge mostly due to her history with Firestorm in the first place.  She was more connected with Raymond (actually intended to be his girlfriend, if memory serves correct) so this choice kind of completes the circle.  She was an underused character for the most part with her biggest exposure recently in the mini-series Identity Crisis.  After those events, she had retired to spend more time with her dad.  Judging by this issue, I am thinking something happened to Lorraine's dad that was not good.  And there are other questions, such as who the hell is Dani?  Is Firestorm working for LexCorp?  Why is the matrix so unstable?  And what happened to Stein?  He was last seen in Infinite Crisis #5 and Jason indicates they both made it back to Earth after the war, but what happened then?  And that is the genius of this one year later leap.  Changes can be instituted that will require explanations.  these explanations can then be doled out slowly over time.

The most interesting part of this issue for me was the conversation between Lorriane and Jason right after the split for the first time.  It shows that the merge was fairly recent and they haven’t quite figured out how it is going to work.  I mean, she’s supposed to a Senator in DC and he wants to go back to New York for a date.  Hello?  That’s more than a mile!  Combined with Lorraine's statement about Jason begging for her to help him, it shows that not only is it new, but they are still trying to figure it all out.  I hope we see more of this interaction, this getting to know each other.  I also like Lorraine’s cynic attitude; I think it will help Jason as he keeps learning how to use his powers.  He seems more confident here, at least, but he is still learning.

 

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