A review by blairecee
StormWatch, Volume 2: Lightning Strikes by Warren Ellis, Jim Lee, Tom Raney

medium-paced

3.25

Feels much more together than the previous set of issues. Ellis' focus on self-contained stories and restraint in spooling out tons of plot threads (unlike e.g. Hellstorm) serves him well as he is still working out how to tell a story. But these are still pretty interesting sci-fi and politics-forward takes on what a superhero story can look like - it must have been pretty amazing for readers in the context of 90s Image superheroes. The Jenny Sparks story has some incredible writing as each decade reflects on both the comics of the time and human history of the time. Tom Raney's art chops are so much more impressive when he's imitating artists of past decades than doing his version of the Image house style. I also love that we spend an issue going out drinking with the superheroes, where Ellis revives his idea of the bar at a thermonuclear testing site that destroys people's souls and prevents heaven and hell from getting their hands on them. Some ideas are just too good to let go of, I guess.