Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: If, on a summer’s day, a traveler…..
Written by: Micah Ian Wright
Penciled by: Whilce Portacio
Inked by: Sal Regal
Colored by: Jeromy Cox
Lettered by: Comicraft’s Rick and James
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Publisher: Eye of the Storm/Wildstorm/DC Comics
Quick synopsis: Stormwatch takes on a failed writer who has warped his small Kansas town into the locations of his various short stories while having to deal with obnoxious US Security Forces who want to know about the location of a Muslim Terrorist that the United States Government secretly recruited to destroy the Stormwatch team.
Good: Nice story that introduces a new character to the team (Doctor Grunier, the hostage negotiator who’s not above breaking a person’s neck to end a crisis), and features some good moments involving Blake Coleman (the token black guy on the Stormwatch team.) There’s also some nice, classic political satire in the form of a pair of obnoxious United States Civil Defense Administration agents who are more concerned about blaming the whole crisis on terrorists, after they send armed troops into the town to eliminate the writer and anyone in their way, rather than resolving the crisis peacefully.
Bad: The “reality gets turned into fiction†segments of the story are rather pedestrian given the potential that this plot device has. Granted this could be intentional given the plot point of the main villain being a horrific writer, but still it is a wasted opportunity for some good satirical literary moments.
Ugly: No Ben Santini. An issue of Stormwatch without Santini is like a winter without snow. Santini is one of the few lovable bastards in comics who hasn’t been retired (like Spider Jerusalem) or killed off (like U-Go Girl) and his nonappearance in this issue is a crime….
