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‘The Weatherman #5:’ Advance Comic Book Review

Characters in The Weatherman do things that your ten-year-old self thought would be badass, and they somehow survive. Pulling off feats of unnatural, physical prowess, these non-superheroes are fearless and inspire awe and a sense of extreme danger in the reader.

The short of it: Earth was destroyed by terrorists – boom, gone. Billions dead. Now, Amanda Cross is tracking down someone whom she believes to be the person behind it: Nathan Bright, a famous weatherman on Mars who erased his memories of the event. The problem is that others are looking for Nathan, too. Some very dangerous others who would like to use what Nathan knows to commit more acts of terror.

Jody LeHeup doesn’t let any one situation settle for long before violently shaking the characters around. The story is constantly shifting, keeping both Amanda and Nathan on their toes. What started out as a sort of potential buddy story veers back and forth wildly. After a few issues, you start to see the pattern in the chaos that LeHeup uses to create the cliffhangers which slingshot you from one issue to the next, and the characters from bad to worse to how the hell are they getting out of this!? These beats tend to undermine the current trajectory of whatever is happening and whatever the goals of the character, putting them up against something either more dangerous or completely unknown. I’m reminded of the first couple of seasons of Game of Thrones; it was all about characters trying to get places, but halfway to wherever they were going, they would ricochet in another direction entirely with a completely new goal. It’s incredibly good storytelling.

Nathan Fox captures that slingshot velocity in his images, as these characters sometimes quite literally go hurtling through space. I’m reminded of the momentum of a lot of Cowboy Bebop. These characters never have a second to rest. The stakes are just too great, and the bad guys too committed to being really good at what they do. In this issue, we see a twisted reality show host and his deadly henchmen step up to try and stop Cross from getting to Nathan. The character designs for these bad guys are so much fun, and Dave Stewart’s colors keeps things candy colored so they never look like your traditional villains.

This is a ride worth taking.

Again worth mentioning (and this is a trend that I hope continues), the creators have teamed up with Magic Sword to bring to life an original soundtrack of electronica music. You can listen while you read; it’s pretty awesome!

Creative Team: Jody LeHeup (story), Nathan Fox (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), Steve Wands (letters), Sebastian Girner (editor), Tom Muller (Designer)
Publisher: Image Comics
Click here to purchase.

Phillip Kelly, Fanbase Press Contributor

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