The last time I reviewed an issue of The Call of Duty: The Brotherhood, it was my pick for the best book of the week. Things have certainly changed in three months. Though Austen includes some ideas here that are clever and boast a lot of storytelling potential, they just don't seem to fit with the intended down-to-earth quality of the book. Austen has transformed the story into one of science fiction, and it takes away from the everyday-heroes focus of the title.
It turns out that the little girl that's been appearing to a select few police officers, firefighters and paramedics in New York has been a ghost from the past, but has carried messages from the future. She's the daughter of a desperate man who's trying to manipulate forces beyond his control, and those manipulations are making for some dangerous pitfalls for James MacDonald and his fellow firefighters... as if fire-engulfed zombie drug addicts weren't enough to contend with.
Fortunately, Finch's artwork is as strong here as it was when this limited series began. There's a strong Kevin Nowlan riff in his artwork in this issue, and it looks great. The backgrounds in the 2003 scenes are a bit sparse, but the details come alive in those scenes set in the present. And hey... those fiery zombies walking the halls of the Knox Building? Finch and Thibert, along with Avalon Studios, make the menace and energy come to life.
While those flaming addicts are a visually impressive sight, they stretch the reader's suspension of disbelief to its limit and beyond. Austen offers up an explanation as to why a drug dealer would arrange for something so weird, but it just doesn't add up. Furthermore, the criss-crossing of plotlines from one limited series to another -- The Precinct and The Wagon elements turn up here -- continues to be a problem with the book's accessibility.
Ultimately, though, the reason this issue disappointed me was that what was intended as the real focus of this series -- to pay tribute to and look at the lives of real-life heroes like firefighters -- is lost. If we're to look at real-life heroes, the conflict has to be a real-life one, not a sci-fi, fire zombie parade.
