You know the song by now, right? "I like the writing, but the artwork is pretty bad." Not so much this month, as Wright's take on the characters of Stormwatch seems a bit over-the-top, a little too goofy and violent, and it overcomes the military realism that his expertise could bring to the book. That, combined with a take on The Authority that doesn't really fit what we've seen with them in order to pit them against the new Stormwatch team and the afore-mentioned bad artwork, made this a disappointing issue for me. There are still some interesting elements of the story, and I like these characters, but the second story arc of Stormwatch: Team Achilles is off to a weak start for me.
In trying to make his characters badass tough guys, Wright is turning them instead into cartoons. The problem is that Wright is trying to combine a more realistic take on super-heroes and their interaction with military forces with the same sort of over-the-top comedic approach that Ellis took with The Authority, and the two approaches are completely at odds with each other, giving the book an uneven tone. One of the lead characters cuts the ear off of a new recruit for mouthing off, and nobody blinks an eye? Including the guy who got his ear off, who doesn't run screaming out the door but instead joins right up with these lunatics? That was about where the story lost me.
It's also really tough to look at these characters as the protagonists, even though we're clearly meant to. The impression is that everything they do is OK, because they're sanctioned by the United Nations, and even though they're operating in much the same crowd-pleasing manner as The Authority, they're better than The Authority because of this sanction. Wright also bends over backwards trying to paint The Authority as the bad guys, and while it would have been easy enough to show some of the ramifications of their actions, instead he goes for an illogical take on them to put them at odds with the Stormwatch team. Given that The Authority crossed borders and ignored laws to take out people who were committing offenses, why on Earth would they protect a terrorist? Even if it is a matter of disliking Stormwatch, why would they refuse to kill him themselves if they knew about him? Answer: They wouldn't, and so the setup for the big Authority/Stormwatch conflict falls flat.
Mind you, it's not all bad news. The story of the gen-active bomber is a chilling one, an interesting application of super-powers in a terrorist world. And the characters, for all their over-the-top macho BS, are pretty interesting, particularly the borderline psychotic Hamalainen. Wright's dialogue is also a lot of fun, even though it makes several of his characters, including new telepath Avi and Field Leader Blake Coleman, look like complete idiots.
Unfortunately, though, combining a weaker-than-usual story with artwork that just isn't my cup of tea makes for an issue of Stormwatch that just doesn't hold my interest. It's becoming clear that I'm just looking for a different kind of book than the one Wright is writing, but also it seems that he needs to decide whether this is an over-the-top super-hero book along the lines of The Authority or a military fiction book, because the two tones are not working well together.
