DC Vs. Vampires #7 - DC Comics

DC VS. VAMPIRES No. 7, September 2022

Quite considerably ramping up the scale of the vampires’ invasion of Earth to a truly global level, this beginning to the mini-series’ “nightmarish second arc” certainly seems to do a cracking job in depicting just how horrifically all-powerful the blood drinkers’ empire has become since the treacherous murder of the Dark Knight. Indeed, the opening double splash-page to Issue Seven of “DC Vs. Vampires” provides a picture of the terrifying fate awaiting any remaining pockets of humanity which speaks more than a thousand eloquently chosen words. 

Enjoyably however, this sense of grandeur doesn’t deter James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg from still focusing upon the individual inhabitants of their deadly alternative world, and making their audience suddenly care for the likes of Adam Strange, Negative Man and Peacemaker. These ‘B-Listers’ have clearly taken up the fight in the name of mankind, and almost immediately capture the sympathetic support of the reader as they desperately attempt to escort an emaciated Kara to a safe haven whilst all the time fending off the ghoulish incarnations of some of the DC Universe’s heaviest hitters; “Yes. I have always thought you were the most boring member of the Justice League.” 

Furthermore, the shocking and systematic demise of Mister Bones’ band of brave do-gooders to an utterly arrogant Wonder Woman is not only as debatably chilling as comic book violence can possibly get, but also helps quickly establish the deadly, ruthless nature of those heroes infected by vampirism. Establishing such a despicable malevolence really is crucial to this publication’s final third, when it becomes evident that even the highly experienced Green Arrow has been significantly shaken to his core by the sights he has seen and is resultantly angrily at odds with some of his fellow super-heroes when they suggest “travelling halfway around the world, cross the ocean” to Australia to clear the ash clouds dominating the sky.

Adding an incredible amount of realistic fatigue to this comic’s considerably sized cast are Otto Schmidt’s pencils, which really do help promote the utter exhaustion felt by the few mortal survivors of the new Vampire King’s reign. Likewise, the Siberian illustrator does a stellar job in portraying this book’s more action-orientated moments and brings a genuine pathos to the plight of Robert Todd when the skull-headed protagonist sadly slips into lifelessness alongside Jayna after the Wonder Twin seemingly rescued him from an overconfident Firestorm.

The regular cover art of "DC VS. VAMPIRES" #7 by Guillem March

Firestorm #5 - DC Comics

FIRESTORM No. 5, October/November 1978

Unknowingly headed for sudden cancellation along with “more than two dozen [other] ongoing and planned series by the American comics publisher DC Comics in 1978”, Issue Five of “Firestorm”, packed full of unanswered plot-threads, is most assuredly not the ‘swansong’ edition co-creators Gerry Conway and Allen Milgrom would have wanted. True, the twenty-five page periodical does make good use of its publisher’s then-recent change in its marketing campaign, by populating its additional content with depictions of Ronnie Raymond battling either the Hyena or Multiplex. But these extra “super-thrills” actually prove a little monotonous after a while, especially when the reasoning behind the hero’s elongated fisticuffs are as unsatisfactory as him simply not appreciating his “atomic restructuring powers are useless” when fighting at close quarters with the Scavenger of Crime, or that Professor Martin Stein has just had one alcoholic beverage too many; “Hey! Something’s weird! I feel woozy -- off-balance!”

To make matters worse, these action-packed confrontations, dynamically sketched by the book’s Detroit-born penciller, are persistently interrupted by all-manner of seemingly haphazard interludes which just so happen to involve almost the entirety of the comic’s supporting cast. Whether it be Bradley High’s principal just ‘happening’ to look outside his office window and recognising “Spit Shine, son of New York’s most notorious mob overlord”, or Danton Black coincidentally emerging from his coma at the downtown Medical Centre just as “the ever-popular school smart-mouth” Cliff Carmichael deduces that Firestorm’s secret identity is somebody at his college, Conway’s narrative is almost awash with contrivingly staged flukes and disconcerting happenstances.

Sadly, the script to “Again: Multiplex” is also plagued with some incredibly bizarre, head-scratchingly odd character motivation. Just why Firestorm doesn’t simply keep his distance from Hyena and “zap” the villain with a nuclear blast whilst well out of reach is never explained, despite the youth’s realisation that just “one small caress” from their vibro-claws” and he’ll “be dog food!” Whilst Spit’s unbelievably reckless decision to bring the “refugee from a Wolfman movie” back to his parents’ criminal headquarters in a midtown office building so he’d “have something to show my mom and dad”, was clearly engineered just so the Hyena could subsequently leap through the address’ large glass window and become “a dwindling shape soon lost in the city’s sprawling shadows.”

Writer/Creator: Gerry Conway, and Penciller/Co-creator: Allen Milgrom

Firestorm #4 - DC Comics

FIRESTORM No. 4, August/September 1978

Considering the action-packed Al Milgrom cover depicting both this comic’s titular character and the Manhattan Island Police force bravely battling the Hyena, Gerry Conway’s script for Issue Four of “Firestorm” probably came as something of a disappointment to the audience of “DC’s newest creation”. Indeed, with the exception of Ronnie Raymond’s fused form quickly besting a gang of viciously armed Artic seal hunters, and then later momentarily incarcerating some warehouse robbers, this seventeen-page periodical actually predominantly focuses upon the rather depressingly dreary ‘home life’ of the unpopular Bradley High School pupil and Professor Martin Stein’s determined efforts to discover what happens to him when his memory black-outs occur.

Admittedly, the “vicious ‘crime-fighter’ who attacks criminals and lawmen alike” does make something of a memorably dynamic first appearance by savaging both the villainous Shine Family and the officers who subsequently attend the doomed Travel Agents’ heist. But this fiercely sadistic episode only lasts a handful of pages, and is swiftly replaced by a disconcertingly bizarre father-son argument which leaves a tearful teenager sobbing uncontrollably in bed; “Every time I turn around, I’ve done something to disappoint you. I just wish, once, we could be happy… Just once… I’d like to make you smile…”

Sadly, even Firestorm’s aforementioned encounters arguably must have failed to do little more than place a bemused smile upon the lips of this title’s “Hoo-boy” readers. For whilst Conway’s co-creation undeniably faces controversial gun-wielding fur stalkers and loot-laden raiders, “The Nuclear Man” overcomes his opposition by either converting their firearms into plastic fish, thus placing the men at the mercy of the ribbon-slashing bull seals, or by imprisoning them in an absurd giant wax pumpkin, complete with readily detachable lid. Little wonder Raymond is chastised by the Nobel Prize winning physicist for such inappropriate usages of his “atomic restructuring powers.”   

Just as inconsistent as the Brooklyn-born writer’s narrative, is Allen Milgrom and Jack Abel’s combined breakdowns. Ronnie’s cataclysmic confrontations are sketched well enough, with the comic’s Prince Charles Island-based opening and its panicking pups proving especially well-pencilled. Yet the same cannot be said for the were-hyena’s bloodthirsty attack upon “Spit” Shine and Manhattan’s finest, whose scratchy-looking panels lack much of the enthrallingly energic detail depicted elsewhere within the book’s interior illustrations.

Writer/Creator: Gerry Conway, and Artists: Allen Milgrom & Jack Abel

Firestorm #3 - DC Comics

FIRESTORM No. 3, June 1978

Featuring the origin of the Nuclear Man’s long-running adversary Killer Frost, Issue Three of “Firestorm” somewhat disconcertingly begins by depicting its titular character aggressively harassing “worm” Clifford Carmichael simply because of all the problems the bespectacled “smart mouth” has caused the atomic-powered teenager’s alter-ego at High School. Such unheroic behaviour, exacerbated by Ronnie Raymond’s selfish disregard for Professor Stein’s urgent appointment at Long Island Military Airbase, initially makes it hard to like Gerry Conway’s co-creation, or appreciate the supposed “sense of fun” with which the Brooklyn-born writer was apparently trying to inject into this title after “his years [of frustration] writing Spider-Man” for “Marvel Comics Group”.

Mercifully though, once the “Nobel Prize winning physicist” arrives at project Mohole One in the Artic after a “ten hour trip”, this seventeen-page periodical’s narrative finally starts to settle down and seriously tell the somewhat tragic tale of Doctor Crystal Frost; one of Stein’s former students from Hudson University who has fallen in love with her professor after mistakenly misinterpreting his motives as him “secretly” adoring her. Admittedly the woman’s ‘psychotic’ passion for her Engineering Physics lecturer does appear to be somewhat unconvincingly contrived, especially considering the age difference between the two scientists, as well as the fact that “the Ice Maiden” has supposedly harboured her intense feelings for such a prolonged period of time. But even these manufactured motivations are as nothing compared to her transformation into the villainous cold manipulator, courtesy of the scholar inadvertently trapping herself inside a 'Thermofrost Unit' for two hours simply because no-one thought to build an emergency release for its self-locking door...

Killer Frost’s creation does however seem to help stimulate Conway’s storyline and what follows is arguably one of the Edgar Allan Poe Award-nominee’s better scripts concerning a ‘comic book conflict’ during his ten-year tenure exclusively writing for “DC Comics”. Indeed Firestorm’s battle with Martin’s “scorned lover” depicts a genuinely classic Bronze Age confrontation as the dual identity super-hero soon realises he won’t beat his icy adversary just by ‘zapping her’ with his “heat blasts”, and must instead outwit the chilly murderess into once again becoming imprisoned within the project’s super-large freezer; “This leads us to one conclusion, Ronald! Killer Frost needs warmth -- She thrives on it, lives for it! Without it -- she should be helpless!”

“Kiss Not The Lips Of Killer Frost” additionally proves to be a rather enticing read as a result of Al Milgrom’s efficiently detailed pencilling, and dynamically charged action shots. It is also nice to see the Michigan-born artist giving both Professor Stein and his “dormant persona” plenty of ‘screen time’ within his breakdowns as opposed to them predominantly focussing upon the Nuclear Man’s younger, more athletic persona.

Creator/Writer: Gerry Conway, and Co-Creater/Artist: Al Milgrom

Firestorm #2 - DC Comics

FIRESTORM No. 2, April 1978

Despite depicting “Firestorm’s fearsome first foray against the fission-formed fiend” Multiplex, this seventeen-page periodical sadly smacks of being little more than a “notorious” Bronze Age marketing ploy by “DC Comics” to draw more attention to its latest super-hero by having the publisher’s incredibly successful Man of Steel superficially appear both within the book’s disenchanting narrative and on its colourful, though incredibly misleading, jacket illustration. Indeed Al Milgrom’s front cover sketch of a beaten titular protagonist pleading to an unmoving Superman for assistance is a typical example of “the classic ‘page-turner’ covers that were popular during the Seventies” which clearly depicted characters “displaying behaviour that runs counter to the accepted norm.”

This outrageous gimmickry is especially disappointing as it acutely interferes with Gerry Conway’s presumably serious attempt to create Ronnie Raymond’s very own Moriarty in the guise of Danton Black; a crook Professor Stein has previously sacked for dishonesty who plans on using his own exposure to a nuclear blast and subsequent duplication powers, in order to become “a pair of second-rate safecrackers.” Though considering the creative team’s choice in outlandishly corny costume for the cape-wearing former Hudson Nuclear Power Plant assistant, the impact upon the newsstand pursuing public by “the duplicate villain” was probably doomed from the very start.

Regardless of such fundamental design flaws concerning “Firestorm’s first super-powered enemy” however, it is clear that the presence of Clark Kent’s alter-ego detrimentally detracts from a narrative which genuinely shows some promise as the Nuclear Man initially prevents an old man from being beaten to death by loan sharks and then makes it evident that both Raymond and Stein are” tied together, even when we’re not Firestorm --” The impact of such an intriguing notion, and one which the Bradley High School student subsequently builds upon by demonstrating his ability to fuse with his mentor “even when we’re miles apart --”, is sadly completely lost just as soon as Superman appears in the guise of a Metropolis WGBS-TV broadcaster, decides “to keep on top of these things” despite the “new self-styled crimefighter” “possibly [being]… none of my business” and promptly causes a “star-struck teenybopper” to completely forget about battling his deadly adversary”; “Er, much as I’d like to chat-- haven’t you forgotten something?”

Such a noticeable decline in this comic’s penmanship is unhappily replicated in Al Milgrom’s artwork, with the Detroit-born illustrator’s dynamic, extremely well-rendered breakdowns of the Nuclear Man battling Multiplex suddenly transforming into a series of almost amateurishly sketched cartoon-like panels once Kal-El becomes involved and the titular character simply ‘hangs around with his tongue out.” In addition there is something strangely unsettling about the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award-winner's pencilling of an ever-smiling Man of Steel...

Creator/Writer: Gerry Conway, and Co-Creater/Artist: Al Milgrom

Firestorm #1 - DC Comics

FIRESTORM No. 1, March 1978

Indisputably “a dynamic debut” and an “explosive first issue”, “Make Way For Firestorm!” is also a very good example of “DC Comics” Seventies formula for introducing new super-heroes into the publishing company’s ever-expanding Bronze Age universe. For whilst the eighteen-page periodical begins with a bang as the Nuclear Man ably demonstrates his stupefying ability “to rearrange the atomic and subatomic structure of inorganic matter” by flying straight through “ten feet of concrete” in order to surprise a group of protesters planning on blowing up “the spanking new Brooks Nuclear Power Plant!”. Its narrative soon travels back in time to “twelve hours before” in order to provide its audience with a fairly “traditional” origin story.

Indeed momentarily Gerry Conway’s ‘time-honoured telling’ of an oppressed high school student being transformed into “a kid who can switch his atomic structure at will” following an explosion which “under different circumstances” would have killed him, actually looks set to be uncomfortably similar to a Steve Ditko wall-crawling co-creation, who as a teenager had “to deal with the normal struggles of adolescence in addition to those of a costumed crime-fighter.” Fortunately however, the Brooklyn-born writer soon introduces a somewhat fresh ingredient into the customary mix by having the titular character, athletically handsome Ronald Raymond, actually being the one bullied at school… and by the educational institute’s bespectacled “resident super-genius” Cliff Carmichael no less.

This rather intriguing spin on the usual ‘brawn verses brains’ battle provides the very cornerstone upon which Firestorm’s bizarre creation is built, and even though it additionally leads to one of the comic’s more cringingly corny sequences when the athlete foolishly attempts to answer his teacher’s questions in class before the “retarded oyster” can and promptly gets told off for rudely shouting, it still offers a plausible explanation as to why Ronnie makes such recklessly ill-conceived decisions; “I know how to prove to Doreen I’m not a dumb jock!”

Equally as absorbing is the American author’s decision to quite literally couple, both physically and mentally, this comic’s main protagonist with the “Nobel Prize winning physicist” Martin Stein. Capable of ‘reading’ and fully understanding the atomic structure of his surroundings “just by glancing” at them. Yet still immature enough to create “the duds to match” the “powers of some crazy kind of super-hero”. Conway’s Nuclear Man promises plenty of potential for absorbing future dual-personality plots and development as the pair’s consciousness’s converse with one another in order to successfully complete their mission.

Sadly Al Milgrom’s artwork for this opening instalment of “Firestorm” is something of a let-down during the more sedentary stages of the storyline. There’s no doubt that the former “West Coast Avengers” penciller can draw dynamic energy-charged action sequences. In fact this comic’s wonderfully vibrant cover art attests to that fact. But disappointingly, there does also seem to be a noticeable drop in quality by the Comic Buyers Fan Award-winner whenever the script calls for him to illustrate some of the more mundane dialogue-heavy panels, such as when Raymond spends part of his evening talking on the phone.

Created and Written By: Gerry Conway, and Co-Created By: Al Milgrom