The sci-fi genre needs new ideas; by that I mean sci-fi ideas that reach the mainstream because the same water downed plots continue to be used over and over and frankly it’s dull. You have to look to novels and novels alone if you want to get a new idea and that’s just sad since the genre is primed for every form of entertainment. Brainstorm has some new ideas, at least to me, and that made this an interesting story to read. It opens with a F5 tornado in Purcell, Oklahoma. A team of two, wearing the suits you see on the cover, head out towards the tornado while everyone else is of course running to shelter and preparing for a beast of a tornado. Their car separates and a saucer looking car pops out and begins moving super-fast towards the tornado, when it reaches they release nanites and we go to a control room in which they activate them. A neural network is established and they announce that they have control of the tornado; they then quickly command the tornado to tear itself apart and it does.
The world is pretty mystified because this secret government project isn’t public so they’re left scratching their head wondering how in the world a F5 tornado just suddenly disappeared.
We meet the scientist behind the project and he’s a pompous ass that doesn’t trust the government which may be why he’s kicked off the project. He’s a big brain with no tact and so his ego and the General’s ego instantly butt-heads.
I like the idea of the story, where it goes from here is interesting for sure. I don’t like the main character, well I guess main characters. I presume that the scientist and the General (who looks like Idris Elba) are the main characters, but neither one of them is likeable. The General is power-hungry and wants to prove he doesn’t need the scientist, while the scientist is a social douche bag and really just an asshole to everyone. Later he heads home and even treats his family like shit which made me hope that he wouldn’t be a part of the story any longer… somehow I doubt that will actually happen.
The story is interesting for sure and most of the dialogue was spot on. The two drivers of the saucer where entertaining and had the “cowboy” attitude it would require for someone to drive to the base of a F5 tornado. The weather man’s dialogue was very believable and there seemed to be a lot of accurate technical terms which was nice. Usually if you see a weatherman in a comic you just skip the dialogue because it ends up being something dumb or cheesy, but that didn’t happen here.
The art was good, but sometime the faces where inconsistent. The aforementioned weather man has a page in which he appears in four panels and he looks different in all four of them. The good thing though is that the small details like the ones on his clothing and the background are very consistent. Overall it’s a good-looking book and the nature scenes are very realistic looking.
There’s room to improve on this series, but this first issue makes a strong debut. With it being a mini-series I’m curious to see where it goes and if you like sci-fi stories with a mix of military involvement then you’ll want to check this one out too.
Score: 3/5
Writers: Jeffrey Morris & Ira Livingston IV Artist: Dennis Calero Publisher: FutureDude Publishing Price: $3.99 Release Date: 8/27/14 Format: Mini-Series, Digital