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A mysterious gangland murder brings out the worst in many people in power, and Newburn #7 is here to throw the plot twists at you fast and furious. When a
Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Review, Vault | Tagged: blue flame, Christopher Cantwell, comic book reviews
Blue Flame #2 Review: Divided Focus
With a kind of unusual divided focus, this story is either building to a really big confluence of events, or it's following the last Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt book in driving directly off of a literary bridge. Taking place in two wildly disparate locations, two versions of Sam Brausam battle for their lives in very different ways.
On the one hand, the cosmic hero The Blue Flame has soared through space to find a habitable world that's part of the Consensus, an interstellar confederation of worlds that treat the first contact as a chance for evaluation and, sometimes, destruction. That's a sweeping philosophical story with big questions about humanity as a whole.
On the other hand, HVAC repairman Sam Brausam is known by night as the vigilante The Blue Flame, and he's part of a low rent vigilante group called the Night Brigade operating out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They were all victims of a mass shooting at an auto show, and his sister finds out his secret identity right after discovering her new pregnancy with her boyfriend.
Are these separate stories? Are they happening in parallel? Is it the same Sam Brausam? The script from Christopher Cantwell doesn't say one way or another. Both stories are very urgent and even visceral in their presentation of the stakes, but to be honest, each narrative takes some of the "oomph" from the other. The visuals presented by Adam Gotham, Kurt Michael Russell, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou are crisp and interesting, giving the alien worlds one Blue Flame travels a kind of Steve Rude vibe while giving Milwaukee, Wisconsin the kind of worn realism of a Terry Moore.
At this stage, and even rereading the first issue, it's hard to get a bead on what this is, exactly. Even with the last page's surprise, it's still a head-scratcher that might validate its choices in a collected edition or might not stand up. At this point of the tale, it's more a question of curiosity than certainty, but there's definitely something going on here. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.
Blue Flame #2
By Christopher Cantwell, Adam Gorham, Kurt Michael Russell
The Blue Flame digs deeper into the Tribunal Consensus as he weighs the decision of defending all of humanity before them… but wait, shooting victim Sam Brausam is in a coma in Milwaukee, and his estranged sister doesn't know if he'll wake up.
Blue Flame #2
7/10
Either a down to earth tale of a home brewed vigilante or a cosmic tale of grave and galactic importance … or something else? It’s hard to say.
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