Fireborn #5 // Review
Julian is asking Aaron what happened to his face. Aaron is reluctant to answer. Afterall...he’s asking him about his face in the middle of class. Aaron might be trying to keep it quiet, but the teacher notices. And so both of them are sent down to the principals office. He would think that would pretty much put an end into it. But Julian still wants to know in Fireborn #5. The writing team of Frankln Jonas and Curt Pires continues a contemporary action fantasy story with artist Patrick Mulholldand. Some of the personality really starts to emerge around the edges of and otherwise tropey coming-of-age fantasy adventure series.
Julian is asking about Aaron’s face. And yeah: there’s a black eye and a couple of bandaids, but what Julian’s really asking about is something deeper. They're best friends, but they barely see each other anymore. He's been really distant lately. And so naturally, Julian's going to be a little bit concerned about that. Aaron’s not really in a position to talk about it, though. It’s complicated. For anyone else this may be a question of self-destructive behavior or domestic violence. Considering Aaron has magical powers, it’s a bit more complicated for him...
Pires and Jonas find a very distinctive voice for the coming-of-age superhero. It's not easy to do considering the fact that it's been covered pretty extensively from a variety of different angles in a whole bunch of different settings. Nevertheless, Aaron really feels like a distinctive character, who is actually acting quite a lot like somebody who is very young and inexperienced with his powers. This isn't really easy to do. All too often the hero is only making minor mistakes on the way to success. Pires and Jonas do a strikingly good job of delivering something distinctively new.
The action hits the page with significant power. Drama between the action might not have the same kind of intensity. It might lack a whole lot of nuance. But to their credit, the art team doesn't try to overextend itself by exaggerating drama of Aaron’s a personal life outside of a fantastic battle. There is actually quite a lot of drama in his personal life. But the art is delivering it to the page in the various straightforward manner. And that's pretty impressive given how over the top of the aggressive action can be.
The coming-of-age superhero drama lends itself really well to a long-running series. So rarely is it the case that a protagonist in this sort of thing is allowed to actually grow up into the role. And given the start that this particular hero has had it seems entirely possible that he could have a nice, long, gradual coming of age that would see him gradually, reaching a point of prominence. And it would be really cool. However, the action going on in the periphery sort of suggests that things are going to be moving rather violently in different directions. So it's possible that things could quicken up quite a bit. Which would be kind of a disappointment.
