Fireborn #5
Writer: Curt Pires, Franklin Jonas
Artist: Patrick Mulholland, Brian Andane
Colorist: Mark Dale
Cover Artist: Patrick Mulholland
Publisher: Image Comics
The misunderstanding fight. A time-honored tradition in comic books.
In Fireborn #5, our hero Aaron gets to experience this for himself.
En Media Res
We start off with Aaron and his friend Julian getting sent to the principal’s office. To be honest, if my friend’s face looked like Aaron’s does here, I’d probably blurt out “what the eff happened to your face?!?” too.
(Note: he didn’t actually say “eff.")
Aaron flashes back to the huge fight he just had with “Frosted Tips,” whose name I never caught and I’m guessing is the lead of Lost Fantasy? The white-haired stranger with a huge sword thinks Aaron is a villain, and pulls out all the stops to, well, stop him.
Elsewhere, Aaron’s POS dad is apparently back, which is making his mom hit the bottle even harder. Yeah, starting to understand why Aaron’s got such an “edgelord” attitude…
Edgelord or Just Edgy?
Let me get this out of the way.
I have not read Lost Fantasy, and I just bought the first trade paperback of Fireborn. So I’m probably going to get some names and details wrong here.
That said, I’m really impressed with how easy this issue was to get into without any real background on the characters or the world. So kudos to the creative team for that.
This issue is largely a big fight, but there’s still some good characterization in there. Aaron seems like a genuinely decent kid who’s been dealt a really bad hand, family-wise, which has not done his attitude any favors. Add a dragon to the mix, and you get a potent brew. But he does seem to try to do the right thing.
It seems like “the right thing” involves a lot of big manga-inspired fighting, with all that entails. Crazy powers, speed lines galore, and tons of property damage—all the hallmarks of Shonen manga are here. It just so happens that I’m a big Shonen fan, so this was right up my alley.
As for Aaron’s home life, I was able to glean enough information to know it’s rough. His mom seems like she’s always buried in a bottle. And his dad must be some sort of “business person” who doesn’t do things on the up-and-up, given the talk of indictments here. Dad seems like the kind of guy who is going to figure out the whole Fireborn thing and try to use it to his advantage.
Actually, I have to admit, when there was the shadowy figure talking about studying Fireborn at the end of the issue, and they unveiled the Gundam-esque mecha suit, I really expected Dad to be the person standing there. So kudos to the creative team for not going in the completely obvious direction there (yet, at least. I still think it’s going to happen.
Shonen Jump Style
Fireborn has two writers and two artists, at least for this issue. I'm not clear on how the duties are divided, so I'm just going to speak about each group as a whole.
Writers are Curt Pires and Franklin Jonas, and they tell a well-paced and compelling tale. Even though I lack much background with the title, I was able to get a feel for Aaron and his struggles right away. "Frosted Tips" fares a little less well, but maybe I just need to check out Lost Fantasy—I think the first trade paperback is cheap. For an issue that is largely a big action sequence, it's never boring, and there's still enough dialogue to move the plot along.
On the art side, we have Patrick Mulholland and Brian Andane. Their work is very anime- or manga-inspired, which fits with the type of big, bombastic fights that seem to be the hallmark of this title. Plenty of crazy powers and wanton destruction to marvel at. The smaller, more personal moments are well rendered too, with plenty of emotion in the characters' faces and movements. And I give them a lot of credit for actually making Aaron's face look really messed up—there's no Victor Von Doom "oh my goodness, a single scratch, I must hide my face forever!" here. This kid looks like he went through the wringer.
Mark Dale gets to go nuts on the colors, with all kinds of crazy powers and explosions, and it's pretty awesome to see. Again, the smaller personal moments are well put together as well, but the massive action with power effects flying all over the place is the big draw here. He certainly understood the assignment here.
The First Taste
Fireborn #5 gives us a huge action sequence, interspersed with some more personal character-driven moments. Even without any real background in the series, I was able to get a feel for Aaron and his world pretty easily, and I rather liked what I saw. I might even check out Lost Fantasy to get more of a feel for how the two titles are connected. This may have been my first taste of Fireborn, but it won't be my last.