Freedom Fighters #8DC has announced a wave of cancellations in the near future, and Freedom Fighters is among them. This, in fact, is the penultimate issue. The vast majority of this story is a major fight between the Jester, patriotic villain, and Uncle Sam, symbol of the nation. They clash on both the physical and rhetorical levels, arguing as they battle, about the country, the direction it should take, and how to get there. The Jester, but likely no one else, is absolutely stunned when Sam wins. There’s a brief funeral for Firebrand, who does, in fact, actually seem to be dead.
As an aside, let’s review that name’s history in DC for a moment. Firebrand I was Rod Reily, wounded at Pearl Harbor in his civilian guise, and then later killed by the villain Silver Monkey. Firebrand II, his sister Danette, got powers in what became the All Star Squadron’s first case, was a member of that group, and later killed off panel by the Dragon King. The third was Alex Sanchez, who was a cyborg who briefly had his own title, and was killed in Roulette’s super powered arena. And now Firebrand the Fourth, Andre Twist, killed in action by the evil grandson of a World War II hero. Personally, I’d not take that name were I to embark on a heroic career in the DCU, but that’s me.
Because the funeral wasn’t depressing enough, the villains from the super prison earlier in this arc are shown escaping the wreckage of the place that held them, swearing vengeance on the Freedom Fighters. Joke’s on them, as the President holds a meeting with Miss America and Uncle Sam and announces he’s disbanding the team due to budget cuts, so there IS no more Freedom Fighters for them to go after.
One of my ongoing issues with this book has been the team’s utter lack of clear-cut victories. That happens again here. They beat the Jester, in the process burying one of their own and getting essentially fired by the President. I think this is one of the reasons the book may have failed- the heroes keep almost winning and not quite losing, but that’s about as good as it got. That, and every single foe they fought had either some weird political agenda or ties to some government project/secret. You can only do that so many times before it gets old.
I like the idea of the Freedom Fighters, and I’ve really enjoyed some of Palmiotti and Gray’s past work- I think they were amazing on the first year of Power Girl. But something here never quite jelled for me, and since it’s being cancelled, I am guessing I’m not the only one. Next month will be an interesting challenge for them to try and wrap up the “we’ve been fired” aftermath with the escaped super-cons as well.
What I liked and what I didn’t:
Ok, this will sound odd, but I give them credit for Firebrand staying dead. I was half expecting some last minute really weird resurrection. They didn’t do that, and I give them points for that. The funeral scene was well done, and they included characters who haven’t been in the book so far, like Red Bee II, which made for a nice sense of history.
On the other hand, as I said, they can’t win for losing. They beat a non-powered villain with a few magic trinkets, who apparently staged all this to try and kill Uncle Sam and take his place, and lose Firebrand in the process. They suffer through the funeral, and then get fired. My, how uplifting. Nice to see Sam back, but his new look is a bit odd, especially the Sgt. Pepper wrist-bands on the sleeves of his jacket.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATINGProsConsleaving Andre dead, beating Jesterwe won, we’re fired, with more major problems on the horizon Rating70% You might also like...
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Freedom Fighters #3 ReviewBy BlogsdnaTagged with: Freedom Fighters Jimmy Palmiotti Uncle SamLeave a ReplyClick here to cancel replyYour name (Required)
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This post was added on 6 Apr 2011, 15:09 by Wayland who has contributed 282 posts to this blog.
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