There is a rumor going around that Gail Simone has left The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men. I certainly hope this isn’t true. The first issue got off to a great start and I’d hate to see this creative team broken up.
If the rumor of Gail’s departure is true, I’m sad to see her leave the book. I really enjoyed the first issue and her script was fantastic! Additionally, I appreciate all the support she’s given the FIRESTORM FAN site. The support from Gail, Ethan Van Sciver, and Yildiray Cinar has been one of the highlights of running this site.
I’m not typically one for spreading rumors or re-posting others content, but I’m doing both in this case in order to get information out to you match-heads as quickly as possible. I felt this was big enough Firestorm-related news to share in this fashion. Below is the news story as run on Bleeding Cool.
The hottest rumour burning down the pre-NYCC parties is that Gail Simone, co-writer of DC Relaunch title Fury Of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men with Ethan Van Sciver, has walked off the comic.
The reason being given by the Manhattan tittle tattlers is over editorial conflicts over the book, the kind of thing alluded to here.
This only applies to Firestorm however, this is not the case with the bestselling DC relaunch comic Batgirl, also written by Simone. But for many, Simone is not just a good writer, but seen as fighting the case for female creators and characters at the company. If indeed she has left the series over the reasons suggested, that won’t play well for DC this week. Expect it to be a topic of converation at the DC party, certainly.
Because it seems that Simone did have plans for Firestorm, if this panel from today’s Batgirl #2 is any indication…
Professor Stein… is alive?
Neither Gail nor Ethan returned emails. DC Comics declined to comment.
There you go. You know as much as I do. Let’s continue to hope this rumor is false. If the rumor turns out to be true, I wish Gail success in all future projects. I picked up Batgirl #1 and #2 today. Great comics! I highly recommend them for all match-heads… heck, I’ll recommend Batgirl for everyone! It’s that good!
Oh yeah, that “Professor Steins Alive” teaser from Batgirl #2 is AWESOME!
Support Firestorm (and Gail Simone)! Fan the flame!
if its true ill be pissed, book needs a strong writer attached to it. and after all the talk about it being great back and forth with evs about ideas…then to walk off. id loose alot of trust in what she says
@Brandon – If the rumor is true, I’m going to assume she had good reason for leaving the book. Based upon her interviews and social media comments, I believe she was genuinely excited for this book. If the rumor is true, something really bad must have happened for her to leave the series.
Shag
@shag I’m sure there is a good reason, I just dont want to see this book fail…ive had such high hopes for it. It would just seem odd to go from full on excited and then be off it like that. but then again the new 52 has had its share of road bumps i was just hoping firestorm would avoid them.
@Brandon – I definitely agree that I want this book to succeed. Losing Gail could jeopardize sales, especially from the Gail die-hard fans.
Shag
@shag yea having her name attached was really a big push on dc’s part…if she is gone, i dont even no who i would want to take over as lead writer…everyone at dc seems pretty tied up and i dont want it thrown to the closest available writer
On Monday her and Ethan had a fairly heated exchange going for a long time on his Facebook page. I obviously have no idea what their working relationship is like, but after reading them going back and forth at each other, I would not be surprised if they stopped working together.
What’s that Brian Clevinger guy up to? Offer the book to him, he seemed to have a pretty interesting take on it.
@rhett16 do you think he would still take it? i dunno id be happy with it but if dc pulled the rug out from under my feet like that id be a little mad still
The main thing I’m taking from this is that now I have to buy a copy of Batgirl #2 lol 😉
@jon glass half full kinda guy i see!
I see it as good news..
That creative team was divided and the book’d ultimately suffer for it in the long run, but glad Stein is still kickin’..
A.
I have no idea what Clevinger is doing right now, but if he is available and they thought enough of him to offer him the book one time I don’t see why they wouldn’t do it again. Or see if that Geoff Johns guy is available, he doesn’t seem to be doing much right now.
Getting back to Simone for a moment, one thing about her that did concern me a little before the Firestorm book even came out was when she said something to the effect of she had turned it down a few times until Ethan convinced her to do it. Honestly, I would have preferred a writer on the book who really wanted to be doing the character and didn’t have to have their arm twisted to write it.
All that being said, I still hope this rumor is untrue.
Well, the Bleeding Cool story has removed the question mark from the “Gail Simone Quits Firestorm” headline, so I am afraid this is looking more like truth and less like a rumor. Given the fact that she drops the big Martin Stein reference in this weeks’ Batgirl issue, she obviously had plans for Firestorm so whatever caused her to quit had to have happened pretty recently.
On the bright side, if there is one, is that Stein may end up being alive.
Have a link to the Facebook conversation, out of curiosity? Hope Simone leaving isn’t true. If she did leave, and Van Sciver did stay on, do you think Firestorm would be the same, or is your sense that Simone is the driving force?
I can’t link the conversation directly, but if you are a Facebook friend of Ethan Van Sciver, go to his wall posts from Monday. He makes a post at 6:17 pm that begins with the line “Hunter got in trouble again at school….” There are 200 comments or so, and in there you see the back and forth between Ethan, his wife and Gail.
I’m not judging who is right/wrong, but it’s out there on Facebook for all to see.
Oops, the post was made around 3:00 pm that day, not 6:17, sorry.
(He makes a lot of posts and I was looking at the wrong timestamp)
Ethan posts on Facebook like a madman, and Gail tweets constantly and so far today both of them are completely ignoring any questions about this situation. If it were not true, I would expect at least one of them to post a denial. If it’s true and they are still on good terms with each other and Gail left strictly because of some issue not involving Ethan I would have expected him to post something along the lines of “Best of luck to Gail on future endeavors…..etc”, and/or Gail to post something like “I will miss working with Ethan, but I have decided to focus on other projects….etc”. In this case I have the feeling silence speaks volumes.
just heard this… groan…
Looks like Firestorm, version #10, might be coming soon–that is if the book continues..
Sigh..
My gut tells me that it’s true.
Honestly, while Gail is a great writer, my concern that this is bad news has less to do with her or her writing, but that it is yet another sign that the folks pulling the strings over at DC have botched this re-launch in perhaps every possible way.
The ONE good thing about a Firestorm relaunch was that it gave us the chance to not have Stein dead (still bitter about that part of Brightest Day). Even if this WAS a different Stein….
But if Gail’s gone, all bets are off. Even if HER intention was to have Stein alive, whoever steps in can just ignore that, and Stein might never be mentioned again (let alone show up “dead after all”).
Last night Ethan posted a little note on his Facebook page saying “Me and Gail: We fight, then we get over it.” That was all. A few people asked if that meant she was still on Firestorm, but he never replied.
So, take that for what it is worth.
Looks like Gail is still writing Firestorm right now! Hooray!
http://firestormfan.com/2011/10/22/gails-still-on-firestorm/