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Classic Fury of Firestorm #3, Trinity War #6, & Aquaman #23 Reviews – FIRE & WATER #64

Continuing THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST coverage of the classic Fury of Firestorm series from 1982! We’ve received an incredibly positive response so far and we’re loving these comics! 

Firestorm and Aquaman: The Fire and Water Podcast

The 64th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is now available for your listening pleasure! THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is the official podcast of FIRESTORM FAN and THE AQUAMAN SHRINE.

This episode Rob and Shag cover the final chapter of “Death of a King” in Aquaman #23 by Geoff Johns, Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, and Rod Reis. Next, the guys take a few moments to discuss Justice League #23, the concluding installment of “The Trinity War” (a segment in which Shag loses his mind for a moment). Finally, they tackle The Fury of Firestorm #3 (Aug 1982) by Gerry Conway, Pat Broderick, Rodin Rodriguez, and Gene D’Angelo. Killer Frost makes the scene and there’ll be a cold time in the old town tonight!

You can find the 64th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST on iTunes. While you’re there, please drop us a review on the iTunes page. Every comment helps! Alternatively, you may download the podcast by right-clicking here, choosing “Save Target/Link As”, and selecting a location on your computer to save the file (36 MB).

As always, thanks to my co-host Rob Kelly, Sea King of THE AQUAMAN SHRINE, for doing all the post-production on these episodes! Opening theme, “That Time is Now,” by Michael Kohler. Special thanks to Daniel Adams and Ashton Burge with their band The Bad Mamma Jammas for our fantastic original closing theme! This episode brought to you in part by InStockTrades.com!

Have a question or comment? Send us an e-mail at firewaterpodcast@comcast.net. Check our Tumblr for relevant images from “The Trinity War” conclusion: fireandwaterpodcast.tumblr.com.

Check out the covers to Fury of Firestorm #3 and Aquaman #23 below!

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man vol II #3 cover by Pat Broderick and Dick Giordano! Interior story and art by Gerry Conway, Pat Broderick and Rodin Rodriguez! Click the image to enlarge.

Fury of Firestorm #3 cover by Pat Broderick and Dick Giordano

Aquaman #23 by Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, and Rod Reis! Click the cover to enlarge!

Aquaman #23 cover by Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, and Rod Reis

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5 Comments

  1. SPOILERS FOR JUSTICE LEAGUE #23:

    You’re right, Shag, the new Crime Syndicate Deathstorm doesn’t sound anything like the ’90s-extreme-kewl Deathstorm from BLACKEST NIGHT and BRIGHTEST DAY. In fact, to me, he doesn’t sound like a teenager. I think this parallel universe take on Firestorm is more Professor Stein than Ronnie or Jason. What do you think of that?

  2. Anj says:

    Rob’s talk of ‘mountain comics’ as being his time of joy resonated with me. Because my joy is a group of comics (really a time period of comics) that I call ‘beach comics’.

    In the late-70s, the salad days of my youth, we used to spend summers in a cottage near the beach. There was little to no TV signal there so time was spent either reading or hanging out. I was an early reader and there was a convenience store within walking distance and so people used to get me comics all the time. But more than that, my family used to go to yard sales and flea markets all the time. I used to pick up comics by the bundle for pennies back then. And, at yard sales, the books were more from the early/mid 70s.

    As a result, that time period for DC is sort of my sweet spot – Cockrum/Grell era Legion in particular. But also Superman, Batman, Brave and Bold, etc. I find myself thumbing through those issues at conventions these days.

    I would say another time of joy would be early 80s, back when I started buying books monthly as opposed to randomly buying whatever cover struck me. Firestorm was one of my first books like that and I remember these ‘Fury of…’ books vividly. For me, the upcoming Hyena storyline is the one that stuck with me the most.

  3. Siskoid says:

    Like Shag, I really enjoyed the Peter David run, so that’s another reason not to be reading the Trinity War stuff. Also: It’s always a waste when characters are killed off like that. This one before he could even be involved in a story. Lame. I would support a retro-ep on Pirate Aquaman (lots of good memories of that run), and if you don’t care too much about the issue number synchronization, why not do FoF4 with that retro-Aquaman piece?

    The frozen city will always remind me of the first episode of Challenge of the Super-Friends (i.e. the Legion of Doom season), which starts with Captain Cold icing the entire Earth in a matter of minutes. The cities look just like that. I believe the solution was for Green Lantern to push the Earth closer to the sun or something. I can’t believe we survived that.

    Appropriate punishment for 1981? I wouldn’t call it APPROPRIATE, but as a child of the 70s, I can certainly attest to some corporeal punishment going on there. Ronnie is older than I am (I would have been 10 in ’81) so I can definitely believe his dad used such discipline if he started raising him in the late 60s. A slap is actually pretty soft, all things considered. It’s made more violent by Mr. Raymond’s expression. But if my dad, a liberal-minded doctor, thought it appropriate to use wooden spoons on our tushies and rubber straps on our hands back in the early 70s (until his second, younger wife put a stop to it when they had a child), yes, I think this is an accurate (though again, not appropriate) representation. It’s good drama, and a great spin on the Spider-Man archetype. Raymond is no Uncle Ben.

  4. Kyle Benning says:

    Great episode guys! Thanks for the brief Trinity War recap, it’s good to know I didn’t miss anything amazing by skipping out on it.

    I think I’m starting to miss the listener feedback as an every episode type thing.

    As for the discipline, I think the current style of (non) discplining children isn’t working. Every time I go to a restaurant to eat, my dining expereince is interrupted by some mouthy brat screaming at their parents. I can’t help but think that if they’re ass was getting smacked at home every once in a while, they wouldn’t carry on like that in public, and would show their parents and the people around them a little respect. I was on the receiving end of many spankings as a child, and I deserved everyone of them. Looking back at some of the people I went to high school with who had less discipline at home compared to me, and where they ended up at this point in their life, let’s just say I’m grateful my parents disciplined me when I was “crusin for a bruisin” (as my mom liked to put it) and gave me a spanking I deserved when misbehaving. In the end I think it definitely had a positive impact on how I turned out. I also ate a lot of soap over the years.

    That being said, I think Mr. Raymond’s slap may have been a little out of line. I mean honestly what kind of guy slaps another guy? A man slapping another man is only appropriate if it’s followed up by a duel to the death with pistols.

  5. Benton Grey says:

    Well gents, after two more very enjoyable episodes, I thought I’d leave you a few notes. First, Shag, the term you were looking for in the previous episode to describe the convenient plot device that wrapped everything up in the B&B Firestorm issue was “deus ex machina.” That is literally “the god from the machine,” and refers to a too-convenient event or mechanism in a plot that resolves the action without appropriate conflict or cost. It originated with Greek theater, wherein many plots would be resolved by the arrival of the gods on stage, lowered down or raised up by machinery. The hero is trapped with no way out? No problem, here comes Zeus out of the rafters, and he makes everything okay. It’s a hallmark of lazy and/or bad writing.

    I enjoyed the episode reminiscing about the B&B issues. That was fun, and I certainly encourage y’all to do it again if you like. I haven’t read those stories, but it seems like the Aquaman one would be one of the best of those bizarre Haney tales.

    As for this current episode, once again I had to skip the review of Aquaman as I wait interminably for my books, but I listened with interest to the JLA recap, as I have already given up on that book. Once again DC has utterly lost me as a customer, save Aquaman, which hold on only because of my love for the character.

    On the subject of PAD’s Aquaman, I have to say that I’m much more in Rob’s camp, as my comments may have indicated. Wishing a brutal and grizzly death on the avatar of that era likely makes my feelings a bit too subtle to be easily read, though, I’ll admit. My feelings about that book are similar to my thoughts on the Death of a Prince. Whatever merits the stories may have, they are of a fevered strength, ultimately destructive to the character and his persona. The art and writing in the PAD tales is of an equal quality, execrable in its painfully 90s tones. The writing is juvenile and the characters flat, and not in an endearing or at least encouraging manner, as the Bronze Age manages at its weaker moments, but repugnant. The single note of Aquaman and his supporting cast is discordant and shrill.

    I, of course, am indulging in hyperbole, and the run did certainly raise Aquaman’s profile, but I maintain that, in the end, it was a net loss for the Sea King. In the final analysis I dislike that run, not so much for its own worth, or lack thereof, but for its impact on the character in the larger scope of things. The specter of the obnoxious aquatic rage-aholoic of PAD’s tenure would continue to haunt Aquaman for decades, and only now has he begun to really escape it. I say let Geoff Johns dance upon the corpse of that run all he likes. He can do it no graver disservice than the stories themselves did to their subject.

    Kyle, I love your statement about slaps and duels to the death. Ha, very nice.

    In terms of the appropriateness of Mr. Raymond’s action, I don’t think slapping a child was ever according to Hoyle. One of the keys to corporal punishment is that it be divorced from emotion. Whipping a child with a belt or the like out of anger is a recipe for abuse. Physically striking a child out of anger is just straight-up terrible. My parents disciplined me, but it was always really clear why and it was done as a necessity, not an emotional reaction, which, upon reflection, seems important.

    Shag, Shag, Shag…really? “Symbology”? Come on man! Symbolism! There is no such thing as “symbology.” Observe:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG_OezlTZ1A

    I really like these classic Firestorm reviews. I am definitely going to pick these books up one of these days. This issue in particular sounded really good, other than the incongruity of Killer Frost magically freezing all of New York. I hate things like that. At least give me a line of dialog explaining why this character can do something that seems so beyond their established abilities!

    In fact, all of the DC goodness of this podcast is making me more and more antsy to pick up my DC mod. When I do, I’m definitely going to have to create a Firestorm campaign, or at least an Aquaman/Firestorm team-up series. Obviously I’ll need Killer Frost in there somewhere, but let me ask you a question, Shag. If you could tell a 3-5 “issue” classic Firestorm story, what would it look like? I’ve got extensive notes for most of the characters I’m going to tell stories about, but I don’t have anything ready for Firestorm, and I’d rather like to pick your brain.

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