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Classic Fury of Firestorm #5 Review & Aquaman #25 – FIRE & WATER #71

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 71st 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 Geoff Johns’ final issue of Aquaman #25, by Geoff Johns, Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, and Rod Reis. They follow the Pied Piper into The Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Man #5 (Oct. 1982) by Gerry Conway, Pat Broderick, Rodin Rodriguez, and Gene D’Angelo.

You can find the 71st 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 (23 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? Looking for more great content?

Check out the covers to Fury of Firestorm #5 and Aquaman #25 below!

The Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Man vol II #5 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 The Nuclear Man #5 cover by Pat Broderick and Dick Giordano

Aquaman #25 cover by Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons! Click the image to enlarge.

Aquaman #25 cover by Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons

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7 Comments

  1. Siskoid says:

    “Daylek” is why Fire and Water isn’t the place for Doctor Who discussion. 😉

    Flipped through Aquaman, mostly because I plan on reading Parker’s run and wanted to see where Johns left things, and I was happy to see Aquaman and Mera back together (as a royal couple of not) and happy, when it kind of looked like it was going the other way. I wonder if it’s an ask from Parker and part of the transition. Had the new writer wanted Mera out, the sequence could have easily gone the other way. Anyway, glad it didn’t. Hopefully the cover is a mislead. But like I said, this was a flip-through, no idea how the storyline actually resolved, because I don’t understand the storyline. F&W has been my only real insight into the book’s events.

    Cat lovers take note! The Reillys have a cat, featured in an extended sequence, despite the fact that Shag and Rob won’t mention it. They obviously have a Dog Agenda.

  2. Kyle Benning says:

    It has to be a little bittersweet for you Rob with issue #25, it’s definitely the end of an era since Johns has written virtually ever Aquaman story or appearance since he first returned in Brightest Day. But I’m sure you’re excited to see what Jeff Parker brings to the table for the King of Atlantis.

    Fury of Firestorm #5 is a great one, and one of my all-time favorites of the series. I feel like I say that after each one of these classic issues is reviewed, but they’re all so good! I love how they tied the Pied Piper to the Pipes of Pan from classic Greek Mythology, and I dig how they continue to tie in the Reilly family as we get closer and closer to Lorraine becoming Firehawk. (Sorry for the 30 years in the making spoiler, but you already covered it in Who’s Who anyway) Speaking of the Firestorm and Lorraine dynamic, definitely strange since Firestorm is two people, I can’t help but hear the phrase “I just like to watch,” when I think I think about Stein’s role haha.

    “The Pied Piper is one of the weaker villains in the DC Universe,”-Yeah I think that pretty much applies to most of the Flash Villains. Outside of Rogues like Captain Cold and Mirror Master, I think most of them are pretty silly and weak. They really reflect the era they were spawned in. DC Silver Age is full of silly and weak villains. The Trickster, Pied Piper, and Captain Boomerang are goof balls. They’re fun, I enjoy them, but you can’t expect Flash villains to be too tough. Think about it, he runs at super speed but doesn’t have any invulerability powers or an armored suit (until New 52). That means if he’s not paying attention while he’s running at super speed, everything in the air, including bugs, would become as deadly as bullets. If he doesn’t notice them in time to vibrate his molecules to allow the obstacle to pass through, he’d die everytime he went for a super speed stroll. So his villains can’t be too deadly, or he’d be killed off more than Thor. Sorry Flash fans, I love the character, but when he is using his power he makes himself extremely vulnerable. He’s one character that I think benefitted from the updated armored costume in the New 52 redesign.

    It’s a fun issue, with some gorgeous Broderick art. I can’t say enough about this series. HOW HAS THIS SERIES NOT BEEN COLLECTED YET?!?!?!?!?!?!

    Great episode again fellers, the Fire & Water Podcast is the best cure for the Monday doldrums at work! Fan the Flame and Ride the Wave!

  3. Frank says:

    So let’s see… I’ve downloaded and installed a new firewall/antivirus… I reviewed every major iteration of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 for a blog… Finally posted a link to the Martian Manhunter-centric episode of the Just One of the Guys podcast… Finished mocking CSBG’s Top 100 Comic Book Storylines on Twitter, with added Fright Night 2: The New Blood live tweet hate… Since bell tower jokes aren’t funny or comfortable or remotely contemporary anymore, I guess the next thing on my checklist is commenting on the latest Fire & Water! Yay!

    1) Busiek & Guice’s Sword of Atlantis was an underheated can of frijoles that tried to capitalize on the modest success of Busiek’s Conan relaunch at Dark Horse. It made me drop the book until they left, while the fun weirdness of Williams/McManus brought and kept me back for their brief cancellation run. I get that Rob wanted to hock an Aquaman trade for the sponsors, but I’ll pimp one Sword over the other any time they come up.

    2) I’ve had a copy of that JLA/JSA graphic novel ever since it came out in softcover, and have yet to read it. Keep meaning to cover it at Thanksgiving for the blog, and failed six years running. Looks nifty, though.

    3) Well, we’ve got a hot Israeli model cast as Wonder Woman for the big budget quasi-sequel Man I Wish Superman Was Interesting Enough To Carry His Own Damn Picture. Catching Fire is a really good movie with an Academy Award nominated actress lead that’s made $580M in 12 days to Man of Steel $662M across 14 weeks, but let’s squeeze an unknown into third lead at best/minor love interest at worst for the Amazing Amazon’s feature debut and let’s have critics tell us we’re lucky to get that. Hope that Aquaman feature works out, dude!

    4) Congratulations again for shooting Salty into a canon!

    5) On the subject of Firestorm “borrowing” Pied Piper, I must say that because of my g-g-generation, the Trickster will always be a Blue Devil villain first and a third tier Flash rogue a distant second. No one else gets to claim Bolt, though! Hands off!

    6) For “swipe file,” I used to recall the term “photo morgue.” Was that just me? Regardless, I still have a small glued together reference book that I rarely used back when I had the delusion I could draw with the remotest semblance of competency.

    7) The funny thing about early attempts to connect Flash and Firestorm via publishing proximity is how completely they fell apart and were forgotten.

    8) It occurred to my while listening to this podcast how much healthier both characters would have been if in 1987 Cary Bates had joined a returning Pat Broderick on Firestorm while John Ostrander and Joe Brozowski/Tom Mandrake crafted the Post-Crisis Captain Atom revival. After Legends, Ronnie could have gotten conned into becoming a government stooge and struggled to get out of acting as a spy in the JLI while starting a love/hate relationship with Plastique. Meanwhile, Captain Atom would have been the nuclear/fire elemental Dr. Manhattan wannabe with heavy late Cold War elements as Ostrander spent three years playing the poor man’s Alan Moore. I’m not wrong, am I?

    9) If Warner Brothers would throw all their confusing, disparate Super Friends series onto discs in a big Breaking Bad style complete series barrel, I’d happily buy that.

    10) AICN’s Quint takes his name from the Jaws character. He just might be a Nuclear Sub, for all you know.

  4. Luke says:

    “3) Well, we’ve got a hot Israeli model cast as Wonder Woman for the big budget quasi-sequel Man I Wish Superman Was Interesting Enough To Carry His Own Damn Picture. Catching Fire is a really good movie with an Academy Award nominated actress lead that’s made $580M in 12 days to Man of Steel $662M across 14 weeks, but let’s squeeze an unknown into third lead at best/minor love interest at worst for the Amazing Amazon’s feature debut and let’s have critics tell us we’re lucky to get that. Hope that Aquaman feature works out, dude!”

    Catching Fire has faced a substantially less competitive environment than Man Of Steel, being released in November where the only other genre film of note had already been out for several weeks. Furthermore, it has a built-in audience from the legions of YA book readers who have been champing at the bit for Battle Royale Lite, Part 2.

    Which one will end up with the higher gross is up in the air; I suspect that Catching Fire has made most of it’s money at this point, and Man Of Steel had a much larger overseas profile than the mostly American box for the Hunger Games movies. It has one more week as top dog before MY BOY Smaug breathes fire all over Katniss and company. Can it make $80M+ in two weeks? Personally I doubt it.

    As far as Batman and Wonder Woman in the sequel, I completely agree on that front. But I enjoyed Man Of Steel a whole lot, and right now am riding high on good vibes and looking forward to it.

  5. Luke says:

    The end of Johns’ run on Aquaman raises the maor question to me that: Can Jeff Parker continue this momentum and the high profile of Aquaman? Without a doubt this title has been the breakout darling of the New 52, but will we see the same cataclysmic drop off like we saw when Johns left JSA? Or will it be more in line with his departure from Green Lantern, which has not had such a dramatic impact? Like a college term paper, I have to say that “time will tell” on that front, but Johns certainly left the character a lot better off than when he found him, and I am looking forward to what comes next.

    When I started reading the Flash, during the Waid/Augustyn run, the Pied Piper had reformed and was one of Wally’s friends. So I really only knew him from that sort of characterizatrion until I went back and filled in my Silver Age Flash knowledge through the Showcase Presents volumes. On first blush his powers don’t seem to match up well with Firestorm. But as I think about it, Firestorm seems to be a character who uses his phenomenal cosmic powers* in the most basic forms possible, so someone who uses music and sound weapons could probably give him a run for his money. For the Pied Piper, the chance to not get his butt kicked by the Flash is itself worth taking on the Nuclear Man and nearly getting beaten up by Lorraine Reilly. Fun issue, though! Looking forward to hearing the conclusion.

    *”Itty-Bitty Living Space!”

  6. Frank says:

    Luke, as of this weekend Catching Fire has already topped Man of Steel‘s global gross by ten million. It’s made $35M more domestically, but $35M less internationally. However, Hunger Games is expected to close at $400M domestic, so it should end up besting Superman in the neighborhood of a hundred million. That would make it second only to Iron Man 3 for best earnings of 2013.

  7. Luke says:

    *shrug* Okay? Did you really need to post this comment just to show off that you were right and I was wrong?

    Now that it has dropped out of the top spot by Frozen, and Desolation of Smaug coming out this week, I do not see how your projection of an additional 65 million domestic will come true. But it might, who knows.

    My point still remains — Catching Fire was released in a substantially slower, less competitive, market and was trumped up by it’s built-in audience rather than torn down.

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