Review: The Weatherman #1
To paraphrase one of my all-time favourite songs, we live with the burdens of our previous days. In the case of Nathan Bright, that burden doesn’t seem so heavy.
Nathan has it all; an awesome girlfriend, a kick-ass dog and he is the hot-shot weatherman on a news show that informs the populace of the terraformed Mars. With sleeping in and the occasional drop-in his only worry, he should be living the carefree life of the celebrity. That is until his burden re-appears in the shape of armoured goons who are out to kill him. Now with the brains of mans best friend splattered all over the place, maybe being arrested for the genocide of the planet Earth doesn’t sound like a bad option!
The book is written by Jody LeHeup whose name might be familiar with Deadpool fans. More recently LeHeup helped take the comic book world by storm last year as part of the creative team that gave us Shirtless The Bear-Fighter.  Now that you have some idea of the level of crazy you will encounter in this book, we will begin. LeHeup writes with a frenetic pace, pulling the reader along for the ride so fast, you don’t actually get time to question anything that is going on. In fact, for the most part, as hard as you try to keep up, eventually inertia sets in and you are almost as lost as Nathan. Along the way, LeHeup crafts a whole universe and environs in which the story is set. The dialogue is snappy and there is a bit of give and take with the reality of the situations that Nathan finds himself in.
Nathan Fox provides the pencils with a style that actually surpasses the pace that LeHeup is setting. Fox’s work is kind of mix of different styles; which I quite like to be honest. It as if different aspects of the story needs to show different temperaments. It’s an idea that is not new by any means, but Fox accomplishes this as a one man band rather the type of “art by committee” you see on some books. The benefit of this is that you can see the base underneath the angular and more expected norm. With pace, comes action and the end of the book is choc-full of frenetic action. The bright colors on show, for this far-flung society add to the chaos factor. What may be surprising is that the colorist is Mignola-verse painter, the incomparable Dave Stewart. Maybe he is taking a break from the macabre; whatever the reason, the readers get the benefit of his excellent work. A quick shout out to letterer Steve Wands who uses different fonts to show how far from a steady Eddy existence that Nathan has found himself in.
Future societies, dystopian planets are these days, almost as over done as zombies and vampires. That said, Jody LeHeung has a knack for taking ideas and insinuations from other sources and creating something bigger than the whole.
Writing – 5 Stars
Art – 4 Stars
Colors – 5 Stars
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Written by; Jody LeHeung
Art by; Nathan Fox
Colors by; Dave Stewart
Letters by; Steve Wands
Published by; Image Comics
Author Profile
- I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow
Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network
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