Book / Week 34 - Snowfall
Weather is a Weapon. 2024/11/24
SNOWFALL
Writer: Joe Harris
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colours: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letters: Michael David Thomas
Synopsis:
In the year 2045 it no longer snows following a crash that left the climate ravaged, society splintered and the newly-christened “Cooperative States of America” propped up and administered by the powerful Hazeltyne Corporation. Only one man wages an all-out weather war against the system, wielding the forces of nature themselves as weapons. He’s the White Wizard. The ghost in the night. Genius. Terrorist. Outlaw. Hero?
In the beginning of this book there is a large exposition dump. The yeah is 2045, and due to climate change, it doesn’t snow anymore. The climate is dry and the United States is now the Cooperative States, administered by a company called Hazeltyne. They help oversee the running for the country and its limited resources. They are also training the next group of brilliant minds who will help rebuild the Cooperative States, and restore the climate.
The year 2035 was the last recorded natural snowfall. And there were attempts to make climate control machines to help the weather, but these actually made everything worse.
At the start of the story we are introduced to a student named Anthony Farrow, and he is not happy with the state of things, thinking there’s corruption in the government. He sets a bomb off at the school where Hazeltyne trains and recruits from. His attack falls on the 10th anniversary of a weather attack by The White Wizard.
He tracks down a doctor from Hazeltyne who was one of the minds behind the original climate devices, who had dedicated his life to the research, but was removed from the project after losing his wife, and his daughter became ill. This doctor’s name is August Reasons, better known as The White Wizard. Reasons has somehow gained the ability to control the weather in his immediate area - creating snow storms more specifically, or freezing people. Anthony Farrow is a sympathizer to Reasons’ war against Hazeltyne and wants to help.
Now that Anthony Farrows has become the new public enemy number one, August Reasons will use him as a shield while he enacts his final revenge against Hazeltyne.
Thought bubbles
Throughout the nine issues, we jump back and forth quite a bit. Between 2034, 2035, and the present, 2045. We learn a little about Dr Reasons, and his work, and his daughter who is featured as an apparition of sorts. She seems to be like a ghost in the machine. From what I gathered, this seems to be a Dr. Freeze type story where Reasons loses his wife and his daughter is ill, and in an attempt to save her, uses the Hazeltyne technology to save her mind or soul before losing the body. Her body is kept preserved in a frozen chamber type thing. I believe she is the source of his winter powers through the climate control technology he helped build.
We also get introduced to one of the government characters, Inspector Davitika Deal, who appears to be a cyborg-like human / precog who leads the government robot police force that track down the rebel groups by monitoring the weather patterns. She responds to the initial bombing, thinking it was Dr. Reasons, on the 10th anniversary of his last attack.
Honestly, the book was a little hard to follow with all the time jumps, and characters that don’t really add a lot to the overall story. The story is a decent environmental sci-fi thriller, where it tells a tale of a grim possible future. But the overall terror plot is a little weak, and the multiple cuts to different characters and different times is hard to follow. It starts off as a slow burn and never really finds the story it wants to tell. We don’t really get the full picture about why Dr. August Reasons is waging an all-out war against Hazeltyne, other than the Evil-Corporation-Running-America trope, or what he’s been doing over the last 10 years. It all appears to be related to saving his daughter, like he wants a better world for her. We get some glimpses of the events that originally occurred to the two but it was spliced between present day events, so it was hard to really understand what was past and what is present. The story ends after just 9 issues, so maybe they had more planned? The first half was definitely more intriguing than the second. It doesn’t end on a cliffhanger or anything, but just sort of wraps up, somewhat underwhelmingly.
The art is definitely the selling point of this book, and I can really only recommend it for that reason.
Between the pages
The co-creators of this book, Joe Harris and Martin Morazzo had created another environmental adventure prior to this one, called Great Pacific. That book went 18 issues and looks to have had a stronger outing.
Morazzo’s art reminds me a lot of Nick Pitarra’s from the Manhattan Projects, or Frank Quitely.
Next read:
Book 35: Birthright Vol 1 (Joshua Williamson, Andrei Bressan, Adriano Lucan)
Previous read:
Book 33: Fables Vol 1
Book 32: Watchmen
Book 31: Bear Pirate Viking Queen
Book 30: Far Sector
Book 29: The Roman Stars Vol 1