Review: Team 7 Vol. 1- Fight Fire With Fire

Quick Summary

Pros: The beginning of the volume is fun and does well in balancing the members of Team 7.

Cons: The volume fails to capitalize on the potential it began with. A time jump in the middle of the collection complicates the narrative and dampens the impact of most events occurring afterword.

Overall: This volume starts out promising but ultimately fails to deliver on the unique premise it offers. The source of the book’s major problems stem from the halfway point, at which point a time jump takes place. From here, the narrative is confusing and rushed in a way that robs otherwise meaningful moments of their drama and crushes most character development.

Story

Team 7 Vol. 1: Fight Fire With Fire is a rather poor volume that could have been good with a little more structure and polish. Writer Justin Jordan tells several unique stories focusing on a diverse military strike team. Unfortunately, these stories lack structure, often jumping forward in time without warning, and also lack a clear focus, with no character being fully developed by the end of the volume. There are also a number of small errors, from oddly worded sentences to simple typos, that give the entire collection an unfinished and unpolished feeling. Ultimately, this is a pretty lackluster volume that fails to do anything of interest before being canceled.

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The volume starts out with the titular “Team 7” being assembled and going on their first mission. This initial outing shows a good deal of promise as each character has a unique set of traits to bring to the team. This means that there is a lot of potential in character development, as people like Amanda Waller and Diana Drake are nowhere near as hardened as they appear in later comics. The mission ends up being average overall but the narrative seems to be building up to something larger.

Unfortunately, this is where things start to go awry. The narrative jumps forward an unspecified amount of time and also introduces a secondary storyline taking place in the present. It is a confusing premise made even more so by the lack of explanation given for what occurred between time jumps. All of a sudden, characters have lives and powers that have developed outside the events of the collection. Even the developments shown here are confusing, especially in the case of Majestic, who’s exact powers and origin I was never able to fully grasp.

This time jump also drops the potential presented by the individual characters who make up Team 7. When the volume started, each character was unique and presented something new to the story. No character was fully introduced but readers were able to connect with them slowly as the story unfolded. However, instead of continuing to allow readers to become acquainted with characters in this way, the story jumps ahead and does away with this entirely.

This doesn’t just destroy character development though, it also prevents readers from connecting with characters. After the time jump, characters die and make major decisions, yet none of it feels meaningful. Readers have not had time to fully connect with the characters, so when major events take place they do not have quite the same level of impact. This takes away from story’s conclusion and makes Team 7’s final mission feel even less spectacular than their first mission.

(spoilers end here)

Art

Almost all of the artwork throughout this collection is provided by either Pascal Alixe or Jesús Merino. Unfortunately, much like the story, the majority of this artwork tends to range from average to slightly below average. Character designs are alright but are not unique enough to make the large cast easily distinguishable, which is pretty important in a book with tons of main characters. In addition, there are a number of moments where paneling seems off and a hero’s arm will jut somewhere it does not belong.

On the positive end though, these artists are great at dealing up shock and awe when the story calls for it. During two specific moments, a character references a horrifying occurrence designed to elicit an emotional response from the reader. While the dialogue does this to an extent, the visuals are what truly drive the point home and make readers understand what they are dealing with. These moments are the highlight of the artwork and help the story have a greater effect.

Continuity

Team 7 Vol. 1: Fight Fire With Fire starts the Team 7 New 52 series. This means that this is the first volume in a brand new continuity, so there are not many references to previous books or Team 7’s history.

The Team 7 series ends with this volume, so there is no book that directly continues the overall story. However, Black Canary’s specific story is continued in Birds of Prey Vol. 1: Trouble in Mind (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• Superman’s fight against Brainiac and the government’s attempt to create a super-soldier are both shown in Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel.
• Black Canary’s recruitment into Team 7 happens in Birds of Prey #0, which is collected in Birds of Prey Vol. 2: Your Kiss Might Kill (Review).
• A project involving the Black Diamond from Gotham’s past is referenced here. The details behind this are contained in All-Star Western Vol. 3: The Black Diamond Probability.
• The character Essence appears in this volume. Her character originates in the Red Hood and the Outlaws series, specifically Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol. 1: REDemption (Review).
• Pandora and Pandora’s Box are both referenced here. The story behind both of them is told in Trinity War (Review).