Red Tokyo Storm Warning — Warren Ellis

Collecting two of writer Ellis's (Planetary; Global Frequency) mini-series, this is a lightweight but sporadically entertaining journey into two much-traveled genres. Red has a greater unity of theme and unfolding action, following the gruesome trail of a retired CIA killer who reacts with violence when the agency decides to eliminate him. Hamner's slick art is up to the bloody mayhem, and while the twists aren't entirely unexpected, there are lots of them. While the story's point is that there's no one to root for-the killer is a self-admitted monster even though he was acting under orders of his bosses-this eliminates the need for readers to care about the outcome. Tokyo Storm Warning is more of a trifle: giant robots and giant lizards clash in an alternate-history Tokyo that the U.S. hit with an atom bomb. Enter Zoe Flynn, an American pilot who's been brought as a replacement operator for immense, Transformer-like robots known as ARCangels. Ellis is known for his social science fiction, and regular readers who suspect there's more here than meets the eye will be correct, although the payoff is quite slight, basically an excuse to watch giant robots and monsters fight for a while. The story's fun is blunted somewhat by Raiz's art, which is detailed but cluttered and hard to follow. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.