Tackling the issue of genetically engineered food, Wildfire #1 is the story of Dr. Beth Silva and her team of bioengineers who decide to demonstrate an untested new process of accelerated plant growth to show up a group of GMO naysayers called Green Aware, unwittingly starting the greatest wild fire that Southern California has ever known via mass dandelion infestation.  This book is dense, dry, and reads like a sequel to Birdemic with less interesting characters.

WRITTEN BY: Matt Hawkins
ART BY: Linda Sejic
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: 3.99
RELEASE: June 11, 2014

Review By: Epic Switzer

Sci-Fi-Horror, and more aptly the disaster genre, has a rich history of examining contemporary social fears and then magnifying and exploiting them to amuse audiences.  Those that have been successful rely on metaphor; they create a larger than life threat to represent a real cultural anxiety.  Godzilla as a metaphor for nuclear war and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a metaphor for communism are just two example of the staying power that a strong character or story can have within the zeitgeist when it is handled with finesse and subtlety.

Then there is Wildfire #1, which follows in the tradition of a divergent path.  One popularized by recent Roland Emmerich fare and the aforementioned Birdemic, in which the disaster it wrought directly by human negligence or, in the case of Wildfire #1, science overstepping its bounds.  These tales are meant to be cautionary and informative, often coming across as heavy handed or preachy.  They can, however, be forgiven by carnage-hungry audiences if the explosions are big enough.  Aside from a rather dull splash on the first page of L.A. on fire, this book has 0% mayhem.

Now, to be fair, this is issue #1, so some set up is to be expected.  After all, 2012 doesn’t open with Cusak whipping down the street as volcanic fissures emerge beneath him does it?  No, it starts with scientists in India talking about neutrinos and solar flares and a rapid temperature rise in the Earth’s core and blah blah blah.  This is Wildfire #1.

I found myself skimming the paragraphs found in almost every dialogue bubble because I didn’t understand and didn’t care what the characters were saying.  Here is the dialogue on one page:

“The Time is 3:45 PM, Tuesday August 12th.  This is Dr. Dan Miller preparing to conduct trail A16-4 for ACR.  This trial has a 5% increase in phosphorus in the soil mix. Four of our transgenic beansprout seeds are buried at a depth of three inches in our nitrate treated soil compound.  As in previous trials, adding liquid fertilizer mixed with ACR to stimulate gibberellin hormone growth.”

Did you read all of that?  Neither did I.

Personally, I didn’t find the art interesting enough to drive forward all this sci-babble.  There is some interesting use of border design to accentuate heightened emotion when characters are speaking, but after the 3rd or 4th time you see it it becomes less ingenious and you start to wonder why people are always shouting at each other.

I really did not enjoy reading this book.  That’s not to say that it doesn’t have potential,  but I found there weren’t enough interesting characters in play with unique motives.  There was far too much heavy-handed discussion about the ethics of GE food, and it was almost entirely devoid of havok.  Avoid this one until further notice, unless you happen to be Roland Emmerich.

Epic Switzer AKA Eric is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles.  His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality.  He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.