“The Fury of Firestorm: the Nuclear Men” #7 ushers in a creative team change with Joe Harris joining Ethan Van Sciver as co-writer and Van Sciver filling in for Yildiray Cinar in the artist’s chair. It’s a different looking book to be certain, but the story still doesn’t do much to incite any concern.

The writing change with Harris joining Van Sciver is not apparent in the comic itself as none of the characters stray from what they’ve become over the course of the last half-year. Ronnie and Jason are allegedly still the protagonists of this series, but they don’t do anything to garner interest save for being the voices behind the caption boxes. Jason picks a fight with Zither and plays a full hand of conspiracy theory cards while Ronnie chases rogue Firestorms. Neither of these activities is surprising and neither character makes significant progress to gain reader support.

Van Sciver’s drawing style is dynamically different from that of regular series artist, Yildiray Cinar. Cinar’s a very good artist in his own right, but as Van Sciver’s been writing this book since the relaunch, the visuals for this chapter seem to be more striking and unfiltered. Coupled with Hi-Fi’s intense color work, the look of this book becomes stunning and brilliant. Pozhar walking toward the reader through a whirling inferno cuts quite the image. Van Sciver’s on the art for both this issue and the next. He’ll be delivering the visual treatment for a few other Firestorms, so there’s something to look forward to in that regard.

Van Sciver’s art is a nice reward for sticking with this title for this long, but “The Fury of Firestorm: the Nuclear Men” is quickly slipping from my “must-read” pile. Once upon a time, Ronnie Raymond was an introductory character for a generation of readers. Jason Rusch was conceived with the same thought in mind. Neither is anything more than whiny ciphers right now. I’m hoping Harris and Van Sciver can elicit the heroic ideals in these characters soon, before it’s too late.