Written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by James Raiz.
Published as three comics by Cliffhanger, not yet collected into a graphic novel.

Warren Ellis is one of the best writers in comics of the past decade or more. Apart from his period of imprisonment on Marvel super hero books he's been writing mostly very adult comics and graphic novels, peaking with the superb Transmetropolitan, Authority #1 - #12 and the still running Planetary. In recent years he has committed himself to pouring out a stream of graphic novels and mini-series, some of them fantastically well written works, others explorations of fantastic or (more often) enjoyably disturbing ideas. Tokyo Storm Warning is Ellis having a look at that staple of Japanese anime and manga - the giant robot genre, specifically Super Robots. It's not one of his finely crafted masterpieces in the same sense as the books I've mentioned, instead it's an exploration of an idea. Something Ellis revels in.

Tokyo Storm Warning begins during the Second World War as America intercepts material destined for a Japanese nuclear weapons project and changes the target of the second H-bomb from Kyoto to Tokyo. After the explosion the story fast forwards to a very futuristic modern (2003) Tokyo and the focus clamps firmly on pilot Zoe Flynn. In this world Tokyo has spent the last half-century under attack from mysteriously appearing monsters, fighting them off with equally mysterious robot weapons. The latest batch of the robot weapons to appear are the GaoGaiGar-esque Arcangels one to three and the American Zoe arrives to pilot number three. The first two issues deal with Zoe's impressions of the Tokyo Storm organisation (and its personnel) and her adjustment to piloting the giant Arcangel during combat with a monster in the streets of Tokyo. The final issue tackles the mystery of where the monsters and the weapons to fight them come from.

Art on this project comes from initial Transformers Armada penciler James Raiz so you're guaranteed some nice looking giant robots to fill the pages. There is a more traditional style to the inking and colouring however, so Raiz's mecha don't have quite the same slick, hyper-anime look to them that they had in the Transformers Armada comic. I was glad to see a different approach to the surroundings and people in this mini-series. In Armada Raiz worked in a very manga-influenced style for these elements, especially what I saw of his character work. Here, however, everything is much more realistic and finely detailed. Ellis' preference for "widescreen" panelling in so many of his comics really plays to Raiz's more detailed approach and results in some great, large scale battle sequences. Which is quite a relief, as this kind of Super Robot tale almost certainly wouldn't work with more crowded pages. There are lots of nice touches during the fight scenes, probably at the request of Ellis. It's an amusing and "pleasant" change to see a wave of blood bowling over panicking citizens as the gigantic opponents tear into each other. Cars, people and the corners of buildings being crushed by dropping bullets is another such example.

The script is pretty standard Ellis with his usual snappy and well crafted dialogue. There are some nice conversations between Zoe and the various other characters. There's just enough of it to get a feel for each character but not as much as I'd have liked. The scripting is good enough but is not Ellis' best. The plotting is not quite so well put together, however. I felt there was a slight pacing problem. The story moved a little too quickly for my liking and didn't lurk quite long enough in some of the right areas. However, that's mainly due to this being an exploration of an idea by Ellis, something he wanted to play around with quickly. It's unfortunately a bit too obvious that's the case here, when you read it.

The mini-series is basically "Ellis does super robots" but would be better described as "Ellis has a fiddle with Super Robots". Tokyo Storm Warning is a solid piece of work, nothing spectacular but certainly nothing bad. It would, in my opinion, have benefited from being a bit longer, maybe just the one extra issue. Then Ellis could have spent a bit longer setting up the status quo before he destroyed it. That said, it's still a satisfying read at its current length. The idea Ellis wanted to explore in the Super Robots genre is simple enough and gets executed quite well. He draws obvious influences for his creations from existing anime robot shows (some of the minor touches are almost certainly taken from Evangelion) but as he's not setting up a franchise here or trying to tell an epic Super Robot tale, it's not really important. If this tale gets collected into a graphic novel then it's worth picking up if it the concept at all interests you. As I've said, it's good but not great and it's important to remember that a substandard Warren Ellis piece is still much better than so many other comics.

Written to Run Fay Run - Issac Hayes