#ricky/three | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thegayhimbo · 2 years ago

Text

Stranger Things Into the Fire Review

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from this comic and Season 4 of Stranger Things!

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Synopsis: It's Spring of 1985, 7 years after Ricky/Three and Marcy broke out of Hawkins Lab. Constantly on the move for fear of being caught, the duo attempt to find closure by locating any other special kids that might have also escaped the lab. When their search bring them to Kali/Eight and her gang, they discover a dark secret: Jamie/Nine, Marcy's sister, who was presumed dead, is actually alive and locked away in an institution where she has gone insane. As Nine's powers begin to reawaken after years of suppression, Ricky and Marcy must now find and rescue her before it's too late.......

Observations:

I'm in two minds about this comic.

On the one hand, it's a big improvement from Stranger Things SIX. The artwork is vibrant, the story is more focused, the characters and their motivations are better fleshed-out, and there's more of a personal stake here compared to its predecessor.

On the other hand, the main issue I had with SIX which prevented me from fully enjoying it is unfortunately present with Into the Fire as well.

I'll start with my thoughts on the story and characters.

Unlike with SIX, where I found myself indifferent to Francine/Six due to her lack of a distinct personality and her bare-bones backstory, I was a lot more interested in Ricky and Marcy during their journey here. I enjoyed their sibling dynamic, with Ricky acting as the protective big brother to Marcy while Marcy acted as the impulsive yet supportive younger sister. Their interactions during the comic were sweet.

The plot with Ricky and Marcy discovering Jamie/Nine's survival and trying to rescue her was emotionally investing. The story is personal and smaller-scaled compared to the overarching arc of Stranger Things, but it works better than what they tried to do in the previous comic where they shoehorned in huge mytharc pieces from the show (i.e. the Demogorgon, the Upside Down, Terry Ives failed attempt to rescue El from the lab, etc) which not only screwed with the show's continuity, but also was poorly tied-in to that comic's story. Neither Ricky, Marcy, nor Jamie know about the Upside Down, and even Francine/Six who had brief visions of the Demogorgon while at the lab died before she ever found out what it all truly meant. The clumsy way those plot elements were incorporated into that comic made it feel out-of-place for a story focusing on minor characters who were never going to have a major role on the show.

Here, it's a lot easier to care because Into The Fire does a better job focusing on the relationships between the characters and how much they mean to one another. It doesn't need pieces of the mytharc to be interesting or relevant. The ending especially with Jamie and Marcy's reunion was one of the best moments, both visually and story-wise:

The core theme of Stranger Things has been about the ties that bind and finding people who will accept you for who you are. Whatever my mixed feelings about this comic are, they captured that theme well with Jamie and Marcy's reunion.

Adding onto this, the artwork is beautiful, especially in regards to Jamie/Nine's hallucinations, which convey a creepy gothic mood:

Kali is present in this story (as indicated on the cover), but unlike the previous comic where she and El were glorified cameos, she actually has a plot-related reason for being here: It's revealed she (inadvertently) served as the catalyst for Nine/Jamie's descent into madness. When Jamie/Nine became depressed after believing Ricky and Marcy abandoned her at Hawkins Lab, Brenner forced Kali to use her powers on Nine to create a fantasy world as a way of distracting Nine from what happened. Unfortunately, it worked too well, and an already mentally/emotionally fragile Nine bought into the illusion to the point she believed it was real, and any attempt to snap her out of it was met with hostility:

There's a depressing theme in Kali's arc, both in this comic, the show, and the novel Suspicious Minds, of Kali being used by other people to further their own goals. Is it any wonder she became embittered and angry later on in her life?

I am curious where Kali is currently on the show. Last time she was seen was in season 2 when her gang ran from the cops in Chicago. This comic has them hiding out in a barn elsewhere while they continue to hunt government employees who worked at the lab. At one point, Kali even offers Ricky/Three the opportunity to join them on their revenge quest. While he initially refuses, the ending of the comic where he compels Dr. Morris (the doctor who hid Jamie/Nine at a different facility) to commit suicide suggests he might end up taking Kali on her offer:

But that's in the comic's continuity. In the show...........it's unclear where Kali's story is going.

Something I've wondered about since season 4 is whether Brenner ever found out what Kali had been doing since she escaped. He was likely aware she was alive, but did he have knowledge of Kali's revenge quest against him and his colleagues from Hawkins Lab? I'm assuming he did since Brenner knew some of the orderlies and other personnel from the lab that Kali targeted and killed. On top of that, Ray Carroll (the orderly from "The Lost Sister") told El and Kali under interrogation that Brenner was alive, implying he was still in contact with him at that time. It makes me believe the top-secret silo where Brenner and Dr. Owens housed the Nina Project wasn't just off-the-grid because they were hiding it from Colonel Sullivan and his cronies, but because they were also trying to evade Kali and her gang.

However, this is just speculation. Whether or not the Duffer Brothers are going to bring back Kali for season 5 is unclear. I've expressed before in previous posts that I hope she comes back and her story gets the closure its been lacking since season 2. She's an interesting character, and I'll be sad if the writing lets her go to waste.

Speaking of Kali's story in this comic vs the show..............let's talk about the deviations in the Hawkins Lab arc.

I have mixed feelings about the way Hawkins Lab has been handled on the show vs the comics. On the one hand, I'm disappointed the show never truly expanded on any of the other psychokinetic kids besides El, Kali, and Vecna. Part of the reason I took an interest in the comics was because they did this with characters like Ricky, Francine, and Jamie. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice seeing different characters with a variety of unique powers. While I wish Kali had been given a bigger role (or even her own comic/graphic novel with a story centered on her), I am happy she wasn't completely forgotten about in supplementary materials.

On the other hand, I prefer the set-up for Hawkins Lab on the show. The backstory of Henry/One/Vecna, his imprisonment at Hawkins Lab for 20 years, his subsequent massacre of the other special kids, and his banishment by El to the Upside Down is one of the best story arcs in season 4, if not the entire show. Even before the reveal of the massacre, there had been implications that the other kids were no longer at the lab by the time El escaped. I didn't even mind the backstory of El being bullied by the other special kids when she was growing up since it's hinted at in her conversation with Mike in season 1 when she confronts him about being harassed by Troy and James:

From "Holly, Jolly" (Season 1, Episode 3):

Mike: I was tripped by this mouth breather, Troy, okay? Eleven: Mouth breather? Mike: Yeah, you know…..a dumb person. A knucklehead. Eleven: Knucklehead? Mike: I don’t know why I just didn’t tell you. Everyone at school knows. I just didn’t want you to think I was such a wastoid, you know? Eleven: Mike… Mike: Yeah? Eleven: I understand.

There was foreshadowing in the early seasons for the big reveals in season 4, which is why I accepted them when they happened.

While I'm not happy about Kali's limited screentime on the show, I still believe the Duffer Brothers plan to bring her back for the final season. Maybe my faith is misplaced and I'll be eating these words later, but considering they specifically went out of their way to spare Kali from Vecna's massacre, as well as how the Stranger Things writers recommended a few days ago that fans rewatch season 2 in preparation for season 5, it's implied she still may play a role in the final battle against Vecna.

And finally, there's the way Brenner ran the lab on the show vs the comics:

In my previous review of SIX, I mentioned there was a strong possibility that said comic wouldn't count as canon due to the way season 4 was written (as well as some major continuity problems in the comic itself). This sequel all but confirms that with the way they wrote Jamie/Nine's backstory.

In the comics, Brenner decided that because of the progress Eleven showed during her time at the lab, the other participants in the program were redundant and were straining resources. As a result, he ordered the staff at Hawkins Lab to dispose of the other special kids. One of the faculty members, Dr. Morris, worked closely with Jamie/Nine, and in an act of consciousness, had Nine transferred off the books to an institution where she was kept under a strict drug regimen to suppress her pyrokinetic abilities.

As of season 4, we know this isn't what happened on the show: Vecna is the one who killed all the special kids. Brenner was a monster and wasn't above manipulating the kids under his care to get results, but he never considered them liabilities, and he didn't "put all of his eggs in one basket" (as Dr. Morris accused him of doing) just so he could focus on Eleven. It wasn't until Vecna slaughtered everyone else and El was the only special kid left that Brenner turned his attention exclusively to her. Even then, it's later revealed that Brenner was using El to try and locate Henry/One/Vecna in the dimension El banished him to.

Personally, if it's a choice between Brenner's motivations on the show vs the comics, I prefer the show since his motivations there make more sense given the circumstances. They were also pragmatic compared to his short-sided decision in the comics to get rid of the other test subjects for not living up to Eleven's potential.

While there are things that could have been improved, I will take the Hawkins Lab arc from the show over the comics.

Overall, I would recommend this comic with some asterisks: If you're looking for something with pretty artwork and an emotionally gripping story set in the Stranger Things universe, then Into the Fire will meet your expectations. However, for reasons I've just described, the comic likely isn't canon due to how parts of its mythology differentiate from the show, and it should possibly be viewed as an alternate continuity because of that.