Stuart Moore tackles his third Military Special and does something new for this series - he creates a continuity. "The Spirit of America" (#5) told the story of the Matthews siblings, California National Guard Soldier Danny and his sister stationed in Iraq. As mentioned in the end of #5, "Fireline" follows Danny to his new assignment fighting forest fires. It's been a while since we've seen Danny, evidenced by his rank. He was referred to as Private in #5, and is now recently promoted to Sergeant (assuming he was actually a Private First Class in #5, that means he's been promoted twice since). In this issue, the Hulk is rampaging through the California forests and inadvertently causes a huge forest fire. Iron Man and Spider-Man, who are not getting along these days, volunteer to help fight the fire and evacuate civilians.
The first issue of this series was a super hero story with the Military tossed in, and the second was an AAFES promotion involving super heroes. Under Moore's watch the series is evolving into a book where the super heroes and the Military have equal importance in the story. That's as it should be in a super hero comic designed especially for the Military, and Mr. Moore has done another fine job with this story.
Also returning from #5, and doing another great job, is penciller Cliff Richards. As much as I enjoyed Richards' art on #5, he seems to improved quite a bit since then. Iron Man looks significantly more intimidating, which works well for his demeanor when talking with Spidey. I'm sure these guys want to work on the more mainstream Marvel books (check out Stuart Moore's Iron Man arc), but I hope Marvel keeps this team on this series for a while, provided it continues. At least we know we can look forward to #7, since the "Unmask the Hero" contest promises there will be a "next issue." Good news for fans of this series (and I'm sure I'm not the only one).
GRADE: A
