Dark Spaces: Wildfire

May 29, 2023
“Ignition. Flashover. Max heat. Decay,” opens this taut, suspenseful thriller scripted by Batman regular Snyder. Firefighter Ruby Ma Ning—“Ma” to her friends—and her team, Crew 513, have become intimately familiar with the stages of wildfire’s life cycle. The women are participating in the Forestry Firefighter program, in which incarcerated inmates earn two dollars a day battling fires. Ma is not imprisoned herself, but has thrown herself into the job following a tragic personal loss, and she is incredibly protective of her team. While Crew 513 contends with California’s historic Arroyo Fire, their newest recruit, a white-collar criminal named Brooks who is mere months into her 60-year prison sentence, realizes they’re stationed near her former employer’s safe house. Inside sits a cache of servers that contains up to $2 billion in untraceable cryptocurrency. After sleeping on it, Crew 513 decides to risk everything for a heist that, like wildfire, could clear the way for a new start—but could also spiral out of control. Sherman’s gritty artwork, enhanced by colorist Ronda Pattison’s vibrant palette, sets the tone for a moody, atmospheric suspense plot. Fans of well-researched situational crime dramas, such as Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber’s Whiteout and Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal series, should take note.