The Nam, Xerxes, Spider-Man

More new comics:

Spider-Man 239

This isn’t going how I expected, a massive fight scene between the Champions, new Sinister Six, and Lucia Von Bardas of Latveria.  How does Bendis have time to wrap everything up? More than any other of his titles, I want this one to end well. It’s the best thing that Bendis has done, a true magnum opus.  And I hope that the ending leaves me feeling as good as everything that came before it.

Xerxes 1

Officially titled “Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander,” which seems as unnecessary as “Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.”

It’s very much a follow up to 300.  I enjoyed 300, so I’m having about the same amount of fun with this one.  I very much have to separate art from artist with Frank Miller, but once I’ve done that, it’s hard to deny that he’s excellent at creating the equivalent of the summer popcorn blockbuster.  

I am scared of this mostly-naked man with a spear.

I’ll have a lot more to say about Miller’s evolving art style when I get to his comics, but its current form works a lot better here than it does in his latest DC offerings.  I should really wait for the trade with the larger pages, but I can’t resist getting them as they come out.

The Nam 7-16

I’m finding that I read The Nam very differently from other comics.  I don’t process it like everything else, to be judged on entertainment value.  Instead, I almost consider it nonfiction, a document of something that really happened.  It’s not even the same as Garth Ennis’ War Stories, which come in finite chunks of story.  Writer Doug Murray’s original plan to have one month of real time equal one month of story time meant that characters could rotate out after serving their year-long tours of duty, meaning there wouldn’t be one protagonist to focus on.  (Though Ed Marks serves as the reader’s initial entry point, he’s already gone home by issue 16.) As is the case in real life, there are no neat little packages of plot. Things just keep going from day to day for these soldiers, each issue showing a little slice of their existence in a very foreign, unforgiving part of the world.  

I think this is my third time reading through The Nam.  Issue 8 has always stuck with me. It’s the tunnel rat issue, and before reading it, I had only knew Tunnel Rat to be the GI Joe with flashlights attached to his backpack.

After reading it, "tunnel rat" now occupies a prominent place on my “Most Terrifying Jobs Ever” list.  Crawling through booby trapped tunnels alone and negotiating the claustrophobia, tension, terror, and threat of unknown death sounds like the worst horror movie I can imagine.  I can’t believe people did this for a living, and I salute them.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice