War Story

If I remember right, this is Garth Ennis’ first real foray into war comics, without the pretense of wrapping his stories inside the bookends of Hellblazer or Demon or what have you.  These are the issues that cemented Ennis war comics to my buylist.  

War Story: Johann's Tiger

The prototypical “soldier survives while all of his friends die around him” story.  Bonus points due to how much he wanted to die. 

Rating: Good

 

War Story: D-Day Dodgers

The best of the bunch.  The ending montage, juxtaposed with the ironic lyrics of The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers, is horrifyingly tragic. 

Rating: Really good

War Story: Screaming Eagles

I’d probably like this more if it wasn’t already so familiar from Band of Brothers.  It’s not Ennis’ fault (he makes it clear that he wrote this before the show came out), but there’s no avoiding the Stephen Ambrose influence.  

Still, the cold cataloging of the deaths of the original company members is soberingly effective in conveying the losses.

And the ending is just as beautiful of a tag as the one in the show.

Rating: Good

War Story: Nightingale

My first education about the Atlantic convoys, years before Tom Hanks’ excellent Greyhound committed it to film.  

Chills.

Rating: Good

War Story: Archangel

I had no idea things got so desperate during these convoy runs that they launched planes off of ships as a one-use protection gambit.  Or that the planes had no way of landing back with the convoy.  It’s insane the things people will try in times of war.

Rating: Pretty good

War Story: Condors

Ennis contrives a situation where four people get the chance to express their different points of view about the Spanish Civil War.  (Something I know zero about.  This is the only thing I’ve ever read about it.)  It’s a credit to Ennis’ talent that I wasn’t bored silly.  He’s such a deft writer that I often forget just how much social and political commentary he mixes into his stories.

Stuff like this, which I do enjoy reading, is easier to digest when it's combined with...

...the stuff of nightmares.  Just the thought that this could be my daughter and wife...

Rating: Pretty good

War Story: Reivers

The weakest of the bunch.  A British SAS commander gets a little overzealous and gets his whole command killed off.  One of the few Ennis stories where the group dies because of poor squad command decisions.  (Soldiers often die because of incompetent higher level orders.)

Rating: Fine

War Story: J is for Jenny

Follows the exploits of a WWII bomber crew.  Very average.

Rating: Nice

For all of the issues:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Red Team, Walk Through Hell, War is Hell

Red Team: Double Tap, Center Mass 1-9

The two surviving members of the first series return, entangling themselves in a case no one wants them to solve and an affair that’s doomed to fail.  Garth Ennis perfectly walks the line between making the protagonists three-dimensionally flawed yet likable.  These are messed up people, but I always wanted them to succeed.  Ennis puts them through the wringer, and the ending is emotionally brutal but necessary.

Calling out artist Craig Cermak, whose pages look an awful lot like Gary Frank’s.  Which is an awesome thing.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Walk Through Hell 1-8

This might be the most disturbing comic I’ve ever read.  It’s not in your face horror, it’s something a lot more insidious.  From Ennis’ twisted mind and Goran Sudzuka’s pencil come ideas and images that have burned themselves into my brain.  I stopped buying with four issues to go; Once the Antichrist showed up, things got too weird.  This is one of those comics where I acknowledge the quality while averring that it’s not for me.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

War is Hell 1-5

A reboot of an old Marvel character.  Karl Kaufman is a WWI pilot who joins the fight as a complete idiot.  The comic traces his maturation as the war progresses and his comrades slowly get killed off one by one.  It’s basically a manga plot structure.

It’s an odd departure from the usual Ennis war story fare, and the result isn’t as good, either.  It’s certainly not the fault of Howard Chaykin, who does wonderful work here.  It’s just not fun watching an idiot when war is concerned, I guess.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Ennis comics

Enemy Ace 1-2

It’s hard for me to pinpoint the difference in ratings for all of these Garth Ennis comics.  Everything runs between Pretty Good and Really Good, and while I can’t really articulate what sets them apart from each other, there’s definitely a variation in my enjoyment of these.  (Though let’s be honest, I’ve been having a blast with all of them.)

Anyway, this is a revival of a DC property.  WWII German ace pilot who fights for his country, not his leaders, yadda yadda.  This is great stuff.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Johnny Red 1-8

A revival of an old British character.  WWII British ace pilot who fights with the Soviets (who fight for their country, not their leaders, yadda yadda.)  

Not only is this a sweet story, it’s got a wonderful wrapper where Johnny’s Hurricane is getting restored by a dot com millionaire.  It adds a surprisingly sweet coda to the story.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Jimmy’s Bastards 1-6

I was completely planning to cut this before the re-read; I stopped buying this with three issues to go and remembered it as completely stupid.  Something about men and women switching genitalia and other nonsense.

Instead, I find this surprisingly entertaining and amusing.  

I've never heard anything so vulgar and hilarious.

Jimmy Regent’s partner, Nancy McEwan, brings a refreshing mix of competence and no-nonsense that balances out all the ridiculousness.  

I don’t care enough about how this ends to get the issues I’m missing, but I’m not going to dump these, either.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Red Team 1-7

An elite team of cops go vigilante and start killing the bad guys who really deserve it.  Then things go wrong because of course they do.  Ennis is so good at this kind of thing.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Ennis War Comics

Here we go, Garth Ennis, single handedly keeping the war comic genre alive in the industry.  And thank God for him.  He’s so ridiculously good at this, it’s clearly a labor of love for him.  What stands out is the different number of publishers that he has; he’ll do this for anyone who will give his stories a home.  

303 1-6

What a start.  This is the prototypical Ennis war hero: stoic, stupidly good at the art of war…You know, I’m going to start a spreadsheet.  Will see how it goes.

Anyway, this is super good.  The detour into the McDonald’s slaughterhouse is a little odd (and super disturbing), and the assassination of the President kind of comes out of nowhere.  But for all that, the uber competence of the Russian is just so damn cool.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Battler Britton 1-5

A revival of an old British war comic.  Britton is a WWII pilot and super good at what he does.  A run-of-the-mill story, but well executed.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Dan Dare 1-7

A revival of an old British science fiction comic, but it’s basically a war story in space.  This is so freaking good.  As Ennis says in a quote on the cover, Dan Dare is basically a British Captain America.  And Ennis is so good at writing that, no matter how cynical he gets about superheroes.  He can do earnest when he wants to.  

Classic.

I did not expect her to die.

So good.  But what’s with those eyebrows?

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Dreaming Eagles 1-6

A former Tuskegee Airman tells his son about his experiences in WWII.  (Fathers and sons.  Another column for the spreadsheet.)  For a foreigner, Ennis really gets the problems with America.  

So true, so fucked up.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Torso, Total Sell Out, New comics

New comics!

Dark Ages 5

The heroes get closer to Apocalypse’s headquarters and fight a Miles Morales controlled by both the Carnage and Venom symbiotes.  This series has been fine, but not as good as Tom Taylor’s DC Elseworlds work.

Human Target 5

Tom King throws in so many cool ideas with this issue: Chance’s origin story, his training by Saturn Girl, a completely new take on telepathic warfare, and Martian Manhunter hooking up with Fire.  And all of it takes place in the time that it takes to pass the salt.  Between this and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, these may be the best things King has written since Vision.  I think.  He’s done some amazing stuff.

Captain Marvel 36

Kelly Thompson gets one more arc.  If it’s as lackluster as “Last of the Marvels,” I’m done with this title.  

Black Widow 14

So nice to have Elena Casagrande back.

Iron Man 17

OMG, I laughed so hard at just the first panel of this comic, I had to close the book to collect myself.

And I'm not even from New York.

Christopher Cantwell spends a few excellent pages theorizing the consequences of giving everyone in New York City Tony Stark’s intelligence.  The rest of the story defaults to standard power corrupts tropes.  Tony turns everyone into yes people and kills the friends who disagree with him.  I’m sure the power cosmic will reset everything once he sees the light.

Torso

A nice murder mystery with a fantastical ending that must have been fabricated by Brian Michael Bendis.  I know all this crime stuff is where he made his name, but his work really took a quantum leap after he went to Marvel and started on Ultimate Spider-Man.  This stuff, which is truly solid, still doesn’t compare.  And he’s really a better writer than he is an artist.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Total Sell Out

Some people can get away with vanity projects.  Bendis is one of those people, but this is the wrong material to be using.  His early work is interesting from a historical point of view, but it doesn’t merit an hour-long read for entertainment purposes.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Jinx

Jinx

Welp, now I know my limit for Bendis dialogue.  There’s too much of it here.  Page after page after page of it.  Some of it’s good, and the story itself is noir in the best sense, but this could really have done with some editing. 

I will always remember that McNookie's line.

I’d read this again, but it’s unlikely that I’ll revisit it for funsies.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Goldfish

Goldfish

Early Brian Michael Bendis.  It’s super rough, as one would expect.  But for sure, that ear for natural conversation, that pattern and cadence, has been there from the very start.  That’ll make even the worst Bendis story readable.

Not that this is the worst; it’s got a lot going for it, and there’s even charm in the rough art.  It’s a shame the movie never got made, the Mexican standoff at the end alone would have been a sight to see.  Talk about dark.

What a fucked up family dynamic.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Fortune and Glory, New comics

New comics!

Lion and the Eagle 1

Garth Ennis is back doing another war comic, woots!  This one covers the Burma campaign during WWII.  It’s about average for Ennis, certainly no Sara.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 8

A little too much moralizing at the end for my taste, I wish Tom King had gone for something a little more subtle.  Also, I’m still confused by the last page.  Why did Ruthye end her book that way?  Still, this was an amazing series.  If only the last two issues were just a touch stronger.

Nightwing 89

Tom Taylor crosses his two DC titles over as Nightwing meets up with Jon Kent.  I may have quit Son of Kal-El, but I’ll pick up issue 9 so I can see how this ends.  

Fortune and Glory 1-3

I was in the mood to go through Ennis’ war stories next (a coincidence that a new one popped up this week!), and they happen to be boxed along with Brian Michael Bendis’ indie stuff.

This is a hilarious look at Bendis’ attempt to sell his Goldfish screenplay to Hollywood.  He approaches the story with the perfect mix of “Yes, I realize how absurd all of this was” and “But there’s no doubt I wanted this to happen.”  It’s easy to forget how accomplished of an artist he is, the dude is a really skilled cartoonist.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Strangers in Paradise

Strangers in Paradise XXV 1-10

Five Years 1, 4

I’m lumping these together because SiP XXV isn’t a SiP sequel, it’s really a Five Years prelude.  It’s not bad on its own merits, but I don’t read SiP expecting Katchoo to play Jason Bourne.  

This really is Terry Moore’s Avengers: Endgame, bringing together the characters from all of his titles together to fight a literal world-ending threat.  (It’s actually worse than Thanos, since it’ll eliminate all life in the universe, not just half of it.)  Unlike my first readthrough, I enjoyed the thriller aspect of this comic, once I wrapped my head around the genre switch.  (Perhaps this would have been easier if I’d read any of Moore’s other comics.  He jumps around a lot with his genres.)

I will say this: While the apocalyptic McGuffin isn’t the strongest, I am definitely more interested in reading about the rest of Moore’s Avengers.  I already have Echo (unread), and depending on how that goes, may pick up Rachel Rising and Motor Girl.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Terry Moore 25th Anniversary Sketchbook

I think Moore’s pencils are even more gorgeous than his inked work.  This thing was a joy to page through from start to finish.  A feast for the eyes.  Moore is amazingly talented.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

I tore through Misc Box 11 super fast.  I don’t have the stats, but ten days for a full box has to be close to a record for me.

Box summary

Time spent reading: 16 hours, 5 minutes

Issues read: 159

Issues cut: 0

Highlights (Good or better): Queen and Country 1-24, 26-32; Strangers in Paradise v2 1-13; Strangers in Paradise v3 13-15, 17-27, 31-32, 34-38, 40-45, 47-48, 50-60, 64-72, 74-90; Terry Moore 25th Anniversary Sketchbook

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 47 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes

Issues read: 9995

Issues cut: 1094

Strangers in Paradise

Strangers in Paradise 64-72, 74-90

This is not a perfect comic at all.  There’s a ton of plot repetition.  The actions of the main characters can be downright infuriating.  Terry Moore doesn’t do well when he strays from the main story and indulges his flights of fancy.  He retcons like crazy, and it’s usually very handwavy.  I can’t in good conscience give this more than a Good rating, no matter how quickly I tore through these issues.

But there’s no denying the emotional force of the storytelling and the hold that Katchoo, Francine, David, and Casey (yes, she really deserves equal billing by the end) have on me.  I care about these people and want them to be happy.  When their hearts are broken, mine breaks with along with them.  I’m completely invested in their lives, and there really isn’t enough that I can say about Moore’s mastery of the medium.

Moore had to come up with a lot of art pieces.

I liked them.  I'd go to this show.

Even to see this piece.  Perfect expressions by Moore.

I was just as happy to see him again.

Good or bad for the kid's development?  Hard to say...

Just a random Adam Hughes homage, with note-perfect eyes and signature...

This resonated with me.

Casey being the adult again.

She's really the one who's the catch.

I've never seen a better use of a favor.

I have no words.

Poor David.

What an ending.

It’s hard for me to believe, but this is better than I remember.  And funnily enough, my impressions are reversed; I used to like volume 2 the most, and this time around things don’t really kick into gear until around issue 13 of volume 3.  I originally stopped buying this with issue 54.  I would never have returned to it if it weren’t a sale at my LCS; I got the rest of the run, six trade paperbacks for 25 bucks.  An insane deal.  Thank goodness for the dearly departed Lee’s Comics.  When I think about what I could have been missing…

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good