Comments

1. davegraham says:

   July 2, 2008 at 11:25 pm

   I picked this up on a whim. I have been wanting to grab something new off the shelf for a while now. Something that had nothing to do with registered/unregistered superheroing or any sort of crisis. Something different. Something on issue one. Something I had heard nothing about.

   The soldier on the cover of this comic was a regular G.I. Joe (not of the type the "Yo’s"). Nothing extraordinary. And the idea of a regular war comic seemed like the kind of book I have been jonesing for. And I know I have heard someone say Chuck Dixon is a competent, if not pretty darn good, telling of war stories. So I picked this thing up.

    Low in behold, it is not the straight World War 2/Band of Brothers drama I was expecting. Nope. There is a twist to this one, It is a What If. See, Oppenheimer went and blew himself (and all of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project) up while testing the world’s first atomic bomb. So the US has to invade Japan.

    This issue sets all of that up, and fairly well I would say. We get introduced to soldiers on both sides for whom the war has already worn them down. A civilian priest who is trying to spare Japanese children from having to go off to no doubt suicide themselves in battle. Some shift Germans hiding out in a U-boat who are up to no good (could they be trying to get atomic secrets to the Japanese… maybe). And, towards the end of the issue, is that John Wayne signing up for the war.

   Dixon weaves a compelling beginning, spinning a well thought out twist to something I was expecting to be straight forward. Guice captures a lot of detail in the war machines he draws and drama in the people he portrays. I give this my highest recommendation for anyone who enjoys war stories in a slightly unreal world but with the appropriate, uncelebratory, tone.

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2. postcrisisdan says:

   July 3, 2008 at 10:16 pm

   Only ten people pulled this, man… do yourself a favor if you like good books and pick this up. It’s different and kind of a cool "What If…"

   and davegraham i thought that too and i am not sure if i would want that to be him or not. I mean the Duke is sweet, but i am not sure i want celebrity for a inspired world war two book. The story so far has Patton McArthur  Truman and others thats the kind of celebrity I expect. 

   Cool book if you are short on cash and looking for a cool book you can’t afford drop Trinity and buy this instead.  

    

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3. Firest says:

   July 4, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    

   A very enjoyable read, far better than I expected it to be, dispite some questionable historical choices (the army brass wouldn’t have let John Wayne anywhere near the front lines if he’d enlisted, and MacArthur wouldn’t have let Patton anywhere near the Pacific theater).

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4. jujoji says:

   July 7, 2008 at 4:19 am

   I was blown away by this book.  I am a huge history buff, with an emphasis on WWII (see Ken Burn’s The War for a good WWII documentary).  One of the big issues of WWII was the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Was it a war crime?  Was it necessary?  This comic will give one person’s view of what would have happened if we did have to invade the Japanese home islands.

   I loved both the writing and art in this first issue. I’m really looking forward to where this is going to go.

   In response to the criticisms of John Wayne in the book, I say this: let’s see where Dixon takes that thread.  We don’t know yet.  @Firest – the Duke is not even in the armed forces yet.  We just saw him in the recruiting office.  He may not even get sent into combat.  Let’s see where Dixon takes this before bashing the concept. Also @postcrisisdan – WWII was all about celebrity from the American standpoint.  Getting all the celebrities involved, either in entertaining the troops or selling war bonds, making morale lifting movies, etc.  Americans were just as obsessed with celebrity then as now, and the US used that aspect of our culture to aid the war effort.  So I would argue that celebrity does have a place in this book.  It looks like Dixon will explore that aspect as well as the ground level trooper’s viewpoint (on both sides).

   BTW Nobody mentioned the John Ford appearance – he was in the boat with Wayne, which made me like this book even more.

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