This came out two weeks ago,\u00a0and\u00a0was rather overshadowed\u00a0for our purposes by\u00a0some\u00a0of the other stuff that was out. \u00a0But let’s deal with it quickly before time moves too far on.<\/p>\n
With\u00a0the centenary of World War I extending\u00a0for the next four years,\u00a0perhaps we\u00a0should expect\u00a0a number of stories to take a crack at it. \u00a0Now nestled safely beyond the sensitivities of living memory, World\u00a0War I has a\u00a0well settled\u00a0place in popular culture: it’s the war that symbolises the slaughterous futility\u00a0of war.<\/p>\n
If you want wartime heroics in Europe, you do World War II, which offers both excitement and some clear cut\u00a0baddies. \u00a0Nobody sets a story in World War I any more unless it’s going to be miserable. \u00a0Partly this is due to the conditions of trench warfare,\u00a0even though those were primarily a\u00a0consequence of the level of military\u00a0technology\u00a0in 1914, rather than an inherent feature of war. \u00a0Partly it’s because\u00a0the immediate triggers for World War I were\u00a0relatively trivial, giving the impression of a war that wasn’t about anything in particular –\u00a0which is very much a hindsight view.<\/p>\n
John Arcudi and Joe Quinones’ “The Great War” skips the trenches\u00a0by setting itself\u00a0near the end of the war, but still\u00a0plays the futility card fairly heavily. \u00a0It’s\u00a0very<\/em> near the end of the war, and everyone on both sides knows it –\u00a0which means\u00a0that they’re almost going through the motions while they wait for the war to end. \u00a0Or at least they could.<\/p>\n Logan is in the Canadian military, in a rather odd unit that also features a physically fragile telepath, Lieutenant Bellamy. \u00a0Bellamy and Logan are both openly serving as superhuman soldiers (Bellamy could hardly be passed off as a normal soldier anyway), but as men\u00a0in uniform rather than a proto-superhero \u00a0In an interesting\u00a0touch, it’s played as something that’s entirely familiar to the entire unit and calls for no explanation whatever; it’s just the way\u00a0things work in the Marvel Universe.<\/p>\n The unit’s mission is to capture the last bridge across\u00a0some river or other, and more importantly, to stop the Germans from blowing it up first. \u00a0On the other side\u00a0are the Germans, under the command of Captain Hiban, an entirely decent\u00a0man who\u00a0– once he realises he’s under attack and losing – is absolutely determined to blow up the bridge.<\/p>\n All this leads to a story of the “you can’t escape your nature” variety. \u00a0Precisely because the causes of World War I are obscure, it’s\u00a0really just a matter of national ancestry which side the characters happen to be on. \u00a0Logan is there, not because he’s a hero in any sense, but simply because he’s a reliable killer; he’s being used as a weapon here, not so much by\u00a0conscious manipulation from the authorities, but simply by giving him the opportunity to be true to himself.<\/p>\n Bellamy, an overenthusiastic telepath who doesn’t realise the extent to which he’s messing with other people’s minds, isn’t especially heroic either; he certainly wants to be the good guy, but\u00a0he equates this simply with being part of the group. \u00a0He’s\u00a0not a particularly bad guy, but he’s deluding himself that he’s a better person than he really is.<\/p>\n And of course, that leaves Hiban, despite being the antagonist, to be positioned as the only really heroic character in the story. \u00a0He’s prepared to sacrifice himself to try and get the bridge destroyed, and crucially,\u00a0this is not simply because\u00a0he’s following orders. \u00a0The war is ending soon anyway; if he slows down the Allied advance a bit, at least\u00a0fewer people will die in the meantime. \u00a0This actually counts as noble, within the limits of the situation.<\/p>\n The\u00a0story’s other main conceit is to have\u00a0Logan and Hiban linked together in their dreams, thanks to Bellamy’s botched telepathy reconnaissance, so that they recognise each other when they meet. \u00a0Obviously this is intended to flag up the parallels between the two and to allow Logan at least some glimmer of possibility for change, by having him show some appreciation of Hiban’s favourite music.<\/p>\n Quinones’ art has a strong sense of place and a great use of shadow, combined with\u00a0wonderfully clear storytelling and\u00a0nicely subtle expressions on his characters. \u00a0And having established a measured tone for most of the story, he’s able to get across Logan’s\u00a0violent impulses very effectively simply by\u00a0having those pages\u00a0dial up the exaggeration just a touch – something the colouring helps by throwing in some\u00a0neon backdrops at odds with the muted realism of the rest of the issue. \u00a0It’s a great example of\u00a0the advantages of setting a style for a story that\u00a0leaves\u00a0you\u00a0with somewhere to go when you need it.<\/p>\n A straightforward enough story, and a solidly good entry in the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This came out two weeks ago,\u00a0and\u00a0was rather overshadowed\u00a0for our purposes by\u00a0some\u00a0of the other stuff that was out. \u00a0But let’s deal with it quickly before time moves too far on. With\u00a0the centenary of World War I extending\u00a0for the next four years,\u00a0perhaps we\u00a0should expect\u00a0a number of stories to take a crack at it. \u00a0Now nestled safely beyond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2717,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions\/2717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}