G.I. Combat #3

Why did time have to suddenly remember this war?

The War That Time Forgot begins showing a flashback of Elliot this issue.

This scene is either showing how Elliot loves and cares for animals or that his wife is an unfeeling, shallow bitch.

Elliot can't help but take care of the poor, lost, lonely puppy. And judging by the cover, he's a sucker for cute little animals of any kind. But don't be fooled into thinking he's a softy! If something tries to eat him, he has no problem stuffing a grenade down its throat and dancing on its blood-soaked carcass.

Elliot finds a small dinosaur with billions of sharp teeth tearing the head off of a rat and he approaches it smiling. It's so cute! Like a terrifyingly deadly muppet! But just as he's about to tame it and name it George (if you know why he names it George and what he's going to do with it afterward, you're fucking old), Stevens runs up and scares the dinosaur off.

What a speciesist jerk! There are hundreds of different types of dinosaurs (possibly thousands but since God didn't say how many when he wrote The Bible, there's no way to know how many)! That one might have been one of the cuddly ones that gives adult massages.

Elliot and Stevens still haven't bothered to find out the name of their Korean Friend, so I'll just refer to him as K.F. He's the most likable member of the group because he barely says anything. Elliot was a bit of a cipher and simply "the best friend" last issue. But now his characterization has just exploded all over the place since we've found out he's an animal lover and caregiver! Although he's still mistrustful of K.F. Stevens, it turns out, is just an ashole asshole! That typo made me remember that Stevens first name is Ash!

These panels are deceptive because he seems to be acting so nice to K.F. But if they were at war, BAM MOTHER FUCKER! Brains all over some kind of North Korean bush I don't recognize!

Pretty soon, the team encounter a herd of Gasplochadons (I might be wrong on the name). Elliot and Ash blow one up and dive out of the way, leaving K.F. to handle the rest of them alone!

Noooooooo! My favorite character in G.I. Combat!

Korean Friend is torn apart by the Gasplochadons because his character was making the plot too complex. The tension was just too high wondering if he's going to turn on the Americans because he's a rat bastard Axis of Evil North Korean! Now the reader can concentrate on the strong platonic love of two war buddies just trying to survive.

While trying to save K.F. unsuccessfully, Elliot's gun is grabbed by a Gasplochadon and Elliot refuses to let go! So in order to save Elliot's gun, Ash shows off some mean fucking basketball skills.

What's that? About a thirty foot horizontal?

Ash manages to make the dinosaur let go of the gun and it falls to the ground. Elliot falls to the ground as well which is what Elliot could have done at any time without Ash's help so I can only assume they were trying to save the gun. But then the dinosaur stumbles with Ash on its back!

"NO! I told you to let go!"

Thus ends the next chapter of The War That Time Forgot. But here's a bonus scanned page that I found while looking in my 1976 Charlie Brown's Super Book of Questions and Answers.

"When I was in pre-school, we didn't believe in any of this new fangled asteroids destroying dinosaurs crap! We believed they died from biological warfare with the rats that ate their babies!"

The second half of G.I. Combat is going to suck because I find this super version of the Unknown Soldier uninteresting.

Unknown soldier kills hundreds of terrorists and captures the guy behind Red Jihad only to find out he's too late. The white teenaged kidnapped terrorists are already in New York and ready to destroy it next issue.

G.I. Combat #3 Rating: -2 Ranking. It gets a negative one for each story! The dinosaur story is just bland with fairly shallow characters. And the Unknown Soldier is ridiculous. I can't stand the Rambo style one man badass taking out hundreds of opponents style story. Oh but it has a big twist! The terrorists are white youths! Ho ho! Big fucking deal. Bored!

Men of War #8

Final Issue!

This war story takes place in London, England, in December of 1941. That places it during one of those big wars. You know, one of the ones that involved a lot of countries? This War Story is based on a true story. It's about an top secret Allied campaign called "Project Green Man".

Did they smoke out the Germans with some tasty buds? Or did they sick a representative of The Green on them? I think a representative of The Green was actually created during this time. Oh no, that takes place in December of 1942! And in the old DCU! I forget the date of the creation of the Green's Representative in the New DCU. Anyway, it isn't either of those and seeing as how I already posted a picture of the cover, it's not really much of a secret anyway. Frankenstein is set loose on the Germans! So how do they do it? Give him a big gun and shove him down to the front lines? Nope!

To Frankenstein, "Riding the Lightning" means coming to life instead of being put to death.

After Frankenstein takes out a German squadron, he's congratulated by Churchill and then shipped off to Japan for another mission. This time, he needs a little help so they send him off with his four armed bride. Unless she's his bride to be. I don't know when they were married!

Is a dancing corpse really all that sexy?

Frankenstein's Bride reaches the extraction point a scant minute too late. The Mechanical Monster has been released and it is headed toward the States. The man who worked on it calls it J.A.K.E. Japanese Armored Killing Entity? Japanese Android Knight Errant?

J.A.K.E. heads straight for the sub Frank is on so they launch Frank out of a torpedo tube to fight it. As they fight under water, Dr. Crane, watching it remotely, engages a special feature he built into it: The Traitor Button! The Japanese Attack Killer Elite changes sides and becomes the Joint Allied Killer Elite! Now the allies have a robot monster too!

The Robot joins sides and gives them all the intel it has on the Japanese. They have a secret project called "Motalla" (All Atom backwards?) which is set to be launched on New York. And launched it is in Chapter Four called "Monster in my Pocket!" So is the secret weapon Pikachu?

Nope! It's this Pokemon which I've never caught before!

Frank uses JAKE as a lure and baits the creature into following his plane out to sea where it will sink in the ocean and drown. But it swallows JAKE so Frank has to jump into its mouth and then explode out of its stomach.

Is that the only beast killing move you have in your bag, Lemire? Oh, that and the stabbing the creature in the eye. Let's hope you think up some new moves for future Frank issues.

And they live happily ever after.

I really don't know what the point of this story was. G.I. Robot's origin? Not fascinating enough. To show a growing camaraderie between Frank and JAKE due to their emotionally unavailable personalities and rigid physiques? I don't know. It just seemed like a lame way to end Men of War. It was really just a big ad saying, "Hey! This comic is ending but you can read the other one we have about this character, Frankenstein, every month!"

Men of War Issue #8 Rating: -1 Ranking. It was really just a boring, waste of time.

Men of War #7

Guy in a turban versus S.A.S. in a field of poppies! Quick: Who's the good guy?! Racist.

The first story in this issue is written by James Robinson. It begins with a squad of Special Air Service soldiers talking about being pulled out of Afghanistan. Most of the men can't wait. But one man, George Saint, has a nagging suspicion that their work isn't quite yet done.

This George Saint gets some kind of special exemption that will keep him in country three weeks past when everyone else has been called home. He knows of one last legendary insurgent leader, The Leopard, that he feels needs putting down. And he's going after him alone.

George kills all of The Leopard's men before coming face to gun with him. Even thought the Leopard has the gun, George kills him with his knife. But that doesn't happen for six pages. During those six pages, they fight. And George teaches the Leopard a thing or two about freedom! Like how instead of wearing real poppies on Remembrance Day, George and his countrymen wear paper poppies because poppies equal heroin and Leopard's people make heroin out of poppies because they're bad. They're also used for Morphine and all the other opioids. George also teaches him how he knows nothing about Sun Tzu which is probably a good thing since everyone quotes that jerk. And then he teaches him some British slang.

Good one!

And then he teaches him where his femoral artery is and the Leopard bleeds to death during the fight! The end!

First story: Boring! That's going to garner a -1 to the Ranking! Can J.T. Krul save Men of War from dropping any ranks or will he just double the damage? Let's find out!

Krul's story begins with a couple of guys riding in a helicopter shooting the poop.

Or Allah Mommy! Amirite?! No? Nobody? No one?

Next thing you know, Fish and Coop (those are those two guys!) are shot down in their helicopter! Crash! Boom! Bang! I mean, BOOOM!

Fish and Coop are stranded deep behind enemy lines. A truck full of enemy combatants pull up and pin them under heavy fire. Fish has one thought.

And then the comic shifts between Fish back in the States and Fish and Coop fighting for their lives. In Iraq, Fish is wounded several times and Coop gets killed. Back in the states, Fish wanders around feeling useless, unable to get a job, unable to relate yet always being praised and thanked for the great job he did for his country.

But it's all fucking lip service. And it's why I despise everyone who acts like every soldier is a hero while they're over there or when they return dead or wounded. They pretend that they're all over there because of a patriotic choice they made. Nobody wants to look at the real situation of the poor kids entering the military. The lost ones. The angry ones. The poor and downtrodden who don't see any other choices. Even just kids with no self-esteem or an inability to direct their own life. They crave the structure and the order. They crave a reason. Anything to bring meaning to a civilian life that has sucked ass from junior high right through high school.

But then they return and people pay them lip service because it's the patriotic way to look at things. View them as heroes instead of people with problems that need help. That probably needed help before even entering the service. And you know what happens to a great majority of these people who at one time or another found themselves in battle situations wishing they could be anywhere but here? Yeah. They fucking go back. Because there's nothing for them here. They don't all suddenly come back with "job skills".

This story doesn't end with Fish reenlisting though I really wish it did. I'd give it a +2 Ranking for that instead of the +1 I'm giving it for what it was. Instead Fish meets a Vietnam vet at the cemetery as Fish is visiting the grave of Coop. And he realizes perhaps the only people who can understand what he's been through, the only people who can speak with him without the bullshit glory and hero talk are the people who have been through what he's been through. Other vets who know they're all just people.

I don't know if I should be reading these modern war comics. I just hated Ivan Brandon's approach to Rock with his get the job done at any cost attitude and then Robinson's SAS man that can single handedly bring justice to a bad, bad man. I was hoping for more little picture stories like (unbelievably!) J.T. Krul's story here. The big picture is a big fat complicated mess. We've been in a war we never should have gotten involved in. This essay was my reaction to the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center just a few days after it happened. War was in the air as I wrote that and I just wanted to point out the ridiculousness of calling for bombing civilian centers when everyone was so outraged at that having just happened to us. I wasn't for this war nor have I ever been.

At the time I figured, at least soldiers signing up have a choice in the matter. If we fight, fight a war with soldiers. But boys and young men signing up for the military mostly aren't choosing to go to war. We have a responsibility to avoid putting these men and women in harm's way. Sending them to die for corporate bullshit or political lies or the illusion of safety is just crap. And sending thousands of more American men and women to die overseas did not bring back the thousands lost on 9-11-2001. And it hasn't made anybody any safer either.

Anyway, I hope to see more stories about the people in the conflict that have less to say about the overall conflict itself. It's the little stories that matter because the big story is just one big stinking fuck-up.

Men of War Issue #7 Rating: No Change. The two stories evened each other out.

Men of War #6

Last war story ever. Everyone dead. Go home.

Last issue, Sgt. Rock and his company were captured by a platoon of very old war soldiers. They weren't old like an old man is old! They were old as in they'd lived a long time but kept their middle aged good looks! Just before the issue ended, Sgt. Rock took the gun away from one of them and has taken the upper hand.

Sgt. Rock begins this comic by radioing General Schiff for help. But apparently Sgt. Rock is now part of some private detail and the army can't help him. Except Sgt. Rock, being smarter than everyone else, convinces the General that if he doesn't help Sgt. Rock and his men, America is going to get blamed for some really bad shit going down soon. Because the Undead Army Men will probably use the bodies of Sgt. Rock and his boys for a big frame up of America. Sure, Sgt. Rock has no proof. The Undead Army Men told Rock they didn't want to kill him or his men. So Rock surrendered. But then he thought twice about surrendering and now he's fighting back and looking for evac.

Is it unpatriotic to hope that a fictional American soldier dies? Because I'm sick of this new Sgt. Rock. I liked the Sgt. Rock that took part in real wars! This Sgt. Rock is just a tool of a corporate run America that needs to control every single action by every other country. And if they can't, they label that country as rogue.

Besides, the Undead Army Men are the first really interesting part of this comic since the other interesting part, Circe, barely did anything.

Rock takes the man he captured and tries to use him as a hostage to negotiate the release of his men. But the big grey Undead Army Leader does not negotiate with terrorists and he takes away Rock's advantage.

This guy is supposed to be pretty tough. I doubt two bullets will kill him.

Sgt. Rock dives from cover and begins shooting. He gets shot in the back right shoulder. And then he gets shot in the front right shoulder. But he shoots the Undead Army Leader three times directly in the chest. And this is Rock's big profound thought:

Is something someone would really think? As long as a soldier has a mission, no matter how bullshit, he can feel good about his death? An honourable death in service? But without a mission, Oh Noes! I died for nothing! Yeah, well get used to it. It's actually quite the revelation to make! Mission or no mission. Doesn't matter. Dead is dead.

Undead Army Leader is shot twice in the heart but he doesn't die. He tells Rock that he gave all of his men the gift of a long life. But "if enough of their blood spills, they will die." But he never will. He also seems impressed with Rock's ability to wage war. He offers Rock the gift of near immortality and Rock proudly refuses. Rock's last action before he believes he's going to be shot in the head is to give command to Private Korba.

Oh, you remember him. The Firestorm guy that saved their lives a few issues ago. The guy who, according to the cover, is about to save their lives again!

See? And he has some kind of control over his atomic blast power. So Rock and his men are fine and the Undead Army Guys are just knocked unconscious.

Rock and his men retreat from the building, carrying the Undead Army Guys over their shoulders. Korba's power tagged the building and the Air Force flies in to bomb the crap out of the weapons' cache located in the warehouse.

This is the big splash page. I could have drawn this! I know five year olds that could have drawn this. Okay, that's a lie. But I could probably find some five year olds that I don't know who could draw this!

And after this big explosion, are we going to get some profound after mission thoughts from Rock? Or maybe a few panels where he looks on pensively? Or maybe one more conversation with the Undead Army Leader where Rock shows him what a real, American Man is like! He convinces him that War does serve a purpose and that America only engages in war for the right cause and the correct reasons! Is that what happens next?

We do get a few panels of pensive silence.

But mostly it's just commentary from the American Undead Army Guy, the one with the red X on his forehead. He claims Rock is a lot like they are. They're all soldiers. Rock says he hopes not. And then Rock takes off with the Undead Guys tied up in the desert. The Red X Undead Guy yells at Rock to watch his back because there are other teams like theirs out there. It's an old conflict, older than most of these Undead Soldiers. And now Rock is involved. The End!

And maybe that's the end for good for Sgt. Rock because Ivan Brandon, the writer of the Sgt. Rock stories, is off the book for the last two issues. That's a good thing because these comics haven't been very good, right? Well, it could be except J.T. Krul is coming in to write Issue #7!

And now for the back-up story! Fuck it. It sucked. Nothing to see here.

Men of War Issue #6 Rating: -1 Ranking. Poor ending. Poor use of the Undead Army Guys who could have been interesting. And lousy back-up story.

Men of War #5

Shoot him! Please!

Men of War has gotten so bad that I couldn't even bother to reread my blog posts about the previous issues. I remember what happened! Rock and his crew were trudging through sand that turned into acid when a car ran over rock and ended up in a lake and Rock was saved by a noose around his neck thrown by a guy who is going to kill him. So let's get on with it!

The first two pages of this issue repeat nearly exactly the last three pages of the last issue. So here's the first "Fuck you!" of this issue to Ivan Brandon. You just wasted two pages of story. Thanks.
My second "Fuck you!" comes from the grenade that Sgt. Rock somehow conceals in his closed fist. Now, I'd let it slide if maybe he decided it was some sort of mini-grenade that could be concealed in a closed fist. But before Rock hides the grenade by closing his entire hand over it, the artist gives us this panel:

Maybe Sgt. Rock has Plastic Man's powers?

One of the reasons I'm crapping all over this comic is because the creative team has already proven to me that it's an outhouse. I can see the comic this could potentially be, even with the current story arc. But it's just all been done so sloppily: the writing, the story boarding, the art. Let's see if I can find some good stuff to say about it too. And then I'll get back to trashing it.

The man with the X on his head has Sgt. Rock on the end of a noose and a gun on him. The X Man's compatriots have rifles, pistols, and vehicle mounted machine guns trained on Rock's men. When the X man notices Rock has something in his hand, he tells him to throw it down. So Rock throws the grenade at them.

Here's an example of the laziness in all three categories I just mentioned. After Rock threw the grenade, it explodes and the bad guys go flying through the air. Rock and his men must have been just at that point outside the explosive radius where it didn't affect them. You know, that one critical foot past the guys who go flying all over the place. Oh, anyway, that's not the lazy example I meant! These panels are:

After the explosion, Rock gets to the guns the men dropped and trains them on them as the top panel shows. Then the second panel shows the big guy charging Rock. Right? Am I the only one who thinks that? He's not. Okay then, is he stomping away in a huff? And Rock doesn't threaten him or shoot him? Who the fuck knows because that's the last you see of him! He just makes a threat and disappears into the smoke, apparently. But that's all you get. Those two panels. Does that mean the writer thinks the reader is smart enough to figure out what happened? Sure, if you want to like this comic so bad you'll pretend you're reading a good comic. Instead, it's just confusing and lazy.

Also, what happened to the noose around Rock's neck? Yeah. He took it off during the explosion and the two panels after the explosion which show the bald guy trying to crawl to the guns. Then the panel after that is the first of the two I posted. Rock suddenly has those two guns and the advantage. Most of this comic is like that. Just making huge leaps in space and time and leaving the reader to make up what happens in between those moments.

It may sound like I'm bitching that the creative team isn't showing every step of the action. But I'm not! I really can't convey how badly these scenes are laid out!

Rock knocks out the bald guy, leaving no more bad guys (or bald guys!) to deal with. At that point, one of Rock's men panics and he runs for higher ground. It's apparently a bad move.

See? Sunday Comics version of Sgt. Rock says don't do it!

McLeod gets shot in the stomach and the leg as he runs uphill. I was going to scan that big panel of him getting shot but after scanning the page, little Sgt. Rock just looked too cute to not keep.

And then the X Man reappears out of the smoke. He may have been the one to shoot the soldier. That's not really made clear. Just like everything else in this comic book.

Now Sgt. Rock is going to listen. Now that he's given his word. You sure you don't have just one more grenade, dumb dumb?

This time, Rock allows his men to be taken prisoner. Bags are put on their heads and they're taken to some secret location. A gray man that looks like Captain Atom or Batwoman's brother asks if Rock is the one that killed the man. Rock follows along but I have no idea whom they're talking about until I recheck Issue #4. They mention he killed him with a pistol and Rock says he also had a grenade, so they're speaking about the man in the truck that tried to run over Rock in the middle of the desert. Apparently he was a powerful or important man.

It turns out the men who have captured Rock and his buddies are long lived war heroes. One is from Waterloo. One is from the Civil War. One is from, well, I don't know! Longer ago than that? One of Rock's men says the X man is a legend called The Gravedigger. They're supposed to be protecting the ship that Rock and his men were sent to blow up. I believe the man Rock killed was one of them. The fact that Rock killed an ancient being has impressed the leader of this group. And that's the only reason the Americans are still alive.

Rock talks them into letting him see his man who was shot to make sure he's okay. The bad guy that takes him is the guy Rock hit in the face with the gun. And Rock treats him like shit so that he'll get enraged enough to attack him. Which he, predictably, does. And Rock gets the gun out of his handcuffs and gets the gun away from him. The bad guy wonders how Rock escaped the cuffs.

Oh fuck you! I'd rather he said he went to Magic Camp.

Oh! Here's my nice thing to say about this comic. I like the introduction of a squad of guys who have lived for a very, very long time. They're instantly interesting! And I might have continued to be interested in how Rock and his men deal with and relate to these guys. But then Rock got an attitude and taunted the big guy and then said the Brooklyn line and I remembered I really don't like this character at all. How dare he judge if other people were raised right when he talks shit and, apparently, was busy in Brooklyn as a criminal and busting out of police cuffs.

Fuck you!

The back-up story was the best written piece in all five issues of Men of War so far. It was written by Matt Kindt, pencilled by Patrick Scherberger, and inked by Dan Green (oh, colorist, Thomas Chu and letterer, Rob Leigh. I might as well give all the credits!). It has some awkward moments and I think it ran one page too long. It's a female agent chasing a male agent. She's trying to kill him because she thinks he's going to detonate a bomb he planted on a ship. He's just trying to get away from her. And they fight and fight and run and run and fight. And lots of narration box thinking by both of them. It works pretty well.

I like how they interpret the situation so differently. And how the female character projects her feelings on the actions of the male. Both characters are fleshed out quite well in the small amount of space given the story. And I think it would have worked much better without the last page. But the last page doesn't ruin it. It just seems a bit much and ruins the possible reality of the situation by having them both survive a missile blast that destroys the mansion of the roof they're on.

But other than that final page, it was the first really intriguing back up story yet in these $4 titles. I've been expecting just cheap, thrown together crap for the back-up stories so this is surprising. And it shows what good use the back-up stories can be put to. Good job, back-up creative team!

Men of War #4

Naked? With his dick in something?

Private Korba's big explosion took out the helicopters coming for Rock and his group and also knocked all of the other combatants unconscious. Rock and his men were spared. They regroup and head inland. Private Perez wants to know what the hell Korba just did but Rock doesn't seem to be curious about it. Maybe that's how we've never seen Rock before? Not curious?

And since Rock isn't curious, Korba just decides to tell him his secret origin anyway. But his secret origin is so boring that I'm not going to repeat it. He wants to ditch Rock and the company because he's a freak but Rock won't let him go. Rock says that if you declare you're a freak, you aren't a freak. So you can't get out of Rock's unit that way! Except he doesn't say it like that Heller would say it. He doesn't even say Korba isn't a freak! He just tells Korba, "You're infantry." Oh! OH MY! That's so powerful!

I wish this war comic were more anti-military and anti-god! That would make it more interesting! Enough with the strong follow order types who keep praying to God. I wish Circe would come back to ask them about their bad decisions that led them into the military!

This comic is more of the confusing shit hits the fan. There's nothing going on here except a guy and his team reacting to problem after problem. His thoughts or narration boxes only slightly modify the panel. They don't add a new dimension or express any interior struggles. They wander the salt plains. Some enemy turns the salt to hydrochloric acid. I'm sure that was on Mythbusters seeing as how every other little science factoid the DC writers are using have been lifted from that show. Checking it out on the internet, I discover hydrochloric acid is made by combining salt with sulfuric acid. So the 'genius' plan (as Rock describes it) is that the enemy just sprayed Sulfuric Acid all over the ground to make hydrochloric acid? Or maybe the enemy has a Firestorm as well!

So after the acid, a truck comes out of nowhere to run over Rock who clings to it and throws a grenade under it and they end up in the salt lake. Rock pops up and gets lassoed around the neck. He's then dragged out to the feet of this guy:

Who cares?

The back-up story is just a little joke about military funding. I'm not sure if it's meant to be amusing or infuriating! Yet again, Men of War bites it big time! It drops two full ranks yet again for having a really crappy story that never needed to be told since the reader learns nothing about Rock and his company. And the back-up story was a joke that played like an episode of a sitcom where maybe one member of the regular cast appears but in a new situation that is obviously just a pilot for another show. Luckily, I only have four more issues of this helicopter crash of a comic to go!

Men of War #3

What the fuck is the sniper shooting at birds?

Third issue and third story to start off with two or three pages of the middle of the story while then reverting back to the beginning of the story to just tell it in a linear fashion from there.

Seriously. No, seriously. See how serious I am, starting a new paragraph and all that shit? Okay, okay, fuck you. Yeah, I start new paragraphs pretty fucking randomly sometimes. But this time. I'm serious.

Enough with the fucking pseudo starting in the middle bullshit when you're not really starting in the middle! This is not your fucking 'in media res', you got it? This is just bullshit. It doesn't draw me in. It just annoys me. Now if you'd continue the story from where you've started and the rest all falls in to place as the tale is told, that's 'in media res'. So just stop it. Every comic in this fucking company does it and just fucking stop it. Was this a demand handed down from Dan DiDio? I'm going to start knocking fucking heads if this keeps up!

How am I supposed to react?

"Oh man! They're really in the thick of things! Hmm, he's starting a music analogy. Okay, let's see where this goes."

"Hmm, well, he kind of loses the thread a bit here. Drops the music thing altogether. Weird. But they really seem to be in the shit here!"

"What? 'This would be the wrong place to die. This will be.' That's awkward and idiotic. Anyway, last clip! Let's see how they get out of this! Kind of curious as to what's happening but they have those narration thought boxes that should explain everything as they're pinned down in the thick of the fight!"

"Oh fuck me in my pee hole! We're gonna start the story now?! After wasting three pages just to make me realize where they're going to end up? What is that supposed to do? Elevate the tension? Or just waste three pages of my fucking $4.00!? Moronic."

Maybe I ate too much! Now I'm all cranky crazy spastic because my blood sugar is too high! Right now my rankings for the New 52 are pretty flexible and, well, bullshit. But these kinds of things are making me think I should create some kind of point system to help categorize how well written and entertaining each comic is. Does the Issue begin by changing events from last issue? Minus points! Does the issue begin with an excerpt from the middle only to tell the story from the beginning anyway? Big minus points! Or maybe that will just take more time than it's worth and I should just keep ranking the comics haphazardly!

When did Rock and his men become Navy Seals?

Holy fuck. I'm absolutely not surprised this comic was cancelled after reading this issue. I'm not quite done yet but I just read ten more pages. From page three where the soldier says, "Last clip," to the bottom of page 14 where the soldier once again says, "Last clip," catching the narrative back up to the beginning, the story makes absolutely no fucking sense. They might as well have just continued the story from page three with narrative boxes saying simply, "We were on a mission to blow up a battleship keeping food shipments from getting through. But things turned bugfuck and we had to find shelter as the whole town turned on us." There we go! Two sentences in a narration box to replace 11 pages of bullshit and confusion. Now what that means is we can spend 11 pages of the soldiers trapped and cornered. We could get some dialogue where we learn who all of these soldiers are. We can hear them being afraid. Oh, excuse me, they "don't know anymore how to be afraid."

These eleven pages are filled with narration boxes that describe the panels. It's like commentary from local news anchormen when they roll tape. "Here you'll see this car heading down the street. Then watch this as it hits a patch of ice! You'll notice it loses control and spins into the barrier!" And what do Rock and his guys do when the mission goes tits up? They kill everyone in town! I guess it's an evil town of evils since the people just swarm Rock's group with weapons.

Really? I paid money for this bullshit? Fuck. I'm an idiot.

After the last clip and the Americans run out of ammunition in the middle of the firefight, all of the combatants stop firing. Just, you know, because. Why kill them when they're not shooting back even though they've been shooting at them the whole time? So everyone takes a break until some apparent leader steps up, sighs, speaks a foreign language and then has all of the enemy combatants raise their weapons to, FINALLY, finish off Rock and his crew (at least I think it's Rock. He gets called Sarge twice and he has that scar that I'm pretty sure identifies him as Joe Rock (not to be confused with his totally kick-ass grandfather Frank)). And just before they all get killed, this happens:

Is he a Firestorm?!

And then the main story is over. And I'm not holding up too much hope for the back-up story to have an incredible finish.

Yeah, it was pretty lousy. "That family was just as scared of us as they were of the bad guys!" "Yeah, but we're the good guys and we saved them!" "Yeah! Go America!" "Anyway, best not to think too much!" The end.

Minus the pregnant lady, I've been in this situation hundreds of times in Call of Duty! Stupid rocket guys!

This issue of Men of War had a really, really horrible main story. And the back-up was as bad as it's always been. The comic told almost no story. "Rock and his team fuck up a mission and almost die. Private Korba explodes." This issue is causing Men of War to drop three full ranks! Good job, creative team!

Men of War #2

That's a pretty virulent strain of herpes.

Men of War continues with Rock and his company taking shelter in the house of a man who doesn't really want them there. In his house. In his city. In his country. Rock and his men are just as confused as the owner of their new shelter. The super being was an unknown factor. Nobody knows what it was or where it came from or why it appeared as they began the mission. But whatever it was, it seemed to be taken down by some "black muck" and it crashed into the ocean. But not before setting the entire city on fire, killing the group's Sergeant, and severely wounding Rock's right arm.

The team makes its way to the building where the senator is being kept hostage. They toss in a flash grenade and a stunner to take out the guards. And the senator! Even after they save his life, I bet he gets all angry and uppity about that. Except that would be unpatriotic and an unreelectable thing to do! So even if his hearing and vision is damaged, he'll still be patriotically pleased with the rescue.

As the team is cleaning up, the super powered being enters.

That's a pretty complicated question, miss. The answer probably isn't 'Patriotism' even though most flag loving Americans love to believe that's the main reason for everyone in the service.

This lady rockets up into the sky taking Rock with her. The woman calls herself Circe. I have no idea if she's meant to be Wonder Woman's Circe or not. She looks exactly like Batwoman though! She tells Rock that he and his people are not wanted here and to tell his leaders to not return.

Is this how Sgt. Rock becomes a protestor for peace?

Then she drops him out of the sky and he burns up but then he wakes up in a helicopter with the senator sitting in front of him and then it's a week later and one of Rock's team is telling him everything is gone, the helo, the black box... What the fuck? Is that how you end this thing? Sure, sure. The overall storyline is going to continue next month. But that's how you this thing ends? Is Rock just having lapses in memory and consciousness now? Does he only get to remember bits and pieces? I blame changing the format to 20 page stories for this bullshit! Gotta pack it all in!

So, Rock falls to earth and comes to on the Helicopter with everyone else. Less pages and less care being taken to fill the pages with enough story, so it's easier to just skip forward and make Rock miss out on all the in-between as well. And then we need a lead-in to the next part of the story line! So we'll cram it all confusingly into the last page where Rock's buddy tells him how the Senator disappeared in a helicopter somewhere between New York and Washington, DC. I had to read these last three pages about five times to figure out that the Senator [probably!?] disappeared on a different helicopter than the one they show Rock on with his men. It's just all crammed in so haphazardly. I think the editor just looked at it and went, "What the fuck?" Then Ivan Brandon, the writer, explained to the editor what was going on in a way that should have been explained in the comic. And then the editor went, oh, okay, that makes sense when YOU FUCKING TELL ME ABOUT IT! The editor should have said, "Hey, why don't you write it so you don't have to fucking explain it, you stupid hack?" I bet the editor didn't say that because the editor didn't want to look stupid. The editor probably didn't even mention anything. He just read it and thought, "I don't get it. But I'm not telling that arrogant bastard of a writer that I don't get it or he'll think I'm just a stupid editor!"

Hmm. Maybe I should get something to eat! I think my low blood sugar is making me crazy!

The back-up story is the second part to the Navy Seals thing called 'Human Shields'! It's probably another eight pages of dumb. I guess I should read it to give it a chance.

Fuck, why did I read that.

The haphazard craptastic way the main story ended forces me to drop this title by one rank. And the back-up story is just boring bullshit yet it tacks another dollar onto the price of the comic. So that means Men of War is dropping two ranks this month! Losers!

Men of War #1

Why am I reading this when I can be experiencing it?! I mean on Call of Duty on the Xbox.

The beginning seems to be Rock's ending. Corporal Rock lies bloody and bruised with a broken arm at the bottom of a crater. He's going in and out of consciousness. He believes he's going to die. And then it cuts over to a military scene with Rock being interviewed by a Sergeant and a General.

But going back to the part where Rock feels like he's going to die. Death is coming for all of us. That's no surprise to anybody ever at any time. But we fill our lives with distractions to keep from going mad with the reality of it. The great thing about death is that it takes most people unawares. You can be blissfully ignorant planning your future and wham! You're dead. You probably won't even have time to figure out why or how or that it's coming. Just bam and done. It's probably one of the reasons people fear flying so much. It's not just being completely out of control. It's also knowing that if something goes wrong, you get to sit terrified for minutes knowing that your life is over. And that's what I imagine being in war must be like. Death constantly mocking you and hanging over your shoulder, whispering in your ear that the next bang you'll never hear because the bullet will be for you.

I forget what news show it was or what military incident it was describing, but a young soldier was talking about trying to take a mountain in Afghanistan, I believe to get to a downed helicopter with comrades. They were on the side of a hill exposed to mortar fire. Explosions everywhere. And this young kid described it absolutely perfectly. It wasn't about praying or crying or pushing on or being brave. He said he just kept thinking that it was just going to stop. He described it as if his life were a movie playing on a screen. And suddenly the images were just going to stop. The screen gone black. Done. That's it. It's a terrifying thought. And imagine living that day in and day out.

And speaking of the screen going black! I have never seen the Sopranos. But I heard about the ending because it upset so many people. But when I heard about the ending, I thought it was genius! Just perfect! If the show was about Gandolfini's character, then when his character gets whacked, that's it! Over! And just like I described earlier, you most likely will not know when your time comes. It'll just be over. Like The Sopranos. I may be entirely wrong about that and the ending since I never watched the show. But if the case is he was killed in the middle of just doing something normal and the show just went black without the viewer even getting to experience the kill, that's brilliant. Just fucking brilliant.

Back to Men of War! I like that the beginning has Corporal Rock being told he could have made Sergeant many times over by now if he didn't have so many counts of insubordination against him. You know, because he's best known as Sgt. Rock. But his insubordination has always led his group (Easy Company!) getting the task done. Maybe not easily as their name suggests. But Rock leads as his team needs and not as the higher ups demand.

The Sergeant trying to motivate Rock mentions he knew his Granddad, Frank Rock. So I guess we get the new generation of soldier in the Reboot. Since Rock was known as a World War II soldier, DC needed a new generation of Rock to tell stories of the current retarded war the United States has gotten itself into.

Sgt. Torisi and his men, including Rock, are parachuting into enemy territory to rescue a senator who had been trying to negotiate a cease fire. As they're parachuting down, a super powered person comes streaking down from the sky and slamming into their landing site, catching the whole village on fire. The Company lands amidst the flames and begins to regroup.

Everything eventually turns to shit as the super powered being seems to begin to fight with itself. It is only shown as a profile, black and purple. But Rock describes describes it as one point as "his shadow itself turns against him." Reminds me a bit of Negative Man. Or Negative Woman. Or Rebis. But the being, whoever it is, starts flying erratically and smashing through buildings. The company tries to take cover but the being explodes through the building they're in, leaving them mangled, hurt, and possibly all dead. Save Rock and Sgt. Torisi. The timeline has now caught up to how the book started with Rock injured and barely conscious. Sgt. Torisi, dying, hands Rock his dog tags and tells him he's a Sergeant now. Oh, and Rock's first name is Joseph!

I really like the first issue. Adding the super being to the story was a perfect bit of military SNAFU since the being is apparently on their side. It's just a weapon out of control. At one point the men see him just hanging in front of the moon and one of the men says, "What kind of man...." Sergeant Torisi answers him with, "That ain't a man. Man's what you are. That there's an accident of nature." Just a nice moment to highlight the difference between the real grit and grime of the normal world versus the fancy world of super heroes. And then to have the company become casualties of the destruction that always follows on the wake of the super beings in a fight is also a nice perspective. Not nice that they all died! But nice to see that side of the tale told.

There's a back-up war story in the first issue about Navy Seals. It's pretty much just military bullshit. Nothing exciting happening here yet.