By Garth Ennis, P. J. Holden, Russ Braun, Carlos Ezquerra, Hector Ezquerra & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-222-6
Garth Ennis is a devout aficionado of the British combat comics he grew up reading. He’s also a writer with a distinct voice and two discrete senses of humour.
In Battlefields the cruel, surreal ultra-violent gross-out stuff that made Hitman and The Boys such guilty pleasures are generally sidelined to make room for the far more blackly sardonic ironies of Preacher and True Faith.
Ennis practically resurrected the combat genre in US comics through a sequence of superb War Stories co-created with the industry’s top illustrative talent for DC’s mature reader Vertigo imprint, and later crafted more of the same for Dynamite Entertainment through the themed-anthology series Battlefields, beginning in November 2008. Here he continued blending a unique viewpoint (pro-warrior but savagely anti-war) with his love of those British comics strips, and this second Complete Edition gathers three more triptychs set in World War II, all digging deep beyond big-screen glamour glitz to expose the grimy guts of life during wartime in self-contained arenas most of us never gave a second thought to…
Illustrated by P. J. Holden, the horrific madness resumes in 1942 as ‘Happy Valley’, highlights the outrageous behaviour and doomed camaraderie of airmen ‘From a Land Down Under’.
When not pulling stupid pranks or rowdily carousing, the Australians of 444 Squadron spend their nights pounding the German industrial heartland of the Ruhr Valley in their Vickers Wellington bombers…affectionately known as “Wimpysâ€.
However, one particular crew is more than a bit upset when their top-notch pilot is replaced by fresh-faced Ken Harding; a kid straight out of flight school. However, after the first mission the frequent fliers have cause to reassess the weird little sprog and his raw skill or incredible luck.
The magic happens again after dull times and enforced grounding ‘In Pomgolia’ leads to more nights of sheer terror and exhilaration before the inevitable finally happen in the breathtaking conclusion ‘Who’ll Come on Ops in a Wimpy With Me?’…
In volume one Ennis and his venerable old collaborator Carlos Ezquerra (artistically aided, abetted and inked by his son Hector) introduced a work-shy, callow crew of Londoners manning a Churchill Tank who had to adapt to a new commander in the short squat shape of a foul-mouthed Geordie, who babbled orders in his bizarre northern jibber-jabber no normal bloke could understand…
Now Sergeant Stiles returns in ‘The Firefly and His Majesty’. It’s February 1945, and, riding a brand new Sherman Firefly, he’s part of a push deep into enemy territory. Sadly, a fanatical old adversary piloting Germany’s last super-weapon is ready to offer the invaders a lethal ‘Welcome to the Fatherland’…
Stiles is now part of the Fourth Royal Tank Regiment, having fought his way from Africa all the way up into Italy and fully intends on killing a few more smug “Jormans†before he’s done.
Soon he and his new squad come upon the remains of an American tank column that has been obliterated by two King Panzers. As Stiles tracks one of them he thanks his lucky stars the monster tanks weren’t around until the war was almost won. Still, his Firefly isn’t exactly standard issue either…
As they cautiously hunt for the enemy, the crew share the story of why Stiles hates Tigers so much and why he’s looking for one German tank commander in particular. ‘Soldiers of the Reich’ then sees the over-eager sergeant finally make a mistake which – he judges – makes him no better than the scum he’s hunting…
Filled with righteous fury, Stiles at last confronts his hated enemy in the ruins of a bombed-out cathedral, but after all modern innovations of butchery are exhausted the final terrible battle in the ‘Kingdom of Dust’ is fought and won with the most primitive of weapons…
The final tale in this turbulent tome also features a returning character.
‘Motherland’ is drawn by Russ Braun and returns to the Soviet theatre of war to chart the further exploits of female flyer Anna Borisnova Kharkova. She began defending her country as a night bomber harassing the German invaders as one of the all-woman squadrons dubbed Nachthexen or Night Witches…
Now a Captain, she is part of a vast Flight of fighter pilots harassing the enemy as they retreat from Stalingrad, pushed back by the sheer volume if not quality of the massed Russian war machine. The Soviets are now building up to a mass attack to liberate Kursk, but female pilots still struggle to earn the respect of their arrogant male comrades.
Although she has an ally in Commander Colonel Golovyachev and a friend in her timid mechanic Private Meriutsa (AKA “Mouseâ€) she has also picked up a ruthless enemy in Political Officer Major Merkulov of the NKVD, whom she caught in a moment of arrant cowardice under fire…
Anna contents herself with killing Germans whenever she can and is astounded after a spectacularly disastrous sortie to be made a Hero of the Soviet Union for her efforts. The award results in her being removed from combat missions and ordered to school more hopelessly ineffective girls in the intricacies of aerial warfare, but her attempts to protect them are wasted once new Political Officer Captain Bobrov orders the untrained novices into combat…
Rushing after her defenceless charges Anna suddenly finds herself in the greatest and most important battle of her life…
Packed with blistering action, horrific human experiences and breathtaking gallows humour, these amazing tales of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances come with a fascinating and informative Afterword from the author, script excerpts, recommended further reading, covers by Garry Leach, plus extensive sketchbook sections featuring character designs, layouts, pencils and finished art from Braun, Holden and the Ezquerras.
These are not stories for children. Due to Ennis’s immense skill the carefully constructed moments of tension, terror and relief strike home and strike hard; whether he is aiming for stress-releasing belly laughs,, lambasting the Powers That Be always ready to send fodder to slaughter or, as seen most frequently here, examining in excoriating detail how the acts of war makes mortals into monsters.
These hyper-authentic yarns reek of grim veracity and are a tribute to the spirit of people at their very best and worst. This is war as I fear it actually is, and it makes bloody good reading.
© 2010, 2011 Spitfire Productions, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
