Post by MWGallaher on Oct 29, 2015 20:29:42 GMT -5
I avoided most war comics in the Bronze Age, when I was an avid comic collector, picking up only an occasional special book like an Enemy Ace reprint, a Sgt. Fury reprint with Captain America and Bucky, one or two of Kirby's Losers.
I've been correcting the oversight thanks to the modern day miracle of collected editions.
Sgt. Rock was first up, via Archives I borrowed from my local library, and I was surprised to find them extremely engaging. Rock didn't take long to get into his groove, and by the 5th or 6th story, the series seems to have matured to a level of high quality that it seems to have maintained. All the following volumes were just as good, in my opinion.
DC's Showcase volumes gave me the chance to check out several of their other war headliners. My first Showcase was War That Time Forgot, which I expected to enjoy, but I found it frequently unbearable. It was fun to look at, but it highlighted Kanigher's worst tendencies, with unbearable redundancy, aggravating dialogue, and rewriting the series' own continuity every 6 issues or so. Painful.
I got a lot luckier with my next choice, Unknown Soldier Volume 1. I had heard lots of good things about the Michelinie/Talaoc run, and that praise proved to be merited. I was a little worried when I realized that fully one half of that volume was drawn by Jack Sparling, who is far from a favorite with me, but I found his work here enjoyable, although so extremely inconsistent that I had to wonder if he had assistants doing lots of the work.
Just this year, I picked up Volume 2, which finishes off the Michelinie run, which ends far too soon, and replaces him with Bob Haney, who delivers some disappointing stories. One of the things that would have really bugged me as a kid was his bringing "Chat Noir" in as the Soldier's sidekick: I didn't know French then, and I would have read that as an English "Chat", which would have been very aggravating--almost as aggravating as the Nazis always referring to him as "Unknown Soldat". Just translate everything, please, Bob...
Another odd thing about Volume 2 is that after Michelinie leaves, Talaoc stops pencilling and instead inks Dick Ayers, who's credited with pencils. And yet it's obvious that Joe Kubert is supplying detailed layouts, which leaves me struggling to find much of anything that Ayers is contributing to the work under the overwhelming inks of Talaoc. Why not just give the layouts straight to Talaoc, who was doing just fine on the earlier run?
I've also enjoyed Showcase Presents Haunted Tank Volume 1, which was a lot more fun than I expected, although some of Kanigher's bad tendencies are again in evidence.
Showcase Presents the Losers Volume 1 was a big hit with me, packed with loads of incredible John Severin artwork, and I followed that with the hardcover of Kirby's run.
Finally I figured I should give Marvel's number one war comic a chance, and got the Essential Sgt. Fury. I was very disappointed to find that this series was essentially unreadable. After DC's war comics, these stories seemed sanitized and unfocused, but what really got to me was the damn wordiness of the thing! Every page was jam-packed with dialogue, so it felt like everything was exposition, not action. Seriously, this may be the wordiest comic I've read since EC's Psychoanalysis. I still haven't been able to finish.
I've been correcting the oversight thanks to the modern day miracle of collected editions.
Sgt. Rock was first up, via Archives I borrowed from my local library, and I was surprised to find them extremely engaging. Rock didn't take long to get into his groove, and by the 5th or 6th story, the series seems to have matured to a level of high quality that it seems to have maintained. All the following volumes were just as good, in my opinion.
DC's Showcase volumes gave me the chance to check out several of their other war headliners. My first Showcase was War That Time Forgot, which I expected to enjoy, but I found it frequently unbearable. It was fun to look at, but it highlighted Kanigher's worst tendencies, with unbearable redundancy, aggravating dialogue, and rewriting the series' own continuity every 6 issues or so. Painful.
I got a lot luckier with my next choice, Unknown Soldier Volume 1. I had heard lots of good things about the Michelinie/Talaoc run, and that praise proved to be merited. I was a little worried when I realized that fully one half of that volume was drawn by Jack Sparling, who is far from a favorite with me, but I found his work here enjoyable, although so extremely inconsistent that I had to wonder if he had assistants doing lots of the work.
Just this year, I picked up Volume 2, which finishes off the Michelinie run, which ends far too soon, and replaces him with Bob Haney, who delivers some disappointing stories. One of the things that would have really bugged me as a kid was his bringing "Chat Noir" in as the Soldier's sidekick: I didn't know French then, and I would have read that as an English "Chat", which would have been very aggravating--almost as aggravating as the Nazis always referring to him as "Unknown Soldat". Just translate everything, please, Bob...
Another odd thing about Volume 2 is that after Michelinie leaves, Talaoc stops pencilling and instead inks Dick Ayers, who's credited with pencils. And yet it's obvious that Joe Kubert is supplying detailed layouts, which leaves me struggling to find much of anything that Ayers is contributing to the work under the overwhelming inks of Talaoc. Why not just give the layouts straight to Talaoc, who was doing just fine on the earlier run?
I've also enjoyed Showcase Presents Haunted Tank Volume 1, which was a lot more fun than I expected, although some of Kanigher's bad tendencies are again in evidence.
Showcase Presents the Losers Volume 1 was a big hit with me, packed with loads of incredible John Severin artwork, and I followed that with the hardcover of Kirby's run.
Finally I figured I should give Marvel's number one war comic a chance, and got the Essential Sgt. Fury. I was very disappointed to find that this series was essentially unreadable. After DC's war comics, these stories seemed sanitized and unfocused, but what really got to me was the damn wordiness of the thing! Every page was jam-packed with dialogue, so it felt like everything was exposition, not action. Seriously, this may be the wordiest comic I've read since EC's Psychoanalysis. I still haven't been able to finish.
