Morales and Baker's powerful story about the African-American experience in wartime in the United States continues, and it continues to evolve into a different kind of tale this month. There's a disturbingly serene tone to this issue, contrary to the flashier and rage-filled events of the previous two chapters. The cast of characters has been whittled down, and somehow, as the story affects fewer players, it grows in scope and impact. Baker's art remains expressive and his colors maintains a foreboding, dire mood, though some panels are oddly sketchy.
The U.S army begins its experiments, testing Dr. Reinstein's super-soldier formula on the black soldiers it has gathered for its grisly purposes. The men are treated as little more than lab rats, until finally only six men remain, the sole survivors of experiments performed on two regiments. Meanwhile, the soldiers' families and friends are informed that their loved ones have died in a fictitious explosives accident while in training.
This issue boasts the most striking and telling cover of the series to date. The sea of blue jumps out and grabs the eye, and the silhouette on the American flag makes it clear that one is about to read a story of unwilling sacrifices to a desperate government. The colors on the interior of the book, though, are appropriately muted and dark, given the ugly side of establishment that's on display. The cartoony, exaggerated tone of Baker's art here works surprisingly well in the telling of such a mature and disturbing story, but there are some sketchier panels -- panels that lacks the same detail and clarity that is to be elsewhere in the book -- that jar the reader out of the story for a moment here and there.
Morales employs a disjointed techique in the progression of the story, jumping from experiment scene to a mourning scene, and repeating it a few times. The panels don't flow well, but it works in conveying the confusion and pain of the characters. It adds an unreal, disconnected tone that throws the off-balance, and somehow, it draws us into these unimaginably traumatic experiences.
The most surprising aspect of the script, though, was the addition of a spiritual element to the story. The whole issue boasts an uneasily quiet and almost peaceful quality, and spirituality pops up throughout. Family and friends mourn, and men face death. But in the climactic scene during which Sgt. Evans gets the men riled up, ghosts or souls loom over the scene, touching upon the characters' heritage and reminding the reader how far back the abuse around which this plot revolves really goes.
