WAR STORY: JOHANN'S TIGER
"Johann's Tiger"
Highly Recommended (9/10)
|
DC Comics/Vertigo imprint
Writer: Garth Ennis
Pencils: Chris Weston
Inks: Gary Erskine
Colors: Pamela Rambo & Heroic Age
Letters: Clem Robins
Editors: Tony Bedard & Will Dennis
Price: $4.95 US/$8.25 CAN |
Garth Ennis has explored soldiers and the concept of war time and time again, and he's shown he handles the subject matter amazing well... most of the time. Those disappointed not to find the usual Ennis insight into those notions in last week's Fury #1 (from Marvel's MAX Comics) will find it here in War Story: Johann's Tiger.
Germany, April 1945. Johann Kleist commands a German tank crew that has realized that their homeland is fighting a war it can no longer win, and they decide they don't want a part of it anymore. They leave their assigned battlefield, seeking out Americans, given their reputation for civility. The crew of Big Max, the tank Kleist commands, runs from Russians and their own people, but Kleist himself is running from himself.
Weston has wowed us with his work on Enemy Ace: War in Heaven (another collaboration with Ennis) and on Warren Ellis's Ministry of Space. He does another spectacular job on Johann's Tiger. However, there's a different quality to his work here. Erskine's inks bring a... dirtier quality (for lack of a better term) to the art, and it suits the dirty tone of the story. War is hell, and Weston and Erskine show us as much.
Ennis convinces the reader of the bond among soldiers by showing their leader's fierce protectiveness. But he also explores a darker, less heartening aspect of war: the crimes that are committed during the course of the conflicts. Though I can't imagine Kleist's time during the war, Ennis nevertheless paints him as human, despite anything he's done in the past.
This is the first of four War Story one-shots, and I'm now awaiting the others with bated breath. Even today, the concept of war seems a foreign idea, (though more possible in light of recent events). Ennis's strong characterization takes us into the minds of those who have seen things we cannot fathom, and done things some cannot forgive.
Email Don MacPherson comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.
|
