Rapid Reviews - 9 June 2004 - Part IV

World's Best Comics: The Silver Age DC Archives Sampler: I love the samplers. Ok, so two of the three stories I'd already read, but the Sgt Rock story was good (for a war tale) and the book was only 99 cents. Not bad, all told. I wish DC would do more reprints from the Golden and Silver Ages, particularly stuff that hasn't seen print before, but I'll support samplers like this.

H-E-R-O #17: Ok. I think I liked this series a lot better when it focused on the reactions of ordinary people to getting powers. I'm liking this arc, quite a bit, but it feels like it's gone on one issue too long or something. The cliffhangers aren't cliffy enough. And I'd much rather see the bad guy being fought than just about everyone else. I hope this arc ends in the next issue.

Demo #7: The iconic art on this one bothered me on the first read-through. Normally I try not to read the book a second time before I review it, but this time I couldn't avoid it. I just started to read, and suddenly had finished the book again, and on the second read I was able to tell the main character from the others easily. I don't know for sure what changed between readings, but there it was. The art is a big part of this one, making everyone look the same. There is also a dirty edge to it, including fingerprints and scuffs on the art itself.

As for the story itself... Let me digress for a moment, back to my college days. I was worried about money, and didn't want my parents to have to pay for my education. It was the Fall of 1990, and I actually went and talked with a recruiter about what was likely to happen if I joined the National Guard. It all seemed so remote. The coming war, the problems. The recruiter didn't help at all. What helped was later, when I chatted with a friend who looked me in the eye and said, "War is about killing. Are you willing to take that risk, to go out and kill if you are told to?" Even though I firmly believed that the US was in the right at that point, I realized I couldn't do it. I might be able to kill in self-defense, but I couldn't willingly put myself into that situation.

For me, the possibility that I might end up in a combat zone was so remote as to be nonexistant, but I didn't go. Compare that with the guy in the story. John never misses. If he's got a power, that's it. Someone with that ability is going to be sent to where the action is hottest, whether he likes it or not. And he apparently doesn't like it from the start. And yet, he still joins up, thinking he has no choice. I admit, I don't understand him. There are always choices. And yet the world is so young to you at that point, things that seem obvious aren't really. And there's a seductive allure to military service, especially with guys. So he has no choice, he says, and he goes.

Once he's in, he never thinks to aim off-target to hide his ability. He gets a reputation. He uses that rep, both ways, and it helps as well as hinders him. But there's always another way. He just doesn't see that until he faces killing someone. It's a story of failures. A failure to see the future that is facing you, a failure to understand what the military really is, a failure to treat soldiers as human beings, a failure of society itself in that those who are most desperate get recruited no matter the moral cost to them.

Well, I've written a lot of nothing on this one... but it doesn't change my initial impression, I guess. I can only mildly recommend it. There is too much in this issue that I can't connect with on a fundamental level. I don't disagree with it, there's just a disconnect there.

Still to review: Amazing Adventures From Zoom's Academy. I also just finished Green Mars. Next week's listed books: Amazing Spider-Man, Another Nail, JSA, Plastic Man, and Thor. As usual, it all depends on what actually arrives.