I promise, these aren't all going to be Punisher comics.
Well, I say that, but this is 1991 so there's a fair chance that any Marvel comic I pick is going to feature The Punisher, Ghost Rider, or Wolverine as a guest star.
Anyway.
Welcome to The 'Nam! I had a vague awareness of the existence of this title, although I had no idea that it ran for 84 issues. To my eyes, born four years after the war ended, in a country that -- surprisingly -- wasn't involved, it seems like a very niche subject for a comic from a mainstream publisher. Is this the last great English-language war comic? I can't imagine anything like this running for 84 issues these days, although Garth Ennis is probably up to #187 with something over at Avatar.
The comic makes a great first impression with the cover art, which I adore. Click on it to see a bigger version and have a look at all those chunky lines. Jorge Zaffino's art is jagged and rough, almost untidy, but I think it looks great. It's got a raw, visceral feel, which I suppose is appropriate for a Vietnam War comic. The 'Nam #52 gets one Cable for the cover art alone.
They should have got Zaffino to do the internal art as well. It's not bad, but it doesn't have any of the energy or style of the cover. "Functional" is a good description. Given that The 'Nam was intended to tell realistic -- if not actually real -- stories about an actual historical event, perhaps a more stylistic approach to the visuals would have been seen as inappropriate. It's fine, it does the job, but it's not interesting or memorable.
Which, alas, is also true of the writing. It trots along from A to B to C in a neat linear path, but there's nothing exciting going on. There is a twist of sorts, in which -- SPOILER FOR A COMIC FROM 1991 -- the "villain" is killed and then -- ANOTHER SPOILER FOR A COMIC FROM 1991-- revealed to be a double, but it feels unconvincing and arbitrary.
There's a second attempt at a shocking twist with the cliffhanger ending in which it is revealed that our protagonist is dead! Oh, sorry, A THIRD SPOILER FOR A COMIC FROM 1991. Except there's a second part to this story in the next issue, and said protagonist is the Punisher, so we know he's not dead.
(Although apparently this is the Punisher of Earth-85101, so they could kill him off here, as anticlimactic as that would be.)
The characterisation isn't any better. The NVA sniper the Punisher is sent to kill is a caricature at best, coming across like the "Achtung! Pigdog!" Germans in the old WWII comics I read as a child, and with more than a hint of Yellow Peril at times. I'm not naïve enough to expect a balanced portrayal of "the enemy", but I would have expected something a bit more nuanced by 1991. Not that the "goodies" come across any better; if the other characters didn't refer to him by name, you wouldn't have any idea that the Punisher was even in this comic, as he is as generic as the rest. Which is not to say that I want this comic to be a full-blooded appearance by 90's Punisher, because that would be, to say the least, a significant clash of tone, but it seems a bit pointless to stick a specific character in and then write them in such a way that they could be literally anyone.
Would I Read More of This?
In fairness, I do feel a slight urge to find out how the cliffhanger is resolved, but I am confident that it will be a cheat to some extent, and I am not confident at all that the second half of the story will be any better than the first. So, no, I would not read more of this.
I would read an issue drawn by Jorge Zaffino though.
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Based on the main story I would The 'Nam #52 a score of one Cable, because while it's not awful, it is naff and uninspired. I did promise to give it one Cable for the cover art, so it gets a slightly undeserved two Cables out of five.
I am pleased to say that the next comic does not, as far as I know, feature the Punisher. I hope I like it, because I like what I've read of the writer's other work, and I know his run on this particular comic is considered definitive.
I got a few issues of The 'Nam from my cousin like 20 years ago. I think from around issues 10-20. I have a feeling it was a little more interested in trying to show what the situation was like for American soldiers at that point, the general pointlessness of how they were trying to accomplish things, other challenges they faced, stuff like that. Although I definitely remember an issue where a sergeant kills the stereotypical bossy, racist idiot lieutenant by leaving a bomb in his office. So maybe not.
ReplyDeleteBut I figured once Frank Castle started showing up that had all gone out the window.
Yeah, based on my (brief) research, that's exactly what happened. It started out as a serious, almost documentary comic, then began to haemorrhage readers, so they pulled stunts like bringing Castle in.
DeleteIt ran for another 30 or so issues past this point, so maybe it worked?
Thank you for putting this on the list! Your analysis definitely fits with how little I remembered about this one.
ReplyDeleteAs for the progression of The 'Nam, I suspect y'all are correct in your interpretation. I think the only issues I had other than this one were the first few collected in a magazine-sized (and maybe black and white?) edition that I found in a bookstore in another town's mall. (I grew up in a small, mall-less town and can't recall ever seeing The 'Nam available there.) There was definitely an attempt at a documentary-type presentation; I remember learning what it meant to refer to soldiers as "short" during the war, as well as the saying, "You can tell it's Mattel...it's swell!"
So yeah, it definitely caught my eye when I saw that Frank would be showing up there. And it did at least get me to pick up one issue that I might not have otherwise...!
Yes, my brief research suggests that Marvel reprinted the first few issues in a magazine format, I think to target non-comic audiences. I may go back and have a look at some of those earlier issues at some point, because I suspect they are quite different from this issue!
DeleteI had completely forgotten about the "New Universe" titles from Marvel. I was aware of them when they came out, but I just went through my list of comics and it turns out that I never picked up any of those issues from any title! Around that time, I picked up issues #1 and #3 (not sure why I didn't get #2) of "Strikeforce: Morituri" which, this entire time, I thought was part of the New Universe, but after looking it up, just realized that it wasn't.
ReplyDeleteI may have mentioned this before, but here in the UK the most common way to access US comics was via reprint titles. These would be weekly, and so in order to spread out the material they would often be almost like anthologies, so you'd get five or six pages of the lead story, then another five or six pages of a backup story, and then either a third comic, or miscellaneous bits and pieces.
DeleteMost of these were aimed at children and were tied in with a toy line or TV cartoon of the time. Or both, as was the case with Spider-Man and Zoids.
And guess where Strikeforce: Morituri, the nihilistic comic about dying super-soldiers was reprinted? ;)