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Reviews
DMZ, Vol. 4: Friendly Fire by Nathan Fox, Kristian Donaldson, Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli
oneandonlyetet's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
brizreading's review
4.0
The thing about the DMZ series is that, every time I pick it up, I pick it up as a last resort. I'm like, fine, I guess I can read this now. And I'm always annoyed at the start of each story arc, but then surprised by how much it pulls me in. This arc, Friendly Fire, is a good example.
In general, I tire of the relentless, macho, apocalyptic woe of this series - I tire of the "fucking fuck!"s and brains/intestines everywhere and the never-ending cynicism. People have lauded this series as making important points about the War on Terror, but I can only sort of buy that. It still feels a bit superficial to me. Battlestar Galactica's New Caprica story arc was a more skillful pop art evaluation of the War on Terror, IMO.
THAT SAID, some of the story arcs are really quite compelling, and their points are sometimes quite powerful. Friendly Fire, with its overlapping moral problems, resonated. It made me think of Vietnam and Iraq, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib - it made me angry, it made me uncomfortable. That's good.
On a side note: major points to the artist, Riccardo Burchielli. Yeah, Italy! Represent! Burchielli's art is absolutely beautiful. I love the gritty, urban style, the graffiti everywhere, the jagged and elegant way he draws the human form. It's really stunning.
In general, I tire of the relentless, macho, apocalyptic woe of this series - I tire of the "fucking fuck!"s and brains/intestines everywhere and the never-ending cynicism. People have lauded this series as making important points about the War on Terror, but I can only sort of buy that. It still feels a bit superficial to me. Battlestar Galactica's New Caprica story arc was a more skillful pop art evaluation of the War on Terror, IMO.
THAT SAID, some of the story arcs are really quite compelling, and their points are sometimes quite powerful. Friendly Fire, with its overlapping moral problems, resonated. It made me think of Vietnam and Iraq, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib - it made me angry, it made me uncomfortable. That's good.
On a side note: major points to the artist, Riccardo Burchielli. Yeah, Italy! Represent! Burchielli's art is absolutely beautiful. I love the gritty, urban style, the graffiti everywhere, the jagged and elegant way he draws the human form. It's really stunning.
mark_cc's review
4.0
I appreciated the turn here towards what felt like an actual grounding of the storytelling. It's certainly the best volume so far.
lanikei's review
4.0
This was disturbing storyline, but I think a thought-provoking one. Matty tries to develop a story about a massacre of civilians, and ends up with several different perspectives on the events.
It's an unpleasant ending, but a fitting one.
It's an unpleasant ending, but a fitting one.
wealhtheow's review
1.0
When American troops open fire on a peaceful protest, Matty Roth gets involved in the quest for the truth about what actually happened. Riccardo Burchielli's art is as bad as it usually is. There is a section drawn by Kristian Donaldson, who is not particularly good but at least doesn't sexualize every female in every scene, nor does zie rely upon gratuitous amounts of bodily fluids and harm.
jgkeely's review
3.0
This is the most interesting volume of DMZ so far, because the structure of the story forces Wood out of his standard voice. By choosing to do a Rashomon story (or a Jose Chung's, depending on your specialty), Wood ensures that each character in the story has a different view and different voice, because the whole story is based on the idea that everyone sees events in different ways.
I only wish that he had been differentiating his characters and their points-of-view this much right from the beginning. Even in this story, we only really get differences in tone from the characters our protagonist interviews, not from the rest of the familiar cast, so it makes me worry that once this arc is over, we'll go back to the same flat characters as before: the saintly local nurse, the thug soldiers, the slimy politicians, and other such lackluster depictions.
The fact that wood is trying to depict a conflicted, many-sided issue with no single, easy answer also means that this story has the most conceptual depth in the series. There are some moments here that approach real profundity, though there are also some trite simplifications that undercut the message.
In all, this is the first arc in DMZ that feels like a Vertigo title to me, with nods to complexity and depth, even if things don't quite reach the level of climax earlier authors managed. But then, the early, pioneering authors who transformed comics into a modern, sophisticated art form were coming from a very different place.
Gerber, Moore, Milligan, and Gaiman couldn't look back at a group of proven greats in comics to learn their trade, there was no blueprint for what modern comics could be. They were inventive and revolutionary because they had to be, they had to make things up as they went along.
The new generation of comics authors live in a different world, in a world where comics are already proven as art, and they can search out and see what good comics are supposed to look like. However, I'm not sure this is a good thing, in terms of creativity, because instead of being forced to create something new, to prove themselves, they can just write in imitation of previously successful styles.
I have often said that in order to do something well--to develop a voice in art--requires many varied sources of inspiration. To write like Tolkien, you don't read Tolkien, you have to read and understand what influenced him. To play like Zeppelin, it's not enough to listen to Zeppelin, you have to understand the music they were listening to. If you take one artistic vision and try to recreate it, all you're going to do is dumb it down, because you're not adding anything new into the mix.
Again and again, reading these new authors, I feel this sense that they are taking an easier path, copying the forms of the comic writers who came before them, and it's no wonder that their stories come out lackluster, because they haven't added anything new into the mix to make it their own.
However, if Wood can continue this upswing, continue diversifying characters and viewpoints, working hard to make a plot that is deep instead of one which is straightforward, and learns how to communicate his story and ideas through character action, not talking heads, narration, and 'news stories', then this comic might actually get somewhere.
My Suggested Reading In Comics
I only wish that he had been differentiating his characters and their points-of-view this much right from the beginning. Even in this story, we only really get differences in tone from the characters our protagonist interviews, not from the rest of the familiar cast, so it makes me worry that once this arc is over, we'll go back to the same flat characters as before: the saintly local nurse, the thug soldiers, the slimy politicians, and other such lackluster depictions.
The fact that wood is trying to depict a conflicted, many-sided issue with no single, easy answer also means that this story has the most conceptual depth in the series. There are some moments here that approach real profundity, though there are also some trite simplifications that undercut the message.
In all, this is the first arc in DMZ that feels like a Vertigo title to me, with nods to complexity and depth, even if things don't quite reach the level of climax earlier authors managed. But then, the early, pioneering authors who transformed comics into a modern, sophisticated art form were coming from a very different place.
Gerber, Moore, Milligan, and Gaiman couldn't look back at a group of proven greats in comics to learn their trade, there was no blueprint for what modern comics could be. They were inventive and revolutionary because they had to be, they had to make things up as they went along.
The new generation of comics authors live in a different world, in a world where comics are already proven as art, and they can search out and see what good comics are supposed to look like. However, I'm not sure this is a good thing, in terms of creativity, because instead of being forced to create something new, to prove themselves, they can just write in imitation of previously successful styles.
I have often said that in order to do something well--to develop a voice in art--requires many varied sources of inspiration. To write like Tolkien, you don't read Tolkien, you have to read and understand what influenced him. To play like Zeppelin, it's not enough to listen to Zeppelin, you have to understand the music they were listening to. If you take one artistic vision and try to recreate it, all you're going to do is dumb it down, because you're not adding anything new into the mix.
Again and again, reading these new authors, I feel this sense that they are taking an easier path, copying the forms of the comic writers who came before them, and it's no wonder that their stories come out lackluster, because they haven't added anything new into the mix to make it their own.
However, if Wood can continue this upswing, continue diversifying characters and viewpoints, working hard to make a plot that is deep instead of one which is straightforward, and learns how to communicate his story and ideas through character action, not talking heads, narration, and 'news stories', then this comic might actually get somewhere.
My Suggested Reading In Comics
skolastic's review
4.0
After a sudden drop in volume 3, DMZ comes roaring back with Friendly Fire, an arc looking back into the history of the war as a US soldier is brought before a military tribunal to answer for his role in a massacre of unarmed (or were they?) protesters. It's a strong story, with Matty trapped between two opposing narratives of the event, and unsure of who to believe. I'm not sure the writing quite measures up to this, though, as the book spends a lot of time building sympathy for Stevens, the aforementioned soldier, and casts more of a villainous light on Nunez, his commanding officer. The art is solid (Burchielli's work has grown on me quite a bit, and I was pleased to get another issue with Kristian Donaldson's art popping in). Definitely a return to form after the lackluster Public Works.
francomega's review
4.0
A self-contained story within the bigger story about an army massacre on civilians and the aftermath of the military "trial." Top of the game storytelling and some of the best fiction ont he market.