22 Aug, 2008
Comic Review: Special Forces #3
By: David Brothers
Special Forces #3
Kyle Baker, story, art, everything ever
Kyle Baker
Joe Kubert and Garth Ennis have spent decades and hundreds of issues demonstrating how the ultimate manifestation of man’s inhumanity to man reaches its peak during times of war. War puts good people into terrible situations, chews them up, and spits them out.
Serious war comics, all questions of quality aside, are really easy to find. They’ve been produced almost constantly since World War II. Funny war comics, though? Those are a bit tougher.
I’ve been describing Special Forces to friends as the greatest sucker punch ever written. Honestly, it’s a compliment. Let me explain.
Special Forces, and particularly Special Forces #3, is a fun comic. It’s got great action, excellent one-liners, a hot protagonist, and tons of well-choregraphed violence. In short, it’s got all the makings of success. It’s geared toward the mainstream audience.
The thing is, though, that I keep finding myself bopping along, reading and enjoying and grinning, and then I finish the issue and realize that everything I just read is based on real events. I don’t just mean the fact that the book is about the war in Iraq. I mean that the specifics of the book tend to have their basis in facts. Child soldiers? Maimed and wounded babies? Autistic army recruits? People from the wrong side of the tracks? It’s all real.
This is why Special Forces is a sucker punch. The quality of the book is through the roof. It’s fun, clever, action-packed, and entertaining. And then, at the end, the hammer comes down and you realize the actual nature of what you’ve been enjoying. It makes me pause each time, and it’s happened to me three issues in a row so far. I know, in the back of my head at least, that it’s all real, but it never sinks in until I read the news reports or see the pictures at the end of the book.
It’s a lot like the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where he’s playing bullfighter. He holds out the red cape, the bull charges, and Bugs pulls back the cape to reveal an anvil. The action in Special Forces is the cape. The reality of Special Forces is the anvil.
Special Forces is amazing, and the third issue is better than the ones before it. Baker touches on children, “civilian contractors,” and internet videos with deft skill. The comedy and action are window dressing that serves to both educate and entertain, though you don’t realize it’s doing the former until it has accomplished the latter.
I don’t know that this is my favorite of Baker’s works, since I have an almost obscene amount of love for Nat Turner. It is, however, one of his absolute best, and one of the best comics being published right now. The art is up to Baker’s usual standard, with a mix of traditional comic book storytelling and a picture book aesthetic. It’s easy to follow, the colors are bright and expressive without being garish, and the action genuinely makes sense. Where Special Forces really shines, though, is in opening your eyes to reality.
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