Review Shooter: Men of War #1

Synopsis- Corporal Rock is put as a second in command with a Unit. They are to rescue a senator, without being seen. The problem being, it’s in a region that’s run by an insurgent force, and they have no intel. They must Extract the senator alive.  However, a few Super-beings may make that impossible.

Let’s try to keep this Spoiler free, shall we?

As an Army Brat myself,(Dad was based in Fort Bragg at one point, and various other places)  I’ve heard of Sargent Rock. I have never read any of his tales however, so this is all new stuff to me. I have to say it’s not your typical Super-hero fare. I found myself actually worried about the members of Rock’s unit as they get dropped into a war zone. Something about the way it was presented made it feel a lot more real.

The main story sort of jumps around a bit. You start off with Rock in a trench with explosions going on. Then it jumps to his superiors setting him up for a possible promotion and with his Unit. Then the next thing you see is some un-identified Super-people Fighting,  and blowing stuff up.  I really liked the Dialog a lot!  They used a lot of Military Language, with little asterisks to explain what a SAW  or what a GOOSE is. I thought that brought some Authenticity to it.

I have to say I really liked the art in this. Well constructed troops, backgrounds and effects. The colors were very effective as well, they have a washed out look to them. It works well for the overall look of it. It’s really action packed. Lots of explosions and crazy para-trooping cool GI Joe stuff. I still have no idea who the super people causing all the property damage  are, but I assume we’ll find out soon!

Navy Seals (back-up Story)

Writer- Jonathan Vankin

Art- Phil Winslade

Synopsis-  “No Boots on the ground.”  Means Send in the Navy Seals. A tactical team of four infiltrate a sniper’s tower after getting shot at.

This story so far is kind of interesting. You get to know the Four Seals as people first, which is great. They’re names are Ice, Tracker, Reno, and Litzau. The Dialog is pretty darn awesome.  Again, there’s a lot of military language in this story too.

The art in this story is ok. The characters are drawn pretty well. Their movements and the camera angles are really great. My main complaint with the art, is there are a lot of panels with No Background what so ever. Not sure if that was a stylistic choice , but in some of these panels the Seals are just kinda Floating. Another artistic quirk is in most of the panels the Seals look a little too similar to one another.

Survival Rating: LIVE  There’s plenty of Opportunity to tell military stories! I assume that Men of War is Much like DC’s own “All-Star Western” In that it’s an anthology for all of their Military stuff. Some of my favorite movies are military based. I believe it can work. It also seems there are Super-beings in the Sargent Rock section. So that’s something I’ve never seen before! (Outside of the Hulk Movies)

Recommendation: Buy it! But only if you’re into Military style stories, and Explosions!