G.I. Joe #7 // Review
It’s easy enough to simplify war in an action comic. War is messy, though. It’s a lot more than 1980s action ideal of the good guys beating the hell out of the bad guy terrorists and waving a US flag in dramatic lighting at the end of it all. Writer Paul Allor delves into a remarkably deep territory for a military-based light action franchise as he and artist Chris Evenhuis deliver G.I. Joe #7: “A Soldier’s Heart.” Colorist Brittany Peer gives the art a clean, simplistic depth that amplifies the emotionality. The resolution at issue’s end might feel a bit simplistic, but Allor is careful not to cast the journey to recovery as an overly simplified beginning-to-end scenario.
Scarlet’s back home. She’s trying to adjust to things. The days pass. Duke asks Scarlet for her help, but she’s not ready to jump right back into battle. She’s suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. If she’s going to join the resistance against the fascist world government, she’s going to have to overcome the instability within her. There’s a support group. There’s a search for something to hold onto. It’s not going to be easy. Not everyone makes it through recovery.
Allor allows Scarlet to restlessly pass through time in a series of nine-panel pages punctuated by occasional bits of drama. The days pass with a slow procession on those nine-panel pages. Nearly every panel is captioned with a date. July 4th is illustrated by the image of her throwing bag of trash into a dumpster as fireworks can be seen reflected in a neighboring building. Earlier in the issue, she’s haunted by the vision of a bomb detonating the moment she opens that dumpster. New endless choices of soda have become a significant point of contention for one member of Scarlet’s support group. July 19th exists as a single panel where Scarlet is seen strolling past row upon row of sodas in a grocery store. She nearly has a breakthrough with that soda. It’s a cleverly episodic issue that smartly renders the slow and gradual nature of recovery.
The clean, simplistic nature of Evenhuis’ art might seem at odds with a murky, restless story like “A Soldier’s Heart.” And while the drama CAN lack some punch with characters who look like they’ve walked out of a training manual of some sort, Evenhuis’ visual simplicity fits the listless surface motions of Scarlet as she tries to find some way to interface with civilian life. Peer might have tried to cast some depth into the art with color, but she tactfully casts the art in moodily simplistic glow that works well with the art, adding poignant, little bits of atmosphere here and there. Scarlet is cast in shadows from blinds in her window as she lies awake at night, June 21st. She’s cast in the glow of distant fireworks one panel later as she’s taking out the trash on July 4th. It’s clever stuff.
This is easily the best issue of this new G.I. Joe series. The drama crawls stylishly across the page while casting a glance at a portion of the military experience that’s not quite glamorous enough to make it to page or screen all that often. The issue ends with a list of places to look for crisis intervention, mental health, and awareness resources. Anyone who needs this information can find it elsewhere. The information’s presence at the end of this issue is very reassuring, though. There’s so much available for those really suffering the way that Scarlet is this issue.
