Muddy was the only one who talked to Joe when he first got to Vietnam. Muddy was talkative. Joe wasn’t. Never said anything to anyone. Then there was the fire. No one could have survived that. (No one human anyway.) Turns out Joe’s a robot. His tour of duty started in Junkyard Joe #1. Writer Geoff Johns opens a series that is drawn to the page by artist Gary Frank. Colorist Brad Anderson provides the atmosphere to a surprisingly emotional first issue. It’s a sci-fi war story set on the frontline. There have been many like it. This is Joe’s.

The squad might have been a little uneasy when they found out that Joe was a robot. The idea of having a literal killing machine on their side might have been something of a comfort. It can stand watch overnight without tiring. Everybody’s going to sleep a little easier. Of course...it’s just one robot, and this IS Vietnam in 1972. Things aren’t going well. They’re going to get a hell of a lot worse before things get better. Even in a world of weird science, There’s a really good chance that Joe’s a prototype. There’s no telling how he’s going react once things get truly ugly. 

Johns manages a surprisingly appealing opening to a series about a single soldier. The title character doesn’t say a goddamned thing, but he IS one of the more appealing characters in the whole book. The mystery of what it is that he’s doing keeps the pages turning in a story that is pretty true to stories of actual soldiers that came back from Vietnam...except for Joe, of course. He’s clearly an allegory for a shadow of what military service is like. It’ll be interesting to see where Johns takes the story after the first issue.

Frank keeps the shadows heavy in Vietnam...even in broad daylight. There’s a darkness about it that is picked up by Anderson in color. In spite of this, the jungle doesn’t feel nearly as terrifying or immersive as it should in order to get across the horrors of war in Vietnam. The sense of loss is clearly there. Every character in the ensemble has something distinctive about them that makes the events of the issue hit with surprising emotional impact for a single chapter of a single comic. Any artist would want to add some level of emotionality to the coldness of the title character, but Frank wisely keeps it cold to amplify the gravity of John’s story.

Joe’s entire tour in Vietnam has been covered in the first issue. Johns could deploy a guy like Joe in just about any direction. Johns is also wise to dedicate the issue to actual military servicemen and women. Every cent of the profits goes to the National Coalition For Homeless Veterans in the U.S. and Veterans Aid in the U.K. So Joe may not be able to be everywhere (or really... anywhere on THIS side of the comics page), but he’s helping veterans in his own way, which is actually kind of cool. 

Grade: B