Arminius is shown the smoldering remains of a village. It’s all just smoke and corpses. There isn’t much left of it. An old woman is tied to a cross. Her eyes are open in terror. Arminius is told that this is what would have happened to his village. His grandmother would have been forced to watch as everyone she knew was killed before her. That’s just Rome. That’s what Rome does. It’s an ominous note for the beginning of Dead Romans #5. Writer Fred Kennedy continues a grim march through a bleak point in history with artist Nick Marinkovich and colorist José Villarrubia.

It’s explained to Arminius that there is a reason for all the killing and destruction. There are so many warring tribes coating the countryside of Europe. The death and destruction will give way to rejuvenation under Roman rule with clean water, reliably available food, and medicine. They’ll finally have a kind of peace in the shadow of the Roman empire. The soldiers continue to march through the forest in search of the group that would oppose them. It would normally be an easy task to take down an opposing army, but they ARE amassing quite a force. The conflict could get dangerous.

Kennedy’s view of history is kind of obvious and heavy-handed. The talk of historical politics and policies feels a bit dull, but there’s a definite power to all of the talk of death and renewal as soldiers advanced through ground laden with corpses and the scattered detritus of war. It takes a little while for the action to ignite, which happens somewhere around the middle of the issue before a few killings coax the plot forward. There’s real tension in the drama that Kennedy is offering up to the reader, but there is a hell of a lot of skulking around and talking politics.

There are a few impalements midway through the issue to establish the brutality of battle, but so little of it hits the page with very much power. The action feels very static. That doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy and gruesome when it DOES happen. It just feels kind of...still. Marinkovich does some brilliant work with mood and tension as people stand around grimly talking. The action feels disconnected from much of the rest of it. Villarrubia gives everything a stylish layer of color that makes it all feel a bit like a 1980s music video. That’s actually NOT a bad thing. It adds a sense of poise and form to everything that might otherwise completely submerge it in the overwhelming darkness of Marinkovich’s ink.

The brutality of the series continues to march on in the midst of some basic history that Kennedy is covering. It’s generally a fun ancient war march. Ancient war drama is so often focused on generals and emperors and powerful heroic figures. It’s actually kind of cool to see a war drama from ancient Rome that firmly has its boots on the ground. 

Grade: B