Escape #9 // Review
There is a soldier who is coming down to Earth. Thankfully, he is descending in a parachute. Unfortunately, he's falling over enemy territory. It's a miserable chance for survival. But it's still a chance. With a lot and good judgment, he might still survive in.Escape #9. Writer Rick Remender and artist Daniel Acuña continue their World War II inspired drama with another chapter that looks at some of the darker aspects of life and death on and behind the front lines.
There's really no covering up for the fact that this guy is wearing a military uniform from the opposing side. He's really sort of hoping for someone to notice him who might want to help out. Someone beyond the confines of the war. Thankfully, he does find people who are willing to take him in. Even in spite of him being a wounded enemy soldier. And maybe there is some decency beyond the Frontline. Maybe there's some civility in being a civilian. And that's precisely what this soldier is counting on. And it's really all you can hold for. He's wounded. He needs some rest and nourishment.
There's been a long tradition of making war about good versus evil in war stories. Resting just outside the margins of mainstream culture, there are comic books have managed to capture some of the delicate complexity beyond that. It's always a challenge, though. Remender does a strikingly impressive job of delivering real complexity to the page in a story that truly shows just how awful it can be. All of those justifications for all that bloodshed. All of those attempts to forgive all of that death. It all comes out in striking clarity in the first part of this issue. The second portion continues on with the substance of the overarching plot which advances things quite nicely.
Acuña’s art continues to work remarkably well in spite of everything. There's really no reason why these opposing forces in the war need to be represented by different anthropomorphized animals. One would think that that sort of thing would probably have a tendency to draw attention away from the essential questions of humanity that are being posed in the story. However, the artist does a remarkable job of amplifying human emotion through the faces of animals. And unlike Spiegelman’s Maus, there's an overall lack of cuteness in the rendering that maintains a more serious tone throughout.
The short narrative that opens the issue is hauntingly vivid. The stark simplicity of it serves as yet another example of just how well Escape is working. Overarching flat lines take a while to play out. So it can be difficult to tell exactly whether or not the creative team is going to be able to follow through on the potential of what they're setting up. Little, isolated narratives like the one at the beginning of the ninth issue show that they really are being very thoughtful about how everything is making it to the page. It's very striking stuff.
