Light Brigade

That most elemental of struggles, Good vs. Evil, gets the cross-genre treatment in this WWII-set comic collection about battling angels and avatars. The story opens on December 17, 1944, somewhere in the Belgian forests, where we meet a small unit of U.S. infantrymen dug into a snow-covered cemetery. Among them are comic-book fan Simon, battle-weary Mark, soul-deadened Chris (whose wife was killed in a car crash and son is in foster care), and whole passel of fairly interchangeable GIs. Veterans of D-Day, this band of brothers has seen it all -- until they are overrun by a much larger unit of Germans who apparently continue to function just fine even with half their heads shot away. Some of the GIs escape this massacre and hole up in an abandoned farmhouse, where their rest is interrupted by an overhead duel between two angels. Yep, angels. The gist of the premise is that a set of angels (the Grigori) were charged by God with watching over his human creations. However, the Grigori eventually succumbed to the sins of the flesh to produce mixed-breed humans called Nephillim. God was angered and decided to smote them all with the great flood and start again from scratch. Alas, the smoting wasn't quite up to normal God-like standards and some of the Grigori and Nephillim survived. These survivors swore to take their revenge and have spent millennia working toward that goal. All of this is related by the good archangel, who basically brainwashes the GIs into trying to stop Evil from triumphing. It seems that the Germans encountered by the GIs are Nephillim and are led by the last surviving Grigori. He posses the "Sword of God" and needs only to bathe it in the fire of the "True Cross" in order to become invincible. Since the "True Cross" happens be housed in a nearby monastery, the story turns into a race, as the GIs must beat the Germans there and mount a stand against Evil with the help of the monks. There are some excellent little episodes en route, such as a tangle with some Germans in disguise, and the liberation of a munitions factory. After this, things go rather conventionally, although one of the GIs has a rather intriguing past which comes into play. The final third of the book revolves around the last stand at the monastery, and follows the conventions of the shrinking heroic stand. For the most part, the book is fairly engaging and well-paced. Peter Snejbjerg's artwork is compelling and well-suited to the material, and the numerous action scenes are very well-handled. (It should be noted that some of the scenes are quite bloody and gory.) Given that so much of the story takes place at night or in the dark, special mention should be made of Bjarne Hansen's thoughtful coloring. The story is interesting in that few comics explicitly invoke things like God, angels, the true cross, etc., and one could see it having a lot of appeal based on that. However, one can also interpret the material more subversively by noting that God's attempted e

Light Brigade collects the outstanding four issue mini-series that was certainly one of the standout limited series' of 2004. The book tells the story of a group of American soldiers near the end of WWII, who are holed up in a cemetery in Belgium when they encounter the enemy German soldiers. But these are no ordinary men who are shot point blank and continue on with half of their heads blown away. A handful of Americans escape as their capture comrades are executed. They find refuge in an abandoned farmhouse but their peace is soon interrupted by a pair of angels, one slaying the other. The Angel Sauriel relates the tale of the Grigori, the angels charged with looking over men and safeguarding them from evil in earliest biblical history. The Grigori soon find themselves corrupted by those they sought to protect falling prey to man's weakness of emotion and leading to the mingling of Angel and man to produce a half-breed called the Nephillim. Seeking to destroy this bastardization of his creation, God deluges the world with rain but some Nephillim and Grigori survive and curse God, vowing revenge. It was the Nephillim that the American soldiers encountered in the guise of German soldiers and their commander, the last surviving Grigori. They have found the sword of God and now only need to light the sword in the eternal flame from the cross that Christ was crucified on carry their battle to heaven itself. The soldiers are given the near impossible task of protecting that relic that is hidden inside a remote monastery that has been cared for by its monks for centuries. But one of these soldiers is not so ordinary either. Mark is actually Marcus Longinus, the Roman Centurion who pierced Christs chest with his spared and was doomed to spend eternity to amend for his sin, still in possession of the blood-stained spearhead. At its core Light Brigade is a standard battle of good vs. evil and I don't think it's much of a coincidence that the Germans are seen as the evil in the story. But the real hook is the outstanding characters. There's soldier Chris Stavros who's just received a letter telling him his wife has been killed in an accident and his child will be placed into foster care until he returns home. Another is a enthusiastic comic fan who fancies himself and remaining soldiers as their own version of the Justice Society. And then there is Mark, the lonely, tired Centurion who is both opposing the evil Gregori and seeking redemption. The art by Peter Snejbjerg is beautiful and evocative; one can almost hear the dead silence of the snow covered Belgian forest as the soldiers hide after the attack by the Nephillim. A great comic for non-comc fans to read! Reviewed by Tim Janson