Foot Soldiers Volume 2

The Foot Soldiers: Volume I is a fairly standard coming-of-age/hero's-quest story, but Krueger makes it work by making the characters multi-dimensional; they all have faults, they're not quite sure what heroism is about, they don't always make smart decisions. One character starts a relationship with one of the enemy that could be redemptive, but could just as easily compromise the heroes - as it does a few times in this story. Krueger also does well by emphasizing the effect of the heroes - the Foot Soldiers - on the other previously-helpless citizens they try to protect; the Soldiers give people hope, but they also change the old order of things, which scares some people. Each chapter is introduced by a short text piece, and it's actually those text pieces I found most compelling. That's no knock on Mike Oeming's art, which is different from the style Oeming uses these days on books like POWERS -- a little less inspired by current animation, but no less effective, especially on facial expressions. But the text pieces have a certain sense of dread about them, a heaviness of feeling; the narrator seems weighed down by failure and despair in a way that doesn't quite come through in the pages of the main story - it adds a layer of complexity that the comics chapters don't quite have. I hope that in future volumes Krueger works those elements into the story and starts paying off the hints he's dropping here. If he does, and I believe he will, FOOT SOLDIERS will turn out to be a comics saga well worth reading.