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colonel_green (colonel_green) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-29 13:32:00

Entry tags:

creator: garth ennis, creator: russ braun, publisher: dynamite entertainment

When Anna Met Kurt
Garth Ennis and I have a love-hate relationship: namely, when market considerations don't compel him to include superheroes in his work, which he further feels compelled to denigrate for black comedy, I frequently love his work. As an historian, his war comics are particularly enjoyable. Most recently, he did a series of Battlefields minis for Dynamite (three three-issue stories), which sold quite well - now a new run of Battlefields minis has been announced, two of which will be sequels to two of the previous minis (the third original one doesn't leave much ground for a sequel). Should be good.

So in honour of this news, here's seven pages from Battlefields: Night Witches #3, one of the stories getting a follow-up.

So, backstory: Night Witches is the only of the first there minis that hasn't a Brit in sight (Dear Billy is set in British Malaya and India, The Tankies in Normandy), taking place in that notorious bastion of cheer, the Russian front. The title characters are female pilots who do risky night-bombing runs on the German lines in semi-obsolete aircraft, among them Captain Anna Kharkova. She's an optimistic soul, which is a bad sign in any war story (or any Garth Ennis story), and volunteers to be a pilot, and has to deal with the existing male pilots' lack of consideration, but gradually wins the respect and then love of her CO. So it's a bit like Mulan...if Garth Ennis wrote it. So the CO in question is killed in a dogfight, which obviously angers her.

Also in the story is Kurt, a young German soldier who is struggling with his shitty job, and trying to keep his morals by refusing to partake in the gang-rape of local women (the CO then kills the woman in question and orders him to remain in the basement with her body all night). So, yeah, not having a great time.

At the climax, Anna's two-seater is shot down near Kurt's squad:

Oops.

I like how Ennis writes both their dialogue leading up to this scene in simple English, without the "< >" convention; I don't know whether that was intentional or not (since, really, neither of them would be assumed to be speaking English), but you only realize she doesn't understand what he's saying when he does.

She knifes him a couple more times, then steals his gun and leaves him bleeding in th snow. He staggers back towards the camp...

Quoth Homer: I hope you learned your lesson, Lisa. Never help anyone.

There's a few gory panels here, but pretty mild be Ennis standards.

(Post a new comment)

	jeyl 2009-10-29 06:09 pm UTC (link)
	I seem to recall a comic where two ladies crash land and when the Nazi's confront them, the pilot who is ok shoots her injured co-pilot and shoots herself. I guess if I saw something like that happen, I'd probably help the next lady soldier I see to. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	colonel_green 2009-10-29 06:14 pm UTC (link)
	That was the first issue of Night Witches, actually. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	volksjager 2009-10-30 01:48 am UTC (link)
	There is an issue of Luftwaffe 1946 about the Nightwitches. (Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2009-10-30 09:12 am UTC (link)

when market considerations don't compel him to include superheroes in his work, which he further feels compelled to denigrate for black comedy, I frequently love his work

I don't think it was 'market considerations' that compelled him to write the ending to Wormwood the way he did. I'm more of the theory that it all depends on whether he skipped his meds on a given morning.

(Pet peeve, sorry. Most of Wormwood varies from decent to well-written and genuinely thoughtful, but especially the depiction of God in the ending... Well, it'd probably be offensive if it weren't so sad, puerile and all-around pathetic. And I don't even /like/ christianity)

(Reply to this)

	psychop_rex 2009-10-30 10:06 am UTC (link)
	See, now this is dark, but it's UNDERSTANDABLY dark. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but it makes sense, and at least the guy did something good before he died. (Reply to this)