WAR STORY: JOHANN'S TIGER

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2001

Man, this Garth Ennis guy gets around, doesn't he? Are all these titles from PUNISHER to JUST A PILGRIM to WAR STORY really the work of one man, or have the comic book publishers pooled their resources and contracted Lex Luthor to make a series of Ennis duplicates? That can't be the answer none of them are imperfect. In fact, just about everything Ennis writes is sharp, witty, gleefully violent in a meaningful way and always absorbing. It's also a tribute to his talent that no matter what genre he works in, from noir thriller to superhero adventure to World War II, he maintains the same level of quality and compels the reader to come along for the ride. Ennis is not bound by the restrictions of any one category the entire medium of comics is his canvas, and the results are invariably breath-taking.

In WAR STORY: JOHANN'S TIGER, we follow an unlikely lead character, a German soldier named Johann Kleist. He has four hopeless types under his command, and a Tiger tank nicknamed "Big Max." It is early April 1945, and the war will be over soon. The Russians are beating the Germans back with relentless ferocity, and the Nazis are tired and demoralized. Kleist and the men who man "Big Max" have made the decision to be realistic, quit the war, and go find some Americans to accept their surrender. Kleist will hand over his men, but for himself he has other plans. Unfortunately, those plans may go horribly awry, and one last battle will determine the fate of the crew of the panzer known as "Big Max."

All these decades later, the Nazis remain one of humanity's most potent examples of pure evil. Even in our politically correct times - when we are cautioned to remember that in every group there are always those who questioned or disagreed with the policies of their government - it is sometimes difficult to separate the individuals from the mass of monsters. It's a brave writer who tries to find the humanity in evil, and here we have a story that focuses not on familiar American heroes, but on German soldiers who only want the war to be over. They may be indeed be evil or merely ignorant, but they are also human. Through his internal narrative monologue, Kleist invites us to understand that he was committed to his duty but not Hitler's ideals, until the day that he realized what he had become and the guilt enveloped his soul. This is very heavy stuff, and it might make readers uncomfortable to contemplate that a Nazi might even have a soul.

If Ennis doesn't make you completely care about Kleist and his fellows, he does make it very clear that in the real world there are no monsters, only human beings, and humans can be monstrous enough without the trappings of fantasy to camouflage them. Kleist is a haunted man who has committed atrocities for which there is no better punishment than the "endless torment" known as living.

WAR STORY: JOHANN'S TIGER

Grade: A

Issue: No. 1

Author(s): Garth Ennis, Chris Weston, Gary Erskine

Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics

Price: $4.95