Customer Reviews

American Century: Scars and Stripes (American Century (DC Comics))

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Scars & Stripes contains issues 1 through 4 (the first story arc) from the Vertigo title, American Century. The first issue alone is worth the price of the book, as it sets up Harry's wandering ways. Imagine a character similiar to Indiana Jones that leans more towards an anti-hero. That is Harry. Love the artwork from Marc Lamning! 'Pulp' definitely is the best way to describe this series. The future for this title is bright. Definitely for adults.

-- and some of the worst. So let's start positive.

What's best is his figures, and his fascination with 1940s style. OK, this is early `50s, but close enough. The style lets men look good, and lets women look better - curves were OK back then. More of the good comes from his narrative pace, but especially his framing. Somehow, every panel comes across as important, nothing is there just to fill a hole in the page. And any strip with a DC3 in it has some personal nostalgia for me.

The story is the kind that Chaykin does well, something bordering on film noir style, but with more daylight. Everyone has a layer of grime on them the just won't wash off. And the time of the story had its ugly points, too. Rosa Parks hadn't made her famous bus ride yet, and if someone was anti-semitic, "he didn't mean anything by it."

Even if his art is as good as ever, maybe better than some of his older, more angular look, the story wallows in the dark side. There are a few put-upon, likeable characters. There was the black secretary back when they weren't called blacks, and the hooker with a heart of gold, not that her heart was ever part of the deal. Everyone else, Our Hero included, just makes you glad to be someone else. It's good, but Chaykin has done better.

//wiredweird

Howard Chaykin has a healthy comics pedigree, working on such titles as: Star Wars, the Shadow, and (probably his greatest work) American Flagg. His style fits the era perfectly. The content of the stoy is adult-oriented and non-superhero, providing a fine alternative to the spandex crowd. I followed the book when it originally came out. Chaykin places the main character in proximity to relevant people and places of the time, somewhat like authors Gore Vidal or John Jakes would. It would play well as a television mini-series. I recommend it to a fan of Chaykin's work or a comic book reader interested in an under-utilized period of American history.

I'd heard a lot of buzz about "American Century" for quite awhile and I finally decided to check it out, expecting great things. There's been a good deal of critical praise for this title floating about, and I have fond memories of Chaykin's work on the independent "American Flagg" (not related to this work) from back in the '80s. Imagine my crushing disappointment to discover that this book is bad, bad in so irredeemable a way that it would be a colossal struggle for it to claw its way up to being just mediocre.

Our "hero" is a grown-up amoral gun-running Holden Caulfield manque, smug in his self-righteousness, sneering at all the lesser people around him who are mired in soul-crushing conformity. That's why he has no choice but to stage an unlikely fake death in a plane crash (at the hands of the Air Force, no less), and drifts down to Central America to work for criminals in an unstable banana republic. Essentially he's in a stand-in for the real-world Guatemala during the U.S. Fruit Company-initiated overthrow of the government. It looks like Chaykin read something about this in a high school history book once and has never recovered from the monstrous injustice of it all. And so he subjects us to his version of this blight on America's past and makes certain that a few of the bad guys catch a round through the head.

As ever, the art is not at all shabby, and Chaykin remains one of your go-to guys if you need to see shapely women prancing about in lingerie. Of course, that's about the only vaguely positive thing about his female characters: for the most part, they're cheaters, thieves, liars, or outright hookers who would take up with anyone at all with a few pesos to spare, no matter how vile or murderous they might be.

This book is just so infuriating, preachy, pedantic, pandering, and bad all at the same time that I'm convinced that I must have received a defective copy, because I certainly didn't end up reading whatever it was that had the critics raving. Anti-heroes can be compelling, but the one in this title is just repellent and irritating. Avoid this book at all costs, and if you simply must have a Chaykin fix, pick up the "American Flagg" collection instead.

A comic book exploring the early '50s from the standpoint of a nonconformist, featuring many historical people? The idea hooked me in. Unfortunately, after about six issues I stopped buying. Harry Kraft is a central character without either ideals or roguish charm, which what would be needed to make the series work. He's just a jerk. The last straw was when he says to the husband who who has just blown away his cheating wife (who was only minutes before was having sex with *Harry*) "You're a good man, Dave" or words to that effect. That was enough, I didn't buy any more.
Oh, and I think Jerry Lewis has a slander case against the authors.