Customer Reviews

So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms (Arrowsmith, Book 1)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's 1915 and World War I is raging in Europe while America sits it out, . . . only this is a world where weapons are thaumaturgical, the volunteer Overseas Aero Corps flies without planes, the Bosch call up trolls and demons, and the Northern Gods are becoming disgusted with the whole thing. Fletcher Arrowsmith, son of a small-town blacksmith with isolationist tendencies, seeks not just glory but the chance to *do* something, to take part in the battle against evil. He and a friend leave home, enlist, enter training, and are shipped off to the front -- where they learn what war is really like, and that even the good guys are capable of bad deeds. This graphic novel is a first-rate combination of thoughtful, even profound storytelling, detailed setting (back story courtesy of Lawrence Watt-Evans), and artwork that absolutely glows. There's a hint at the end that Fletch's adventures aren't finished -- they're about to ship out to Verdun -- and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I get into such a bad habit with buying, and not buying, Kurt Busiek's comics. Since I do everything by mailorder, I'll forget if THIS month the new Astro City is available or did I miss a month already? So when Arrowsmith was announced, I was skeptical. I knew it would be good, Kurt doesn't disappoint, not even with Spider-Man/X-Factor! I was more worried that I'd forget to order it, miss an issue or two (like I did with Astro City: Local Heroes...the shame...), so I took a calculated risk.

I waited for the trade!

In a way, I'm glad I did. I didn't have to wait month in, and month out waiting for the next installment. I could read it a few pages here, a few pages there whenever I felt like it, or I could gorge and read the whole thing in one sitting. The price is actually a better deal for TPB than monthly, so that's always a plus. The tricky part is, enough people have to buy the monthly, to make the TPB a viable option. Thanks everyone who bought it monthly, I, and I'm sure Kurt too, appreciated your efforts. The nice thing about Kurt's writing is he writes great story arcs. He's not writing for the TPB, so there is no filler and fluff to make a 4 issue storyline into a 6 issue one. If he does, he's good at pulling the wool over my eyes. :)

I suppose I should give a brief synopsis of the book. Imagine a world where magic exists. Where the world of reality and fairytale co-exist. That's right, there are wizards in this world, and things that bump horribly in the night. Now, imagine it's 1915, World War I is raging, and warfare is anything but conventional. Now, get ready to see it through the eyes of young Fletcher Arrowsmith, as he enlists in the Overseas Airborne Corps (typing off 2 week old memory, so I may butcher the division...sorry!) to help save the world from those that do bad things. Ah, but with Kurt Busiek writing it, things can't be that cut and dry, can it? Re-teaming with Carlos Pacheco (Avengers Forever) they redesign the world in a way you've never seen before.

Highly recommended for any comic fan's library.

I think that perhaps the folks who are complaining about the "clichés" or "stereotypes" found in Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco wonderful series Arrowsmith might be missing the point. Busiek has made a name for himself by revisiting classic stories and ideas and giving them a fresh look. Keep in mind that he helped start a comics imprint called "Homage Comics."

With Arrowsmith, Busiek takes the classic "fresh-faced boy goes off to war to fight the good fight and make a difference, while along the way learning about life, love, death, and the true nature of war" story and gives it a thorough shaking. First, the world that Fletcher Arrowsmith inhabits is quite similar to ours, but history is somewhat different. A map showing the United States of Columbia, Gallia, and Prussia is one indication that things are not quite what we're used to. Additionally, this is a world where magic and the mundane exist side by side. The scene where a New York City street bustles with activity as humans, trolls, dwarves, and other fantastic creatures go about their daily business illustrates this particular twist quite well. Finally, while this is very much a World War I story, the trappings have very much been altered. Gruesome battles still claim young lives by the thousands, but instead of traditional chemical weapons, the armies employ magical weapons that vampirize soldiers or incinerate entire towns. And the men of the Overseas Aero Corps are hotshot aerial fighters, but instead of flying planes, they're flying through the air with the aid of magical dragons.

When you add these twists to a classic story, and factor in Busiek's talent for showing the humanity of even the most "stereotypical" of characters, you have something really special. It doesn't hurt that Carlos Pacheco's artwork is nothing short of breathtaking. His vivid style works just as well for a World War I epic fantasy as it does a sprawling superhero saga, and establishes the look and feel of the period as effectively as any artist I've seen since Paul Smith's work on the Golden Age.

All told, I was extremely pleased with Arrowsmith. I had high hopes given the creators involved, and was not disappointed. Arrowsmith should appeal to fans of Busiek's other work, particularly the acclaimed Astro City, and is a series that fans of quality comic books should take a chance on.

The high concept is easy and powerful: what if World War 1 was fought with magic and not science. Oceanliners become powered by magic instead of steam, werewolves and vampires stalk the battelfields, and wizards concoct new more dangerous spells in a desperate attempt to gain advantage. Everything familiar becomes new. If that isn't enough, the writer and artist create a compelling buildingsroman as nascent hero Fletcher Arrowsmith learns how fleeting human life and its aspirations can be during war. It's exciting. It's vibrant. It's exceptionally made by a great writer and artist. This is the bee's knees for a graphic novel. I hope more books are produced in the near future.

Collecting Arrowsmith issues 1 to 6, this is what you would call a "coming of age" story. The main character, the teenager Fletcher Arrowsmith, grows and matures through the pages of the book until war makes of him an adult person, introducing us to the World War I with a very nice touch of magic.

I bought this book thinking "Hey, it's Kurt Busiek, you can't go wrong". Well, it turned out I did go wrong a little. The first five issues make a very, very good reading, a little stereotyped, but very good nonetheless. Also, the art by Carlos Pacheco is simply breathtaking, with a perfect, not weird or absurd looking, blend of medieval magic and creatures in a 1914 setting.

Then we get to the last issue (I'll try not to spoil the story too much), where the final stage of maturing should take place. During the previous issues, Arrowsmith has been presented as our hero, and you would expect him to step up and keep going when things get tough.

Well, he doesn't, you don't get to see any good final combat or any heroic action or adult reaction from Arrowsmith. What you get is a sex scene that does not fit at all with the tone of the book nor the other Busiek works I have read (hey, this is the story of a teenager, I would expect it to be directed to teenagers)(By the way, why, oh, why do stories directed to "Mature" or "Adult" readers always include sex and violence? What have we adults done to deserve this?) Finally, you also get a perfectly nonexistent epic combat, just a display of the merest luck.

Let's hope the authors improve in the next series, I personally think they are more than capable to do it.

Arrowswmith is a capably-told coming of age / war is hell story set in a magical version of World War I. The characters and story are all archetypes, verging into cliche: the starry-eyed farmboy, the upper crust girl who is "doing her bit", and so forth, and the theme of "are we any better than the enemy?" have all been done so many times that the lack of time spent setting things up (in favour of pretty visuals of the world) doesn't really matter.

Of course, it also means that what happens to these people doesn't really matter, or surprise. They're too-familiar characters doing too-familiar things, and the veneer of the "exotic" presented by the magical setting doesn't disguise that. There's nothing in Arrowsmith that hasn't been done before - and done better - in works such as "All Quiet on the Western Front".

Apart from my love for Carlos Pacheco's art, I see Arrowsmith as a step in the right direction when it comes to the graphic novel form. Where on one end we get the pamphlet superhero compilations, and on the other end we get the artsy fare, Arrowsmith sought to tell a sci-fi fantasy war story that's obviously well-researched and cleanly structured. And one that could stand on its own.

I agree with one reviewer, though, about that odd sex scene towards the end, as well as the way the climax played out, hence my four stars. Busiek should have gone to the hilt with that part. With the richness of the milieu and the manner the previous battles were played out, that climactic scene ought to have pulled no punches.

Still, bravo in my book overall!

Busiek is one of the great masters of the comics medium - the writer of Marvels as well as Astro City, he can incisively dissect the superhero genre and make art out of it at the same time; his recent work on Dark Horse's Conan series is not to be missed either. In Arrowsmith, Busiek takes a look at World War I and puts a Harry Turtledove twist to it - what if the Triple Entente and the Allied Powers had magic in their arsenol as well as Maxim guns and mustard gas?

From this concept comes So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms, a tale of an alternate earth where the territorial lines are drawn differently - the U.S. is called "Columbia," and much of North American seems to have remained in the hands of the Spanish; across the Atlantic, Europe is separated into the linenesses of its pre-modern feudal states and empires. However, their alliances have remained the same. With the war already in full swing (and the armies enlisting everything from trolls to zombies to werewolves to giants to fight alongside the human combatants) a young Columbian enlists with a magical fighter squad in Europe to help stem the tide of slaughter. However, as young Arrowsmith soon discovers, war is never black and white.

The real fun of Arrowsmith is in how Busiek takes the familiar conventions of World War I and reinterprets them with a modern fantasy bent - this is similar to a "steampunk" concept in a way, but not overly so. A modern war in which sorceries are used side-by-side with bayonets is an intriguing idea. However, while this is an interesting romp, the tale lacks the pop and impact that it might have had - the real connection we make is not with any of the characters but with this brave new world that Busiek has created (more's the pity). However, there are certain parts (most especially the chilling realization that overtakes the reader at the end of Chapter Two) that truly strike deep. Carlos Pacheco's art is fully up to the task of putting Busiek's story on paper (although his style comes a bit too close to charicature for me), and the inking and coloring are well done. Overall, comic fans looking for a little something different, or WWI/alternate history buffs looking to expand their horizons, would do well to give Arrowsmith a try. I'm just disappointed that more volumes haven't yet come out...

It may be the same old story of how an innocent learns the horrors of war, but no matter how many times we're told the tale, we are no closer to fixing one of the myriad problems of the human condition. But that's not through any lack of effort on the parts of Messrs. Busiek, Pacheco, et al. Brilliantly imagined and illuminated, the characters are retheal in their responses to war's insanity, culminating in a primal compulsion to reassert the validity of life. The magic tech is intriguing and lovingly realized in charming ways. Those who enjoy Busiek's other work, especially the ASTRO CITY oeuvre, will find much to love here as will readers of Linda Medley, Peter David, the BIG BANG comics, even the alternative history fantasies of Harry Turtledove and Guy Gavriel Kay.

I may be biased, but I usually enjoy rewriting history with super-heroes or fantasy thrown in. This is the first book I've read that throws the supernatural into a WWI setting, and I thought they did a great job. Bottom line: yes the plot/story is a little cliched, but I thought the injection of fantasy was extremely well done, and therefore deserves a 4 out of 5.