War of Men
After a slightly weaker cover last issue, this one gives us one of the best, still barely clinging to this arc's cover theme, but taking it in a completely different style as we close out Sgt. Rock's story.
This issue plays out mostly as expected, Sgt. Rock leads his escape from the immortal soldiers, and comes face to face with the color-dulled vision of wars past and war's future. He is given options, and takes the one Hearst would've known he'd take, if he still remembered the days he was once him.
Bits and pieces from this arc are taken into account in the conclusion, and everything wraps up decently enough, except for the actual story. So many little things are unexplained or come out of nowhere. The more this issue continued, the more I realized how little was explained in this story. Is it justified when we're just reading about War itself? Do we need to know all the details? In this case we at least need to know more than we do for some of the bigger parts of this story to impact in the ways they're supposed to. And they lead into an awkward conclusion.
But the general 'feel' of the issue is still good. That seems to be where all of the focus was put, into making the general tone of this book as best as it could. So this issue works well enough on tone alone, even when the story gets a little vague.
And the backup story is even better than the last one. The artwork is much more interesting, and the lack of characterization works even better. It feels a little rushed, but it gives off such a great atmosphere that you barely notice.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
While this issue has the best co-feature, the conclusion to Sgt. Rock's story isn't as satisfying as it should be. Oh sure there's plenty of things to like in this issue in terms of storyline and intensity and depth to the main feature, but it realy highlights the lack of a structure to the plot.