I tried, as much as possible, to stay the heck out of stores over the weekend. Can't deal with the Christmas surge. Had one comic come out last week, and not nearly as many books coming out this week as I was hoping, so let's look at what we got.
Last issue's nosing around was just recon. Now Easy Co. knows where the factory is, knows the layout, knows they need better weapons to deal with the revived Nazis, and know that Hitler's personal physician visits there. A couple of quick pages to introduce some new firepower, such as an automatic shotgun and a tear gas launcher, and we're back to the guys skulking around at night.
I expected that once they were in last issue, the story would just rush forward from there. Rock and the others trying to destroy the factory and adjust to finding Doctor Morell on the fly. But it makes more sense that they'd report back and get proper tools for the job. Can't afford to screw up the mission. I'm a little surprised the skirmish last issue didn't put the Nazis on high alert. Especially since they wouldn't have found any dead American soldiers. Wouldn't that be a concern, that someone saw your secret factory and lived to tell?
Anyway, the issue flips back-and-forth between the squad led by Bulldozer, responsible for making Morell rabbit and destroying the factory, and the one led by Rock, responsible for tracking Morell. Each run into their share of complications, so Risso and Rossi get a chance to draw Nazis get their heads and limbs pulped by shotguns, or having an entire brick smokestack knocked on them with a bazooka. Rossi's limited colors work pretty well with Risso's heavy use of shadows. Some nice panels of the Nazis emerging from darkness, only teeth and eyes visible, or Jackie Johnson grinning maniacally as he fires one of those shotguns.
I think the thing that feels off to me about this Sgt. Rock is I'm used to Kanigher or Kubert giving Rock almost a constant internal monologue. Their stories were essentially written from his perspective. Campbell's ditched that approach entirely. There's no thought balloons, not even any internal narration boxes. And this Rock's not particularly chatty, which might make sense, being a hard-bitten man of few words, and most of those consisting of barked orders, but it does make things feel a bit thin in places.
The part where he and Jackie find their truck surrounded by Nazis and Rock's order is to, 'lean into it!' while leaping from the truck with his shotgun ready, felt very appropriate to the character. The action scenes catch that desperation the old comics had, but in a different way.
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