2 out of 5

When a full-on war story popped up in the midst of a narrative concerning demon babies, vampires, and s & m detectives – e.g. Preacher – it seemed novel.  But ‘fuck communism’ and some atypical contents made it work, and made it, while still an aside, a unique addition to the developing story.  Then, if you kept reading Ennis, you saw it wasn’t so unique: He had a war story in, like, every comic he wrote, bending things always to get one in there.  But: It worked, in the same way it worked in Preacher, and you could see it coming but shake your head at Ennis’ ability to hammer his indulgences into a good comic.

And then at some point (…I generally say The Boys), Ennis stopped writing comics, and instead wrote rants with comics painted on to them.  Now when it comes to his war stories – when it comes to Dreaming Eagles – it’s even less than that: It’s just some facts dressed up with pictures.  An excuse for a comic.  Which, I realize, is a harsh criticism.  But, to me, this is pretty indulgent writing, and it’s even more nigglesome when its wrapped around some type of study on racism.

Dreaming Eagles concerns Reggie, father and husband during the sixties, the typical unwordy but moralistic man -figure Ennis likes to write, finally opening up to his son about his experiences during WWII as a way to connect with his boy over the fire his son feels regarding growing race tensions during the era of Martin Luther King.  And though we are closely tied to Reggie and his mate Fats, and their weaving in and out of black flight squadrons, it never quite feels like their story…  Which it should; which I’m supposing was the point.  It feels like: Planes!, especially typified by cheap cliffhangers that then lead to splash page shots of flight action.  And I don’t mean to say that this is the worst crime ever – Ennis writes a fine war jerk-off comic, for sure – just that the work is, overall, not really attached to character or narrative, and then the social concepts supposedly intertwined are only explored, really, in the first few and last few pages, i.e. the frame.  We have no reason to get invested in this story, and thus, neither would Reggie’s son, to whom it’s being told.

Further muddying the waters is Simon Coleby’s artwork.  The thick linework gives his figures a very stiff look, while a lack of detailing around the face also makes their stares seem vacant.  Vacant and stiff, a good combo.  There’s also the human problem in these tales: That everyone has similar haircuts and the same uniform, so differentiating people is a tough task, undoubtedly.  Coleby tries to give distinguishing traits – a mustache, glasses – but then he drops these details just as often (or they’re hard to figure) and Ennis’ script doesn’t do much to distinguish one personality from another.  This is certainly disappointing given my appreciation of Coleby’s work on Jaegir, but the characters are more outlandishly varied there, and the muddiness of his style is just a much better fit to that world.  It works well for the Plane! splashes on Eagles, at least.

Was their context given for the book’s title?  Not to my recollection.  Oh well.  Until he tosses us another Crossed arc, my Ennis wariness remains in effect.