4 out of 5

The second of four of Rebellion’s translations of Glenat’s D-Day comics, Omaha Beach is much more to the point than the previous installment, although this sort of sidesteps my understanding of Overlord’s remit: to ‘showcase’ D-Day from individual perspectives, and primarily those that haven’t been done to death.  ‘Omaha’ very much captures this before and after its central event, but in order to drive its theme home – of the very chaotic, confused, mixed-up nature of war – it was to dawdle in the battle at least a little bit, at which point it very much becomes ‘just another D-Day story.’  Which is trivializing of the event, but it’s easily the least interesting stretch of the book; much more compelling are the comparatively peaceful moments spent with the German army leading up to it, and the cold reaction of the US / UK generals in considering the assault ‘a failure’ while tallying up dead bodies as percentages.  Yes, the juxtaposition definitely requires time in the trenches, the book just temporarily loses sight of these more affecting concepts while doing so.  Writer Bruno Falba and artist Davide Fabri again (as with the preceding book) struggle with individualizing a bunch of dudes in similar looking outfits, but this time it’s due to the amount of characters instead of any lacking in the script; Falba keeps us centered around some particulars (on each side of the lines) and their experiences ultimately highlight Falba’s and Fabri’s thoughts on this snapshot of a very complex, and messy, clash.