3 crampons out of 5

Any Garth Ennis reader knows that the author operates in one of several ‘modes.’  The majority of his work blends these modes – the perverse humor, his examination of brotherhood, follow-the-leader social commentary, and his obsession with war.  Sometimes, though, Ennis will pick a project that swings drastically in one direction more than the other.  While generally entertaining, the lack of balance (i.e. filter) generally prevents such books from ever really feeling like anything other than a side project.

Such as Adventures in the Rifle Brigade.  Who knows what caused Ennis to put this together – 6 extreme war stereotypes form a special ops group during WWII times, sent on precious undercover missions purposefully or accidentally.  Ennis wrote 2 3-issue storylines with this troupe and they are, at times, hilarious.  But they’re also one-joke humor, and have the feeling of whimsy – a funny idea that either fulfilled a contract or was expanded to fulfill a publishing schedule.

Read month to month the books score big, a nice break from books that try too hard to tell a story.  Despite the repetitiveness, this was a good benchmark for Ennis’ gross-out humor – you get jokes that go just a little too far, but it’s not the purposeful over-the-top that gets inserted into some of Garth’s work.  By playing each character as a stereotype and taking almost none of it seriously, you get a comical treatment of history by a history buff, enlivened by some of Carlos Ezquerra’s clearest and most fun pencils.  But read in one sitting you get the point 1 issue in.  The hi-jinks are silly enough to read the whole collection, but the repetitiveness is especially wearing then.

Lately Ennis has slipped into a lot of philosophizing with his word-heavy Boys and supposedly “simple” Jennifer Blood, balanced out by the return to grossness of a new Dicks series (which is the perverse humor taken to an extreme).  It’s nice to go back and read something from an earlier time when the industry, and Ennis, was maybe just a touch less jaded.

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