5 out of 5

See, for me, this is the one.  Chris Weston’s character designs make this German tanker troop completely individualized in look, and match Ennis’ snapshot explanation / representation of their personalities.  The story is instantly swallowable despite your awareness of war politics, but the impact is heightened by the violence of the setting.  It definitely leans more toward war horror, ending with such a dreadful look on our lead character’s face that his final in-comic words stay with you, not so much the overall haunting feeling of War Story: Nightingale as the direct knife-in-the-guts.

Johann is haunted by the atrocities he’s committed in the name of the Fatherland.  The things he’s done without questioning, the things he’s done just for being soldier, no thought put into whether or not he cares for Hitler’s agenda.  And Johann does not feel that he deserves to make it out of this war.  But his boys do.  His decisions are his own, but he’s led his troops down the line, and he wants for them to be free of this nonsense fight in Russia, where men are thrown by the handful in the way of their Tiger tank, to be blown to bits by Johann’s quite capable crew.  And so they are all agreed: they will no longer listen to orders, they are on the run to surrender to the Americans.  They will be prisoners, but at least the war will be over for them.  But Johann has a different plan for himself.

Sometimes Ennis’ war tales get a little wistful and so wander for some panels or pages as the man masturbates over his love for brotherhood or minutiae, but in ‘Tiger’, every single moment is needed and purposeful and powerful and unique to the story (not romanticism that could be switched out elsewhere), as we are kept grounded by Johann’s nature and memories – he does not want to think over this war because he hates it.  So those memories that do bubble up simply underline the need for his path.

Weston’s pencils almost tip into ugly (meaning his character models are like Derrick Robertson’s – generally not pretty people doing pretty thing),  but on the whole its reigned in respectfully.  A masterful comic that should appeal to not only fans of Ennis’ darker tales (like his Punisher MAX stuff, minus the ultra-violence), but war fans as well.