A new release of a classic.
Creative Staff
Story: Joe Haldeman
Artwork: Marvano
What They Say
The visionary Hugo and Nebula Award-winning SF tale by Joe Haldeman is beautifully realised in full color by the legendary artist Marvano. An epic SF war story spanning space and time, The Forever War explores one soldier’s experience caught up in the brutal machinery of a war that reaches across the stars.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
During my younger years when I used to frequent comic book shops a lot, especially as I did courier work and had time to kill across the state, I came across the first Forever War collection from NBM Publishing. And it was one that was signed by Joe Haldeman, who wrote the original novel. Titan Comics has opted, for reasons I’m not sure, to bring this property back to life in the form of single issues this year. The work with art from Belgian artist Marvano is definitely the kind of property that has been used as launching points for other works over the years and the original novel is definitely one of the best out there, which makes this very faithful adaptation all the more intriguing in how it brings it to life.
The premise is solid as we get the discovery of ways to move through space easier in 1998 and mankind begins its expansion to the stars. Unfortunately, ten years into the program, a mission to the Alderbaraan system in the Taurus constellation goes wrong as the ship is attacked and destroyed by another spaceship. The enemy isn’t seen and all these years later they’re more myth than reality in a lot of ways. But these christined Taurans are a threat and colony ships are now protected by military ships with some pretty well trained crews. It’s something that when the original work was written back in 1974 that it was really intriguing to read coming off of the Vietnam War and you can see the elements from that making its way into the story.
What it wants to focus on are two areas that definitely help it to stand out in contrast to the usual space pulp and adventure stories that tend to dominate. The first is that it plays the military side well with how the best and brightest are conscripted and trained to serve, giving us a kind of futuristic Full Metal Jacket interpretation that whittles down the group by killing off those that aren’t fully prepared. There’s a lot to like in the coldness of it but also the way the soldiers, through the lead character of Mandella, grapple with this and learn to accept it. The other is that it really starts digging into the problems of interstellar conflicts across such vast spaces with time. It’s reminiscent of the Gunbuster anime series in a lot of ways with how it takes time to get to places and deal with it all, but also just in how combat can take hours with just one exchange of missiles as you wait to see the result of that first attack before going into more.
In Summary:
The Forever War in its graphic novel form made a bit impact on me during my younger days and I’ve revisited this in its trade form over the years. Digging into it once again at this point in my life, and at the nature of the world as it is today, is definitely intriguing. Some things continue to remain the same and that’s no surprise while other aspects of the book are a bit more dated, albeit they’re things that aren’t delved into too deeply so that it doesn’t impact it too much. Haldeman’s story is importand and Marvano brings it to life beautifully here with his artwork and presentation. This is a series that you can easily see being done by a lot of top talent this days, reminding me of how the Pax Romana series for example is handled with its mix of text and artwork, and I’d love to see a new incarnation of this brought to life even as I adore Marvano’s adaptation. Good stuff here to expose a new generation to if they’re willing to take a chance.
Content Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: February 15th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
