Internal tensions start to surface more as the battles get further underway.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Andrea Mutti
What They Say:
With Mercy pushed to the back of his mind, Seth is free to commit one hundred percent to the war for independence and to the special assignment General George Washington has in mind for him.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The timing of reading this book is definitely interesting for me as I had just recently finished off the second season of Turn: Washington’s Spies, and had immersed myself in some decent reading of the time period and the characters. So bringing some of that refreshed historical material to mind while reading here, it certainly colors various interactions. Notably when you view Washington and Arnold together and understand the real tensions that existed between the men over who felt who deserved the commanding position, and how it must have made so many other things complicated along the way. At its core though, the book continues to be about Seth Abbott, and that’s still its main strength.
This particular installment is one that works on a couple of different areas as we move through 1775. Seth and the Green Mountain Boys under Ethan Allen have made their way to the Boston area and we see the kind of hard work they put in to prepare for the battle at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. It’s a crazy reminder of complacency of superiority as we see the British soldiers, having hundreds of years of victories on the battlefield, going through their motions in a most inhuman way to attack from a weaker position downhill. The cost of the battle is profound with the number dead on each side, but there is a regular commentary on different levels about how it’s crazy to fight in these regimented ways. And this thinking does persist in the commanders of both sides for years to come, again referencing later battles seen in Turn: Washington’s Spies. It’s understandable, but it also drives you kind of crazy to see it. Especially since the British win in the end.
The series does shift us in another direction as well, as Washington arrives on one of the camps where Allen and Abbott are and he’s looking to send guards to go back to Ticonderoga in order to help transport some cannons back to Boston. It’s an interesting interplay simply because it reinforces Washington’s distaste with northerners, and we get a few instances of that here. Allen does send Abbott even though Washington doesn’t want that, but Abbott is most assuredly the best of the lot to lead such a group. There’s some dynamics that comes into play about the transport that’s interesting, seeing the context of the time and the difficulty of it all, but also some time spent on the fraying between him and Mercy through letters that we don’t get to read ourselves. Seth’s push to do what’s needed is what’s driving him and it’s an interesting look at the different kinds of men that began the revolution.
In Summary:
Rebels once again delight me utterly, even more so with the refreshed context of the times and some of the players, so this issue definitely clicked very well for me. Brian Wood continues to tell an engaging story that doesn’t feel traditional in any sense of the word as it moves through different periods within the timeline, almost always progression, but it’s made so much smoother and engaging because of Andrea Mutti’s artwork. There’s such a great richness and depth to it, so much detail that I just get caught up in, that I have to read it a couple of times because of the way I’m drawn to the smaller moments. I can still see why this is a hard book for many, but it’s hitting it out of the park for me on a regular basis.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: July 8th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
