Never Again!

The face of the world-weary soldier on the cover of the debut issue of Never Again says more almost than the stories inside. Ross Andru and his longtime associate Mike Esposito crafted a masterpiece of mood with this image worth well more than a thousand words. Each issue features two stories, each story narrated by the ghostly WWI-era "Unknown Soldier".

The first issue has a tale called "The Beginning of the End" about Indian wars in the United States and the attempt by Chief Joseph and his tribe's to escape into Canada and the U.S. Cavalry's efforts to capture them before that happened. The second story titled "Battle of the Bows!" reaches back to the One Hundred Years War and follows two lowly archers as they try to make sense of the larger strategy which will hopefully end the fighting at long last. Both stories are drawn by Bob Forgione.

Forgione is also the artist of both stories in the second issue. The first is titled "Career Man" and focuses on a stalwart sailor who has been serving since WWI and now finds himself on the edge of a new conflict of sorts in the Cold War of the late 50's. It's a pretty compelling tale of how life and war just seems to tumble along. The second tale is titled "Two Men in the Sky" and gives alternate perspectives of two WWI flyers -- one an American and the other German. It's an interesting way to show that war is something that happens to most people, that they are swept up in it.

Both issues are pretty good. The first one is numbered one and weirdly is numbered eight. That makes no sense but it is a Charlton comic.  Never Again was an unusual comic, not unique, but different.

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