This is an excellent, creative comic. The first issue set up a fairly typical (yet still compelling) Vietnam War story, somewhat reminiscent of Jason Aaron and Cameron Stewarts' brilliant "The Other Side", but from the American perspective alone. The story focused on a cowardly FNG on his first patrol, and showed his squad get cut to pieces. At the end of the book, he is rescued by a squad of monkeys in GI uniforms. Perfect ending for a first chapter (even if you knew it was coming by reading solicitations).
This issue provides some much-needed exposition, but still leaves us plenty of questions to explore over the remaining 7 issues of the series. We do know that there are German (ex-Nazi?) scientists involved, which is pretty much never a bad thing in comics. We also see our hero from issue one become a part of the monkey squad, being able to perform a much-needed task in their company.
Revel's story plays out slowly over these nice, chunky books (54 pages of story is a great deal at $6). His art reminds me of David Lapham and/or Cameron Stewart, and he is able to project human thoughts and emotions onto his simian soldiers. (I did find it a little hard to identify the monkey in the scene in Africa though - sometimes it looked like a wolf, sometimes a person).
This book is very well-paced. The story he has planned must be a long one - it's the equivalent of almost 23 regular comics. I'm definitely staying on board for the whole ride.
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