The 'Nam Vol. 2

Written by Doug Murray
Art by Wayne Vansant, Michael Golden, John Severin, Geoff Isherwood, John Beatty, and Bob Camp

It's worth wondering how my reading and educational history might have changed had my twelve and thirteen year old self been wise enough to realize what a cool and special series Marvel's The 'Nam was when it was first being published.  Were a series like this being launched today, I would support it whole-heartedly and with great enthusiasm.

Still, kids are dumb, especially given that some of these comics were drawn by Michael Golden, whose Micronauts issues were among the ones I treasured the most.

Anyway, The 'Nam was structured to try to show how the Vietnam War worked in real time.  A month of history passed between each monthly issue, and efforts were made to align the events that the soldiers of the 23rd Infantry Division experienced in the comic with what happened in the actual war.  It's an interesting structure, causing characters to move in and out of the book as they are injured or they become 'short'.  At times it doesn't work - when an unpopular and possibly psychotic lieutenant meets an unexpected fate on the base, it's two months before that event is dealt with by the brass.  One would assume the reaction would have happened quicker.

This comic is not blind in its portrayal of the more questionable aspects of the war.  When our point of view character gets back home, he is surprised to see how the war is being portrayed and understood in the media and even by his own parents.  There's not a lot of time for politics however, as Murray prefers to focus on the tight relationships formed among the men.  Many issues lack strong narrative structure on their own, and instead work as vignettes in a war that lasted a long time.

The art in this book, which collects ten issues of the series, is superb.  Golden drew this with a much looser style than he was known for at the time, and Wayne Vansant, who drew the lion's share of issues, echoed his style quite well while maintaining his own approach.  John Severin drew an issue, which is alone enough of a reason to buy this book.

Reading this, I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen a more modern attempt to do this same sort of comic, but set in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Enough time has passed that these stories are becoming more common on television and in movies, but with the exception of DC's short lived war comic corner of the New 52, we aren't seeing enough exploration of these conflicts...

The 'Nam Vol. 1

Written by Doug Murray
Art by Michael Golden, Wayne Vansant, Armando Gil, Pepe Moreno, John Beatty, and Bob McLeod

My experience of The 'Nam has been limited, until I read an older Marvel trade a few years ago, and realised that I'd missed out on a terrific comic in my early-teen fixation on superhero comics.

The 'Nam, the first ten issues of which are collected here, was an attempt to explore, within the boundaries of the Comics Code, a realistic view of the Vietnam War.  The stories were designed to play out in 'real time', so that one issue of the comic took place one month before the next one, and characters who survived got 'short' and went home at the end of a year.

The writing, by Doug Murray, a veteran, captured a number of aspects of the war that weren't usually seen in comics, from the graft of Top, a corrupt First Sergeant, to the random and unexpected violence of the war.  The book did not shy away from massacred villagers, or the lives of the VC (portrayed in one memorable issue in which a Kit Carson ex-VC shares his story).  Some issues end abruptly, or are hard to follow, but that helps add to the war's atmosphere.

The art for most of this book is by Michael Golden (the VC issue is by Wayne Vansant).  Golden has been a favourite artist of mine since I read his early Micronauts books as a kid, although the style he employs here is much more cartoonish than his usual work.  This volume has been retouched, so the colours are brighter, and in some places, downright bizarre.

This comic is an interesting contrast to the Vietnam Journal book I read last week, which was both darker and denser, but also was not constrained by the Code.  Together, the two books help construct a fuller picture of the War.  Now I need to get Volume Two, and hope that Marvel will continue to republish the rest of this series.

The 'Nam Volume 2

Written by Doug Murray
Art by Michael Golden and John Beatty, with Wayne Vansant

I never read this title when it originally came out - I was 12 when the comics it reproduces were first published, and much more interested in super hero books back then. I recently found this volume, which collects issues 5-9 at a used book store for only $2, so I figured it was worth picking up.

These are some strange comics. I don't know if Murray had written in comics before or since, and his style of storytelling is quite different from what I'm used to. He tends to tell parallel stories that eventually meet up at some point - the reader has to do a lot of work to keep up with it though. This happens in both the first story, and in the last.

The third part of the book is an interesting look into the history of Vietnam, and a VC deserter who is now fighting for the American army.

Three of the four chapters of this book are illustrated by the legendary Michael Golden, but I'm not sure that I would have recognized his work here. He has a very loose, cartoonish style, and many of his panels are tight close-ups on big jawed Americans. I found this to be a bizarre choice - you can't always figure out what is going on in confusing battle scenes, although it does make the tunnel scenes even more claustrophobic.

The best part of the book is a short story called "Tunnel Rat" at the end of this volume. In this, we see a bit of the Golden I remember from the Micronauts in a beautiful page showing American planes dropping leaflets on rice paddies while soldiers stand on a Vulcan and demolish some foliage.

I wish Marvel would publish an Essential 'Nam. The book would look good in black and white, and I would enjoy reading it. I'm reading Denis Johnson's 'Tree of Smoke' right now, and this was a good companion to it.