Comic review: Rebels #4- Liberty, Career, Money, Mud and Corpses

Script: Brian Wood
Art: Andrea Mutti
Colours: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 8th July 2015


Rebels #4 starts with a gunfight, a battle with redcoats walking in line, getting shot by the ‘Rebels’ hiding behind barricades. It’s a lesson about following orders. Follow them, and you will get pointlessly shot. Think for yourself, improvise, and you will survive. The lesson holds true today. Follow orders and you might as well be dead. Think for yourself and you will be truly alive.

Andrea Mutti’s art is ferociously, terrifyingly real. Shrapnel and dirt fly through the air, you wouldn’t want to be there, it looks dangerous, and you’d want to keep your head down less something takes your face off. War is no fun. I might die. I want to keep my head down, but soldiers are approaching. I must stand up. I must shoot back. This is terrifying. I’m going to die.

The other noticeable thing about the book is that the great hero of the American war of Independence, George Washington, is portrayed as a bit of an elitist snob. I can buy that. He was a high-ranking soldier, and armies are always based around tribalism, self-interest and elitism.

The theme of disobeying orders follows through to the end of this issue, with the main protagonist determined to do what is best to win the war, and to sacrifice what is best for himself personally in order to do so. That’s what a hero is supposed to do, to act selflessly for the benefit of others, not for personal advancement or glory.

There’s an abundance of fake heroes in this world today, and not too many genuine ones. I’ve never met a genuine hero, but I don’t get out too much.

Rebels #4 is a book about lining up, following orders, mud, blood and how to win a war. The art, and the colour palette in particular, conjures up a feeling of terror, gunpowder, blood, death, grass, spittle, sweat, dirt, fear, the thunder of a rifle, and the squelch of a bullet through soft human flesh.

It’s not pleasant, but war isn’t pleasant. War is stupid, pointless, painful horrific death. It’s not cool. It’s not high kicks and muscles. It’s silence, boredom, then fight or flight adrenaline and the horrifying realisation that you are about to die in a muddy field, or be horribly mutilated, and finished off with a bayonet to the chest as you writhe in pain and beg for mercy on the cold, wet, muddy ground.

That’s what I took from Rebels #4. It’s a tough book, a relentless book, a book that is as serious as war. There is nobody laughing or joking around here.

The story is about shooting people who want to shoot you first. Some shoot for liberty, others for career advancement, for others it’s just about the money. The end result is the same, people ripped apart by bullets and shrapnel. It’s not a lot of fun, but war isn’t supposed to be fun.

What you are getting here is truth about war, unpleasant as it is, truth can be empty, find heroism where you can, find a meaning, but the ground still ends up being littered with corpses.

Rating: 8/10 (Harsh war realism)