Army @ Love

Army@Love isn’t strictly about the Iraq war, even though its politics, humor, and commentary are completely informed by it. Writer/artist Veitch has invented a fictional nation, Afbaghistan, where he sets his storyline, which stirs together righteous indignation at the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, our sex-obsessed culture, and the hypocrisy of conservative Christians, among other things.

It’s a heady mix. It’s hard not to get high off the fumes. Yet at the end of the ride, it’s possible to feel somewhat...unfulfilled.

What is on the page in Army@Love mixes sudsy soap-opera plotting with a dose of satirical bite. Switzer and Flabbergast are the central characters; Switzer is a “conservative” woman with a husband back home who finds herself unquestionably drawn into the sexualization of life on the front. Flabbergast functions almost as her “boy toy” in the first issue; they share a heated tryst during a firefight that frames the satirical targets of the series perfectly--sex selling war.

More interesting to me is the “Motivation and Morale” campaign that drives the Army’s recruitment and morale-building initiatives on the front. I think this is where the sharpest satire resides, since it’s where the gung-ho war attitude and our sex-obsessed culture most directly collide.

But then, that’s the danger with satire—get too sharp, and it can become impossible to maintain realistic, sympathetic characters. That is the razor’s edge that Veitch is walking along as he writes this title. Can he draw readers into the lives of his characters, while at the same time providing a vicious indictment of our nation and its war? Or will the characters evaporate at the expense of ever-sharpening satire?

Essentially, the pieces are in place for a vicious and provocative examination of modern American culture’s dual obsessions: Sex and violence. This is definitely one to keep an eye on, whether in single issues or the eventual trade collections.