Review by Karl Verhoven

Sergeant Jim Masters sees his job during World War II as protecting his troops. And why not? As we’ve seen, they’re fine bunch of wholesome lads, each with their single defining characteristic, with Unknown Unwin’s example being he’s not a fine wholesome lad. There was something suspicious about him to end Volume 1, and Volume 2 begins with the squad shipped to Sicily to begin the long arduous task of freeing Italy of Nazis from the South up.

Whereas the action in the first volume was rather random, Gerry Finley-Day introduces a Northwards progression to events with these stories, now running longer than the previous couple of episodes at a time. “I hope we ain’t getting too cocky about all keepin’ in one piece after gettin’ this far” wonders the Sarge at the beginning of a new mission, and as Garth Ennis’ introduction reveals, there’s tragedy along the way. The Sarge’s musings are Finley-Day’s form of foreshadowing.

At roughly 24 panels accompanying a half page splash per episode there’s little room for grieving or sentimentality, but Mike Western’s art is astoundingly compact in conveying detail, action and personality. Given longer episodes in today’s comics, such contraction is very much a lost art. His sample page presents the Sarge’s squad as it is beginning this collection, each of them individual and with character. Names like Specky were seen as wartime banter rather than a cause of mandatory attendance at sensitivity training, by the way.

As well known squad members depart Finley-Day’s newcomers all have inventive nicknames, all cause suspicion, and he builds stories around their failings endangering the other men, while Unwin remains a disruptive presence, not buying into the comradeship of all being in it together. While a gritty realism is the default state, Finley-Day doesn’t see it as a narrative noose, and will counter the mood for the sake of an improbable escape or rescue. His primary objective, after all, was to thrill the young boys reading a weekly action comic, not have them admire the abiding tone.

Week after week Finley-Day and Western hit the mark, and Ennis certainly remembers the Sarge and his crew fondly, providing not only the introduction, but a new strip to end the collection. When part of a Battle Action special it was a reintroduction for characters unseen in forty years, but following the original content it’s just going over old ground. P.J. Holden’s art doesn’t have to be as packed as Western’s, but his characters and detail transmit and he delivers a wonderful small, thin silhouette panel on the final page.

Gathering weekly episodes into a collection pulls the curtain back on Finley-Day’s formula to an extent, but within that he can also surprise. Furthermore, the theme of ordinary men facing the unceasing terror of war transmits well to a generation who’ve never had to experience it.