Review by Frank Plowright

A second anthology reviving features from the comics Garth Ennis read during the 1970s leans more heavily on the war strips from Battle, than the more general thrillers provided by Action.

This time it’s not Ennis writing everything. He’s persuaded John Wagner to revisit H.M.S. Nightshade, starting as before with George Dunn relating his World War II naval experiences to his grandson. Childhood friends Taf and Morgan serve together on Nightshade escorting supply ships across the Atlantic, with Wagner and Dan Cornwell (sample art left) memorably evoking the constant danger. It’s a tearjerker.

As Dan Abnett explains in his introduction, D-Day Dawson’s strips depended on establishing a location, here farm buildings, and maximising the possibilities for spontaneity. Phil Winslade draws the hell out of it.

Rob Williams and P.J. Holden revive ‘Death Squad’, the dregs of the Germany army sent on suicide missions. It’s a relatively standard war effort until a good twist turns everything upside down. Despite being one of the most popular features back in the day, Major Eazy missed out on the first volume, but Williams restores him to glory as the inspirational presence seen by a young conscript. Henry Flint’s art evokes the Carlos Ezquerra originals, and more than any other strip here this comes across as the creative team revelling in every page.

The only competition for that comes from Ennis and John Higgins reprising their creative role on the incorrigibly rough Dredger and his joyously over the top brutality. A lesson, perhaps, in threatening anyone’s mother. Ennis has more respect for ‘Cooley’s Gun’ than most, a brief 1980 Battle strip featuring an unpleasant petty Englander. That respect, though, results in a strip bettering the original, with Ennis explaining how men like Cooley may be abhorrent, but there’s no-one you’d prefer to have beside you on the battlefield. Staz Johnson’s art brings two characters to life amid the horrors they witness in a fine story, and Len O’Grady’s colours set the mood better than any other inclusion.

As he did in the first volume, Ennis combines characters from different strips, here having Crazy Keller, a rogue always making a profit from war, teamed with Mule from ‘Hot Wheels’, a strip about supply convoy drivers in France. Ennis also collaborates twice with veteran artist Mike Dorey. The first is a look at Hellman of Hammer Force cutting his military teeth during the Spanish Civil War. It’s intentionally horrific, and underlines Hellman as a man who fought for his country, not Nazi ideology. The second story occurs eight years later in the dying days of World War II and is a surprising accounting for Hellman’s war service. How will he be remembered? Ennis and Keith Burns also look at the Rat Pack in the type of story Ennis writes so well, contrasting reality with the expectations of officers.

While all other writers are acclaimed, Torun Grønbekk is the surprise package with an emotionally strong look at World War II Russian pilot Nina Petrova, delivering credible action with a background of political expedience. It’s exceptionally well drawn by Patrick Goddard (sample art right).

For war comics fans this is another great outing, although Action readers from back in the day may be disappointed that only Dredger is set beyond 1945.