Review by Colin Credle

Author Richard Marazano continues with more of the same for Memories From the Civil War Vol. 2 – mission mishaps, jealous babes and titillating plots to upend society shadowed in the murky background, but any actual story barely progresses from Vol. 1. Our hero Virgil works in the Security and Intervention “SI”  infantry guarding the safety of the privileged cities of the future. He leads a small group of well-equipped soldiers outside of the walls to counter aggressive revolutionaries or to harvest people during labour shortages.

The official Psychiatrist Rachel happens to be his ex-girlfriend. Although Rachel is jilted, she continues to bend the rules to cover Virgil’s erratic behaviour. Mandatory psychiatric sessions after forays outside the security of the walled cities creates an opportunity for Rachel to examine Virgil, to catch the reader up on events and, in general, to be condescending, presumptuous and controlling. In one instance, Rachel accuses Virgil of making a blunder, and while it’s not exactly clear what the blunder was, it is sufficient to justify Rachel’s further interference.

The fellow infantry in Virgil’s troop begin to lose presence and diminish to cardboard characters. Once again, a mission goes awry due to poor intelligence and to mishandling by those that assigned them their task. Virgil’s SI infantry group find themselves in the outskirts of Jerusalem, where the prophecy of a revolutionary coming to upend society begins to assume some religious overtones. Code words that manifested in Virgil’s distorted dreams begin to be uttered in real life by those we see as adversaries. We learn late into the story that Virgil forgot a lot. Many seem to know Virgil, but he seems to know little about what’s going on.

Memories From the Civil War continues to be hampered by Ponzio’s artistic approach. There’s a lot of effort in the designs, but panels are disjointed, most faces have the same frozen gaping open mouth no matter what they are expressing, and the depiction of any major action is displayed in a stilted format. As Virgil’s fellow SI soldiers retreat into the background, there are fewer characters to care about. Virgil is on autopilot with memory loss. Rachel is manipulative and overbearing. All those on the subversive side of things resemble NPC (Non-Player Characters) in a video game – repeating the same phrases without contributing much, leaving no meaningful character on the other side to engage with or help define the “other” side. It might help the story to start the revolution, then maybe a more compelling character might materialize.

Memories From the Civil War concludes in Vol. 3.