Monday 12 October 2009

Best Of Battle - D-Day Dawson


The book kicks off with one of my not-so favourite strips but an excellent, informative intro for it by then editor Pat Mills.
STUNNED that Dawson was the top character for a good while over the likes of Rat Pack.
Onto the strips and the first is the first. And here we hit the "went with it as a kid, but the adult in my goes huh?" wall (WWIAAK from now on). Dawson is shot on the D Day Landings and gets a bullet near his heart which'll reach it within a year right?
But who tells him this?
Some medical bod on the beach (we don't even know he IS a doctor - he just has the red cross armband) who tells him that.
How does the guy know?
Its a warzone, they're in a landing craft, he has no equipment to do any such examination. And if he did - cleanliness is right out the window (if the boat had them) so Dawson'd be dead a lot sooner than a year once the infections spread.
Anyway, passing over that, we have Dawson's first displaying of noticing something no-one else can spot, despite being shot and (presumably been opened up by the quack) - the boats going to be shelled.
Up he gets and out he jumps and off he swims.
Now, its the end of the world for me if i stub my toe but this guy is some sort of superhuman - gawd, what'd he be like if he hadn't been shot?
The first strip ends with him beginning his whole "i've nothing to lose i'm on borrowed time" mantra that he spouts every week. I suppose it meant to be noble but really comes across now as whiny. If you feel that bad about it, tell folk and get shipped back home you twonk.
Really, not too much pleasure from this batch, aside from Dawson machinegunning down a bunch of American troops who turn out to be Nazi's in disguise, spotting them because "their uniforms were too neat".
"AIEEEE!" WATCH:
A slightly shortend "Aieee!" in episode one.
A 100% "Aieeee!" from a paratrooper officer as he's shot and falls down a well.

1 comment:

james corcoran said...

Loved D Day Dawson at the time and Rat Pack and one other strip that escapes me,but was drawn by Vanyo.
Great blog by the way.