Garth Ennis is back to form on War Stories; his artist, Tomas Aira, is probably worse than the last time I saw him working on the book (could’ve been last issue… he’s not memorable).

But what is memorable is Ennis’s setup for this story. German civilians leaving Russian–in January 1945–the Russians kind of not making it easy for them to leave. It’s a refuge story from the perspective of a German girl. Ennis is trying again with War Stories; he’s trying really hard.

The story has action and a fair bit of drama. There’s no humor, except when the narrator too is aware of the irony of the jokes. Ennis does a great job establishing his cast members when not even giving them distinct enough names. The action goes okay but the drama’s all beautifully paced dialogue exchanges from Ennis.

Nice to see him caring about it again.