This issue is something of a texture piece. While it does further the story (Moses gets a radio and a translator by the end while starting the issue with neither), it’s really about someone else. The issue’s protagonist is a college student who returns home, only he’s returning home to a war zone. He makes the trip because of a pretty girl, of course.

The one issue aside is something of a Vertigo regular, something for between arcs. Dysart’s not recreating the wheel here, but he is turning in a fantastic issue, especially when taking into account he’s got a first person protagonist narrating the story and this guy’s from a completely different culture than the reader (and writer).

What’s strange is how unpredictably tame Dysart resolves the issue’s drama.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to find out what happens to the protagonist and his romances; the focus returns to Moses.

The conclusion to the first arc is beyond depressing. It’s not just depressing because it showcases the futility of Moses’s quest (before the quest even starts), but because everything is revealed, in the end, to be futile. The good Moses has done is all for nought.

And the character accepts it and moves forward because it’s his place to move forward, which dehumanizes him almost completely–but through a conscious decision.

Like I said, depressing.

Dysart uses the same approach–the varied points of view–this time, but it doesn’t provide any relief here. It makes the issue somewhat more digestible, with the most horrific events occurring off-page.

I haven’t read further (I was rereading before continuing) so I don’t know what comes next. I can’t wait to see, since it seems like the story (just like the first issue did) has stopped.

Unknown Soldier is a fantastic comic.

Now I’m confused. Not because I don’t remember this issue from the last time I read it, but because Dysart’s finally revealing little glimpses at the secret behind the “voice.”

Something happened to the good doctor, letting him become the killing machine… and the Unknown Soldier has something to do with it. Not the Unknown Soldier of this series, but the overall Unknown Soldier. I think Ennis dealt with him as a force of nature too.

But it’s also the issue where the one secret–the good doctor being a killing machine–is revealed to his wife. So he doesn’t have a secret identity.

Also, the stuff about Moses–that’s the protagonist–hurrying into marrying his wife after dumping his med school girlfriend… that was great, particularly because Dysart doesn’t given enough information to really form an opinion. It just seems a little suspicious.

And then a great cliffhanger here.

Dysart starts tying his two narratives (between the CIA operative and his protagonist) together here.

He opens with the CIA guy, set before the end of the previous issue and continues, again, from before the last issue ended, showing a different point of view of the situation (it’s the bad guys’ perspective–bad guys being the kids with guns).

The CIA guy offers Dysart the chance to talk about the setting, the war-torn country, apolitically (even though it’s an American operative reflecting on it). It gives the reader the opportunity to see the country differently, to bask in the great things about it. Dysart juxtaposes these soldier youths with these pleasant kids the CIA guy runs across. It’s a strange, lovely scene.

The “voice” doesn’t return this issue, though it’s present. Dysart’s mixing up the points of view, making the comic less horrific, even if the events are terrible.

Dysart deals with it–and has been since the first issue–but really… Unknown Soldier‘s going to have limited appeal. It doesn’t matter if it’s more action packed than Rambo, it’s a story where the hero does good by killing children (soldiers, but still children). There aren’t going to be any movie adaptations here… no summer event blockbusters in 3D.

Dysart seems more than aware of that condition and he doesn’t shy away from it. It makes Unknown Soldier hard to read. The comic requests you stop playing an iPhone game and think about something really awful for twenty-two pages. Something real and really awful.

This issue, besides bringing the protagonist to a new place, starts weaving in the subplots and supporting cast. More supporting cast than subplots, I suppose.

Dysart doesn’t allow even the slightest comic relief here. Instead, he lets the quality compel the reader to finish.

The second issue is a little more traditional. Dysart uses a roaming third person narrator, jumping into his protagonist’s head when he’s with him, staying out of the supporting cast members’ heads when he’s with them.

Now, the meat of the story arc is developing. Dysart introduces the old CIA guy, which sort of shows what Unknown Soldier is going to be. It’s going to be straightforward, even though lots of flashbacks and so on are in the narrator’s head. Then there are the hallucinations.

The elephant in the room is Punisher: Born, which I imagine Dysart read. I know he reads Alan Moore; I’m assuming Ennis too. The letterer has read Born too, because the internal dialogue demon has the same presentation in Soldier as it did in Born.

It’s too soon to say. I’m more curious about the connection than anything else.

Fantastic cliffhanger too–action versus morality.

The most striking thing, reading Unknown Soldier again, is how much Dysart gets done in the first issue. I know where it goes, so reading it for the first time I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it as much as I do this time.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was great after that first reading, but this issue–another time through–could be it. The title wouldn’t work, but if this issue was just in an anthology, it could be a standalone.

Dysart gets in his protagonist’s entire history, mostly through a nice layer–a speech–and then puts him through an incredible change. That change will make him the titular character eventually, but it’s not essential to this issue. This issue is a perfect artistic motion. There couldn’t be a better first issue.

This comic wowed me the first read.

This time it’ll be even better.