Review of
We Stand On Guard #1,
comic written by Brian K. Vaughan
Five out of five stars
Great opening to a brutal adventure
It is the year 2112 and the story opens with a drone
strike against the White House in Washington, D. C. In response, the United
States launches a massive drone strike against Canada, followed by an invasion
and military occupation. There is a family of four staying in a high rise apartment
or condo in Ottawa when the strike takes place. The mother and father are killed,
and in his last breath the father tells preteen boy Tommy to look after his
baby sister.
The action jumps
forward to 2124 near Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories and it is winter.
A solitary woman is hunting a caribou with a crossbow. A mechanical American
war machine accosts her and demands her identity card. Angered, she fires her
crossbow, which of course does no damage. The reaction is to unleash the
equivalent of a mechanical dog to kill her.
Right before
the dog kills her, it is destroyed by a small group of Canadian freedom
fighters. The fighters are skeptical about her and are doing a recon when a
massive American war machine much like the Imperial walkers of Star Wars arrives.
The freedom fighters prove to be very capable, and the stage is set for furtherance
of what is the classic battle between a mighty occupying power and a small band
of effective guerrilla fighters.
This story is
in many ways a look to the future of warfare, where few humans are on the
actual battlefield and the death and destruction is carried out by automated
drones. Which may or may not be under direct human control. The only reason given
for the American attack of Canada is that the U. S. needed their water. Which hints
of significant drought due to climate change. It is a great story, and the
reader is left with a desire to read subsequent issues.
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