I was going to review Bigg Time, but it didn't ship in my city.  Then I thought I'd review some Image book or other that was meant to start this week, so that didn't ship either.

So instead, here's Call of Duty: The Wagon.  Which at least gives an opportunity to catch up on how the Call of Duty miniseries have been going.

As everyone knows, Call of Duty was one of Marvel's more heavily pushed launches for the summer.  It's essentially a tribute to New York's emergency services, following on from the wave of appreciation that they received in the wake of September 11.  The series has adopted a bizarre parallel structure, with each of the three main characters receiving their own miniseries - Brotherhood for the fire service, Precinct for the police, and now Wagon for the EMTs.  The first two miniseries each had their own separate plots, while glacially advancing an overreaching arc plot about a ghost girl who turns up and delivers cryptic comments.

All three series have at least steered clear of blatant hagiography in favour of actual storytelling, although both Austen's series (this one and Brotherhood) have stressed the brotherhood and banter elements, and the strong suspicion remains that this is a decidedly idealised version of all three forces.  Quite understandable given the motivation behind the series, but it doesn't necessarily make for the best drama.

Wagon seems to be starting to draw the threads together, as this time the ghost girl plot appears to be taking the lead.  Not that a great deal actually happens, mind you, but at least it's dominating the plot rather than being an element which turns up for two pages before buggering off again.  As I'd suspected at the outset, the need to extend this plot across all three miniseries (a total of fifteen issues) seems to be stretching it way beyond its natural lifespan.  It surely should have moved a little further along by now.

In many ways I want to like the Call of Duty books.  They're not superhero books, and while I'm certainly not part of the anti-spandex kneejerk society, I'm always in favour of Marvel trying to broaden their range.  Tribute element aside, they're still an unusual and risky commission, so I have to welcome the attempt if nothing else.  Also, on both this and Brotherhood, Austen has been doing a convincing job with the procedural aspects of the story.

I'm also pleased to see Danijel Zezelj being used on this series.  The other two miniseries have gone for a rather more conventional American mainstream style.  Zezelj has a more interesting and sketchier style, with interesting use of shadow that's nicely complemented by Avalon's colouring.  Okay, the entire story seems to take place in a perpetually breathtaking sunrise, but it looks wonderful, so I'll let it go.  Zezelj's style also sells me more on Jennifer Montez as a real character - she's written to be beautiful, and in the other artists' hands she came across looking like a stock model character.  Zezelj's version seems more human, perhaps because she doesn't immediately seem like a stock character design figure.

But I still find that I'm not really getting into these books.  There are two main problem, I think.  One is the lack of a compelling overall narrative aside from the painfully slow plot about the little girl.  The other is that I don't get the sense of much in the way of hidden depths in these characters - they all seem to be nice but a bit on the shallow side.

Still, points for making the attempt.  And I do like the art.

Rating: B

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