Light Brigade is the sort of book that you would expect to find in DC's Vertigo imprint - it's "suggested for mature readers", and it's full of supernatural stuff.  I don't really understand why it's not in Vertigo, to be honest.  DC have a perfectly well established imprint for this kind of thing; why not use it?

Anyway.  Light Brigade has been getting generally rather good reviews, but I'm afraid I can't join the enthusiasm.  It's not a particularly bad book, and it certainly has a lot going for it, but there are problems here.

It's December 1944, and a group of American soldiers are in Belgium, as part of the offensive against Germany.  They fall under the leadership of an enigmatic US soldier called Centurion, who's following visions and ends up leading them to help the archangel Sauriel recover the Sword of God from an evil archangel.

So it's a genre crossover - war story, and supernatural story.  It starts off rather well, with the soldiers dug into their trenches and going about their low-key business.  And there's a very good action scene as they come under attack from the Germans.  The art, certainly, is fantastic throughout - it's skilful stuff, which gets the most content into the minimum of lines, and has great pacing.  And the archangels look great, albeit rather out of place in the context of a war story.

The problem, for me, comes when the story starts bringing in rather uninspired riffs on Christian mythology.  Not only do we have archangels, but they're big robed guys with wings and blazing swords.  Of course, this is just a traditional way of depicting archangels; personally, I don't think it works in the context of a war story.  The archangels just come across as unreal.

Then we've got some awful nonsense about how the evil Grigori and Nephilim have been scheming to undermine faith in God, because if we don't have faith in God, we'll all fall to the dark side.  As an atheist, I am tempted to grumble about the typical religious arrogance that assumes morality can have no possible grounding other than religious teachings.  To be honest, though, I find myself rolling my eyes more at the chronically simplistic attempt to explain why nasty things happen in a loving God's universe, and the way it ends up trying to blame the failings of humanity on the nasty magic thingies.  It strikes me as a cop-out.

The back cover comes with assorted glowing reviews from assorted writers.  David Goyer compares it to a cross between Saving Private Ryan and The Exorcist.  He may well have put his finger on my problem.  I realise this is heresy, but I honestly don't think The Exorcist is particularly good.  It relies for its effect on the audience buying into the idea of demonic possession on some level.  If you accept it as a real phenomenon then it's potentially scary.  If you don't, then it's a rather camp exercise in special effects.  (Mind you, on either view, it's also rather dated, which is a barrier for modern audiences as well.)

I suspect Light Brigade may also be the sort of story where you need, on some level, to buy into Christianity, archangels and so forth in order for it to work.  If, like me, you don't accept those concepts, it doesn't work.  Not all religious-themed stories have this problem, I should stress.  The appeal of most religious mythology is that it resonates with wider themes and therefore can still have some resonance for audiences who don't accept the underlying religion.  This is why Norse and Greek mythology continue to work for modern audiences who don't believe in Odin for a second, and on a level above mere historical curiosity.  Unfortunately, Light Brigade sets out a rather superficial and trite version of Christianity which, for me at least, doesn't have any resonance outside the confines of the religion.

Pretty, though.

Rating: C+

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