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Jackboot & Ironheel #1
Released by: IDW Publishing
Released on: August 17th, 2016.
Written and Illustrated by Max Millgate
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As a kid, Eddie Neale dreamt of playing football (soccer) for West Ham United. In 1939, he did just that, albeit briefly. He even scored a winning goal and earned himself a chant - “Eddie Neale with The Iron Heel.†When Britain entered the Second World War, Eddie Neale went from sports hero to a 'tail-end Charlie' as he served his time as a tail-gunner in the air force.
When the Lancaster Bomber HB-33 he was in went down after a Messchersmitt opened fire, he was the only survivor. He was, however, captured by a German patrol and taken prisoner - maybe he wasn't as lucky as his father had always told him he was. His captors take him to Lungotz Luftzig, a castle prison far up in the mountains. Kommandant Von-Kleist tells the crew that brings him in that they should have just shot him and left him to die. It seems that this prison is being decommissioned, they've recently executed fifty prisoners, why do they need a new one? As he's shuffled off to a cell, a nun named Sister Evangeline watches through her window - before he's brought inside, they make eye contact.
Eddie is locked away. He asks the young guard, Gunter, for a bandage as he is bleeding. He's told that Sister Evangeline will tend to his wounds in the morning. When Eddie goes to sleep that night he is briefly visited by 'Muggenthaler' - who may or may not be a zombie. Around the same time, two guards complain about how the bell tower went off, even though there hammer inside the bell to make it ring.
The next morning when Evangeline shows up to wrap Eddie's wounds, now infected, he gets some back story - it seems this place was a convent until the Nazi's took it over but that the Mother Superior refused to leave. Later, Gunther shows up and Eddie asks him about the other guard, the one called Muggenthaler. Gunther runs away, leaving his post in a panic, to notify the Kommandant - and then we learn what really happened to Muggenthaler…. he drowned in the lake three months ago.
Written and illustrated by Max Millgate, this first issue is a fun read. There's a sense of humor to the story that serves it well and enough nuttiness going on in the first issue to make you want to come back for more. The World War II setting is interesting enough and throwing the nuns in alongside the Nazi's could maybe complicate things in interesting ways as this progresses. Of course, how Eddie Neale fits into all of this remains to be seen, but clearly there's some sort of connection to be explored in future issues. Mixing humor, adventure, horror and mystery together into one melting pot of a plot, Millgate would seem to be onto something here. The artwork is solid. Millgate also did the cover art, which is much more detailed and painted in a more impressive tone. The interiors don't reflect that, they're done in a noticeably looser style, but the colors are good and the layouts 'move' nicely from page to page. The prison castle is nicely rendered and Muggenthaler cuts an imposing frame when he appears.
This is something different, and it's always nice to experience some originality in our reading. The cliffhanger ending is a little predictable, you can see it coming, but more importantly than that it leaves us wanting to know where it's going to go from here. Jackboot & Ironheel #1 is a fun read, and a nice introduction to a series that shows plenty of potential to become a pretty addictive read.
