Big Beautiful Wars

A Review of Image Comics' We Stand On Guard

I just read Brian K. Vaughan’s We Stand on Guard, a futuristic sci-fi war comic that feels both a little silly and a little terrifying—much like the political drama surrounding a certain president who thinks he can hike his leg up and piss on something to own it.

Peep the solicit:

Set 100 years in the future, We Stand On Guard follows a heroic band of Canadian civilians turned freedom fighters who must defend their homeland from invasion by a technologically superior opponent… the U.S.

War is glorified in a spectacular way, thanks to Steve Skroce’s eyeball-oiling art and colors from Matt Hollingsworth that scream out of the panel while simultaneously looking as if they were mottled in the microscopic airborne debris masking the world with a thin haze after a fresh battle.

The machines kicking up all this dust steal the show, consuming the panels with their sheer size. Nothing is small. These clumsy Gundams dominate the landscape, swallowing up the vast Canadian wilderness in their wake. They distract with a spectacle reminiscent of superhero books—because nothing can be bad if it’s big and pretty like a superhero, right?

“Many of my proudest collaborations have been with Canadian creators, and it was a particular thrill to finally work with legendary artist Steve Skroce . . . I’m grateful that readers have been revisiting our nightmarish war story, which we hope remains fiction."

Brian K. Vaughan

But death comes freely. Lives are discarded as effortlessly as one might toss seeds to birds from a park bench. It’s a mean story with meaner repercussions.

And yet, We Stand on Guard gets one crucial thing right: no one wins in war. Everything crumbles. There are no spoils for the victors—just more of those nasty truths, like the good dying young, the rich getting richer, or “thoughts and prayers.” It’s acrid and difficult to swallow.

This book is heavy, but it’s gorgeous. Even under its weight, the pages turn easily. You can’t help but be swept up in its spectacle. It’s bright and pretty, like American ordnance.

Nothing can be bad if it’s bright and pretty.