A comiXologist recommends:
Iron Squad #1: Red Commando ½

by: Dane Cypel

When I was in school for my Masters, we would often speak about French comics –about how beautiful they were even though we could not read them. Myself, and my fellow candidates did not speak French, so in many instances the books were purchased simply for the pictures. It was the art that kept us interested and we did our best to discern a storyline and flesh out characters with what we could understand.

Delcourt’s English-translated releases have, thankfully, fixed this type of fill-in-the-blank storytelling that I have had to experience with French books. With this release, there is one particular book - Iron Squad #1, that has caught my eye.

I was not familiar, at all, with Iron Squad before reading it for this review. It was between this and Curse of the Wendigo, both having to do with a World War and some type of fantastical element. As much as I love tales of the Great War, the allure of Nazi super-weapons, Soviet armored infantry and 1st Lieutenant Tania Yakvolev, comrade pilot of the First Female Fighter Wing, had my attention.

Iron Squad #1 is an alternate history story, where Nazi scientists have cracked the secret to making large walking mechanized vehicles. There was one particular scene where a Nazi general meets with his Imperial Japanese counterpart to present the Empire with their own “Iron Squad,” or in the vernacular - “mekapanzers”. While this is in no way historical, there is a wonderful blend of Gundam-meets-Wolfenstein.  

What is perhaps the most interesting point of this story is that there is no American protagonist, at all. It is a commonplace for World War stories to contain that obligatory American character, but this shift allows for a completely different perspective. Instead, the focus is on the Soviet side of this war. There is, of course, a French instructor who happens to have a mechanical arm, but he is only in a few panels. I was still able to relate to the characters and find interest in what they were doing – something which most French produced comics are able to achieve with solid storytelling and well-made art.

In the past, there was this inherent barrier that kept readers like me away from French books. I wanted to read them, to put words to the pictures, and now that wish has been answered. These books are beautiful, they are compelling, and they offer a unique approach often overlooked by us English-speakers to the comic medium.

[Read Iron Squad #1: Red Commando 1/2 on comiXology]

Dane Cypel is a digital editor at comiXology and freelance illustrator based in Manhattan.