I was looking forward to reading a "New 52" title that didn't centre around costumes/capes and expected a kind of modern day version of Garth Ennis' "War Stories". "Men of War" is instead a series of semi-realistic modern war stories with superhero elements mixed in.Ivan Brandon's "Uneasy Company" story arc makes up the first half of the book featuring Sgt. Rock deployed in an unnamed Eastern country fighting a shadowy group of figures amidst wreckage caused by an unknown superhero. The inclusio [...]

A good thing about the rebooted DCU 52 was a minor attempt to expand past the standard superhero genre. Ergo, among the staples of the 1950s and 1960s for the company was war comics, especially the long running Sgt. Rock character. While almost all past history was thrown out with the reboot, some of it was retained. Here the Rock the readers meet is Frank Rock's grandson. A young army man who starts to rise in the ranks, and then does something to get himself reduced in rank. By the end of the [...]

There are two parts to this collection to review. The first half (which seems to be the main stories of each comic, as compared to the shorter backup stores) tells the story of Sgt. Joe Rock as he leads his company through mid-east battles. There are plenty of allusions to him being the grandson of the legendary Sgt. Rock of WWII, however, in this case he is constantly coming up against unexpected meta-human and paranormal enemies as he tries to carry out missions. Something about the whole seri [...]

I loved the art of the book; Tom Derenick did a fantastic job of capturing the dark, gritty, and realistic tone of the military setting. The writing was solid as far as the dialogues and narrations go, but the story as a whole didn't seem to have an overall direction. After reading this entire volume, the reader still doesn't know exactly who the super-powered people were or why they were involved in various missions that Easy Company had to carry out. I know the series got cancelled only after [...]

This book has kind of a strange ethereal quality about certain stories. I enjoyed the main story of Sgt. Rock leading his commandos against superhumans. Some of the backup stories were good, celebrating the lives of our actual soldiers. Other backup stories were overly preachy. Issue 8 swithces tone entirely and gives us a World War II tale of Frankenstein (Future Agent of S.H.A.D.E.). I enjoyed the Frankenstein section, but it was a definite tonal switch from everything else. The Sgt. Rock and [...]

I really wanted to give this a four because I liked the mix of real world into the DC universe. But the most realistic stories have too many question marks like was Circe the metahuman that harrased the city, who was Prior Hearst working for, and how do they intersect with these more real life situations. Maybe if the series was not cancelled all would have been revealed!

Reprints Men of War (2) #1-8 (November 2011-June 2012). Corporal Joseph Rock finds himself in the heat of battle fighting a war that is about to get a lot stranger. With the rise of superheroes, a soldier’s classification as a “hero” is about to change and what makes a hero will become in question. Be it Frankenstein and a robot taking on Nazis in World War II or an agent on a secret mission in Afghanistan to take out an opioid smuggler, heroes come in all forms…war is hell!Men of War Vo [...]

This is a bit weird, but I liked it. I was expecting war stories and got that but mixed in with meta-humans and supervillains. Joe rock is the grandson of the famous "Sgt. Rock" and he is the lead on a special force which gets sent out basically on black ops nobody else knows about. These end up having some kind of weird villain involved. The book is comprised of a couple of arcs which are completely unrelated to the DC universe and they were quite good once I got the feel for it. Especially the [...]

The idea behind some of the new 52 titles was to spotlights different corners of the DC Universe that were never highlighted before. Sadly, here we're given an incomprehensible mess. The first arc involving Sgt. Rock made little to no sense. Most of the rest of the book involved throw away tales or misplaced ones (Frankenstein). The art was decent but not spectacular. The book's individual covers were fantastic but overall the book was pretty forgettable. Just not worth the time.

UN cómic bélico bastante pobre dentro de la tradición de la editorial DC. La saga principal, protagonizada por el nieto del ilustre Sargento Rock, presenta algún interés que termina diluyéndose en la insipidéz de un guión mediocre. Las historias secundarias: altamente olvidables.

Not usually a fan of war stories, but this was alright. Decent art, nice re-imagining of Sgt. Rock and some good (if clichéd) storytelling. Don't be fooled by the low rating, it's not that bad.

I'm giving this three stars but I wanted to note that the very last story in this collection is very good but far too short to bump up the overall rating of the collection.

Ty příběhy, které se braly vážně a kapal z nich patos a zápal byly těžko zkousnutelné. Naštěstí tam bylo i pár chytřejších a na druhou stranu i okatě hloupých, které to ozvláštňovaly. Způsob výběru příběhů do kolekce moc nechápu. Z komentářů vidím, že každého štvala jiná část a asi se nenajde nikdo, komu by se líbila jako celek.

Brando delivers a good story in his "Uneasy Company" arc, helped by Derrenick's art (better than his stint on Injustice), and the backup stories serve as an example of a good war book this could have been if given its proper time, but trying to mix super-heroics with war combat and stuff didn't helped.

This is a good refresh section from the new 52 DC comics it's a nice modern style of the 1950s era of the SGT rock comics from World War II. I've been reading these since I was small and love the new modern feel of the series of Grew up on.

This has several stories in it long one and a bunch of short tales. A couple of duds, but mostly pretty good.

Not bad for what was essentially an anthology series. Sadly, it ended on Frankenstein rather than Sgt. Rock, but there were a few stand out stories that bump it up to a good series.

The single biggest problem when it comes to a new comic is keeping a consistent tone for readers to get used to. If it is changing the style and approach to things every six issues, whatever following it has built up will likely collapse around it, especially if new writers refuse to follow up on old ones. This is a problem which seems to be striking a lot of comics in the New 52 and Men of War is just one case example.You could effectively divide is short run into two halves, the first arc titl [...]

One of the New 52 DC books which almost sounded interesting enough for me to buy the collection - and I'm glad the library got it in instead. Yes, the main story has an interesting mood, exploring life for ordinary soldiers in a world where the strange new phenomenon of superhumans makes battlefields even more unpredictable - but the storytelling isn't great (even if it's a deliberate effort to capture the fog of war, it was a poor choice). The other stories in the anthology are a mixed bag, but [...]

When my brothers and I were young, somebody gave us a box of old comic books - A mix of Tales of Mystery, old westerns, Sgt. Rock and some other war comics, and even one or two True Romance. The stories in Men of War remind me of a lot of the old war comics - groups or individual soldiers up against the enemy in combat. (The "Uneasy Company" story arc does have a superhero element that the old comics didn't.) There was even a story that included a Civil War ghost possession that reminded me of t [...]

I'm going to be very lazy and refer you to Sam Quixote's review because he covers pretty much all the things I would say very well. I too went into this expecting a sort of Ennis-type "Battlefields" collection and got perheroes. Dotted throughout with concepts and elements which in themselves have a certain appeal, but not as a collection quite what I wanted out of a war comic. (On the other hand, I rather liked the - admittedly silly - "Frankenstein" piece file that under guilty pleasure interl [...]

Good idea that ended up being a pretty 'blah' comic.Soldiers in a super hero universe will have to deal with more than terrorists and war. Weird stuff will happen. Great idea, but then the book meanders around, the cast never feels like more than 'types' and the writer seemed reluctant to use any big name DC threats, so it never really hooked me.The back ups were decent, but for the most part generic war stories that have been done better in the old EC war comic reprints.points to DC for trying [...]

Not very good. The main story isn't very well-developed or very clearly defined. Seems like there's a lot of stuff missing, between the lines. And the artwork is just pretty blah, for the most part. The interesting stuff is in the one-shots that feature a wide variety of different characters, writers, and artists. There's a pretty good story about a knife fight by Matt Kindt, and I liked the Civil War re-enactment story, with Richard Corben artwork. But it's hard to see where this might have gon [...]

The stories about Joe Rock were decent, but they couldn't stick to normal military action, they had to throw in superhumans and supernatural beings. The side stories were just silly, other than the always entertaining stories of Frankenstein and the Agents of SHADE. There's no surprise that this is the only volume in this title. Just not enough to sink your teeth into, and for trying to be away from all the superhero stuff, they sure liked to use powers and weird stuff instead of just focus on a [...]

I'm not often one for war comics, but this collection was really impressive. The main story, with Sgt. Rock, was stellar, taking the Rock archetype, modern war, and super heroes, and mixing them into a really strong war story. The backup issues were of varying quality; the Frankenstein story is as off-the-wall as Agents of S.H.A.D.E. and silly fun, while others were dark, exploring the psychology of soldiers.

Lame pseudo-Iraq war storyline that's incomprehensible. Barely ties in with the rest of the new DCU following the "New 52". To top the art is basic, and nothing of note. The last issue is basically the publishers saying "Hey go read Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E because that's such a better book, we're giving it to you here."As I'm starting to find, this was yet another lame introduction in DC's feeble attempt to restart their universe.

Ce tome est un casse-tête, les deux tiers sont sympas, l'histoire est intéressante même si un peu décousu, mais vers la fin ça sent vraiment que la série était annulé et c'est presque douloureux à lire. Sinon pour une première immersion dans le comics de guerre, j'ai été agréablement surprise d'aimer ça. Mon histoire préféré est l'histoire courte en trois parties au tout début, c'est vraiment super bien fait et ça fait réfléchir en même temps.

Idiotic. Nonsensical. Just Plain Bad. Amazed it lasted three issues let alone six. They rape the memory of the classic Sgt. Rock by trotting out his grandson as a not-sergeant and adding supervillians to his world, and then have a bunch of b-stories, any of which is better than the lead - -which isn't saying much. Mercifully canceled.

The first pages was promisingen they lost me until the end of the Sgt. Rock arc where I got back on track. The following mini-stories ranged from bad to OK, The Frankenstein story and the" knife fight" where the best. 1,5 stars!

It was nice to see DC try a few different types of comics with the New 52, but this one was a pretty big failure. Dumb plot, generic characters, average art. The only good part is the Frankenstein story. Not surprising it was one of the first New 52 cancellations.