War is Forever
I would probably like this cover more, if it didn't resemble the previous cover so much. It's a shame because in resembling the previous cover, it actually does a slightly better job with the same concept; but it still just feels repetitive.
I'm not normally a big fan of Howard Chaykin's artwork, but here he manages to do a great job. The gritty details and ragged line work really help set the tone. The facial expressions are intense, and the action is awesome. I mean, the tank shoots an RPG out of the air!
Like The War That Time Forgot, The Haunted Tank helps separate G.I. Combat from Men of War by reveling in the supernatural. Men of War was more of a serious war comic set in the DCU and I loved that, but G.I. Combat is a lot closer in tone to the rest of the DCU. I still don't quite get how a modern tank is possessed by the ghost of a Civil War general, but..... and actually when was it established that this was the case? I remember looking at the ghost general on the cover and wondering when that was going to become relevant until the staff review mentioned it. Am I supposed to have previous knowledge of the...... character(?) to understand that fact?
The beginning part of Haunted Tank has some nice intense interactions between Scott and his Grandfather, but I have to wonder how Scott can be so skeptical when HIS GRANDFATHER APPEARED OUT OF THIN AIR IN A TANK. Not to mention that the tank's accuracy was absolutely unrealistic, in this case making sense because of the supernatural bit. The exploration of the Haunted Tank's past is a great lead-in to the big bad of the story, Hitler's War Wheel.
The Unknown Solider usually impresses me more, but this one played out way too formulaic for my tastes. The little side bits, the hacking, the terrorists posing as a game company, the mole; those were all fine and interesting. But the issue plays out in EXACTLY the same way as the last one. Unknown Solider goes in undercover, hams it up too much in attempting to blend in, and is discovered almost instantly. This felt way too recycled from the previous issue, just with different players.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
This is probably the first time The Unknown Soldier was not my favorite of the two stories, but I think part of that may be due to the limited pages. It's a shame that G.I. Combat came in as a replacement for Men of War, but got cancelled after the same amount of time. But I liked Men of War a lot better, personally. But it looks like DC won't give a third chance to a war comic for a while.