Sgt. Rock is pulled far above the Earth by Circe and told to leave the battle behind him.
The Good
Men of War does a great job of explaining the little things to the civilians who read the books. I'm not a military person, by any means, but my friends that do serve use many of the terms in this issue. Many of these terms and initial-isms are explained in caption boxes. This helps with making non-military personnel feel comfortable with the book without losing realism.
At first, I hated when they introduced Circe, a Wonder Woman villain, into this book. After finishing the issue, I felt it was a really cool addition to the book. As great as a war book is on its own, we've seen a ton of them, and introducing DC characters into the mix can really spice things up. I'm very excited to see who else will pop-up in this book and how Sgt. Rock and his team will team with these meta-humans/gods.
The Bad
There's been very few times I've enjoyed back-up stories, and once again, this was a time where I really didn't care. The Men of War story and the Navy Seals back-up feel so different, even though they're both about the military, except Men of War feels more personable because it's mainly about Sgt. Rock. That story has a face, and I care about the characters.
With the back-up, the Men of War story gets cut 4 pages, and it's noticeable. The issue introduces the reader to Circe and the idea that this world has god and meta-humans. We get to see the end of one of Sgt. Rock's missions, but it moves by quickly. I wanted more.
The Verdict
Men of War, overall, is one of my personal favorites, but just the Men of War story. I don't care for the Navy Seals back-ups. I love the fact DC has some non-super hero/non-mystic comics, even though we get a taste of meta-human making their way into the book, which strangely I enjoyed. I feel like this book is very new reader friendly and caters very well to people who don't understand military terminology. I'm very excited to continue reading this book, even though I didn't like this one as much as the first issue. I recommend this book.
Since I plan on reading the first three issues of the new 52, I plan on giving my rating for the 1st and 2nd issues, just to see if the book is either holding up or getting better than the first.
Men of War #1 - 4
Men of War #2 - 3