Unknown Soldier #25 – Review

by Joshua Dysart (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (art), Oscar Celestini (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)

The Story: Moses comes face to face with Joseph Kony in the explosive series finale.

What’s Good: Though the mid-twenties has proven a frequent cancellation point for Vertigo series, the end has come too soon for Unknown Soldier.  With that said, it’s a relief that Joshua Dysart doesn’t appear to have compromised his original ending for the series.  The final scenes play out in fairly satisfying fashion and it feels like this really is the ending Dysart has always envisioned.

As a final issue, Unknown Soldier #25 is an interesting read that deals head-on with some of the core problems of its basic form: a fictional comic book based on a DC property colliding with a brutal, real world situation.  Nowhere is this conflict more apparent than this month, when Moses finally meets the head of the LRA, Joseph Kony; real world bad guy meets fictional crusader.  What occurs as a result is something that had me really respecting Dysart’s skill as a writer.  At first, it appears that we’re going to get another Inglourious Basterds, a sort of revenge fantasy in which we watch an invincible hero beat the holy hell out of a loathsome figure from our world.

Then, tragically, gut-wrenchingly, Dysart basically slaps us back to reality.  He brutally reminds us that this is all fantasy.  He makes our desired ending look downright silly, making us feel like fools to expect, or take such joy in, such an utterly ridiculous conclusion.  Joseph Kony truly exists and Moses, as a result, is horribly powerless in comparison.  To expect a fictional character to have any real effect on a real world figure, even in that character’s fictional world, is ludicrous and unrealistic.  It’s a brutal kind of chastisement from Dysart.