Over decades, the comic book medium has often told of the horrors – real and imaginary – of war and the battlefield.
Found on the water, in the skies and all the way to the trenches in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and all the larger human conflicts in-between via such titles as Enemy Ace, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Our Army At War and Sgt. Rock and The ‘Nam to name only a few, they all shed a common light on the many horrors of war.
Of course, there were also the stranger, more ominous, war titles like Haunted Tank, Weird War Tales, The Unknown Soldier and The War That Time Forgot (again, to name only a few) that delved into places, points of view and the human condition that, no less truthful, even the more mainstream war titles could not go.
But the horrific stories they told were always human stories, regardless of the title across the front cover.
And so, that tradition, albeit strange and weird and wild, continues today with the release of Apache Delivery Service #1.
Written and illustrated by longtime collaborators Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT, Ether, Dept. H, Black Badge, Fear Case, Grass Kings) and illustrated by Tyler Jenkins (Fear Case, Grass Kings, Peter Panzerfaust) and published by Dark Horse Comics, Apache Delivery Service is a four-issue monthly miniseries that, on the backdrop of the war story, fuses a variety of genres into something wholly unique and horrifically wonderful.
In the first issue, there’s a stark contrast between the opening scenes of a wintery, snow-covered Arizona countryside in 1965 that contemplates a soulful peace that, with the turn of a page, quickly turns to the sticky, deep-heat and bomb-riddled landscape of Vietnam circa 1967.
It’s a delicious warning shot to readers: more twists and turns are coming!
Deep in the Vietnamese jungle, two men are searching for clues to a treasure cache of gold, stolen by a Japanese general during World War II. From the jungle to coastal shores, to the mountain tops of that war-ravaged land, they find hidden caves, legends, ghosts, witches and a mounting body count. Haunted by their own pasts and the truths therein, they are also hunted by a bizarre serial killer.
Apache Delivery Service is a story that can go in any direction at the end of every scene. It’s a wide-open tapestry, not bound by the genre of war, stretching into the fabric of fantasy, action, and speculative fiction.
But make no mistake. Like it’s foundational brethren, Apache Delivery Service is always about horror and the horrors of the human condition.
Weave your way through war-ravaged mayhem and find, along with gold, some human truth. Make the run to your local comic book shop and pick up Apache Delivery Service #1 today.