So you want to be Cash Money: Unknown Soldier
MBARARA – Now and again, I come across a piece of work so incredibly badass that I almost feel like I wrote it myself. And sometimes I basically have.
The new incarnation of Unknown Soldier is one of those works.
The title is published by DC Comics subsidiary, Vertigo, it’s adult-no-not-that-type-of-adult comic line and Unknown Soldier is about as adult as it gets. Updating the image of the WWII-era Sgt. Rock-style hero whose ravaged face was hidden by bandaged, the series, written by Joshua Dysart and illustrated by Alberto Ponticelli, follows Ugandan expat and pacifist Dr. Lwanga Moses as he and his wife return to the country of his birth in 2002. Lwanga attempts to bring some form of relief to a war-torn nation constantly under attack from forces both abroad and within, most notably Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA to you and me). After a brush with LRA child soldiers in which he skillfully dispatches a child less than 12, Lwanga discovers, much to his horror, that he is imbued with a set of deadly instincts and a voice in his head that can apparently guide him through any situation with the utmost violence and blood-thirsty resolve. In frenzy of angst, Lwanga desecrates his own face with a sharp stone in a desperate attempt to dig the voice of madness out of his own head.
When he awakes in an girls orphanage, his head his bandaged. As Lwanga tries to come to terms with what he has done, the orphanage comes under attack by LRA forces on a raid for “wives.” Corruption after travesty after depravity keep the voice goading Lwanga to declare a One Man War on Joseph Kony himself while Lwanga tried desperately not to lose his wife, his life, and ultimately himself.
Lwanga and his Unknown Soldier alternate are desperate, and fascinating but my favorite character in the comic, thus far, is me. Oh, wait, I mean washed-up CIA-agent-on-the-run, Jack Lee Howl, who has been tasked by violent cronies of a nebulous operation to locate the good doctor.
He’s a m0therfucker after my own heart who loves his booze, his whores, and his Africa.
The story and depiction of Uganda circa 2002 is breathtakingly vivid and astonishingly accurate thanks to spending time in Uganda for research in 2007 during which time he hosted many interviews with former child soldiers and took over a thousand photos for Ponticelli to use in his depictions of Lwanga’s Uganda.
Just how fucked up was Dysart’s trip to Uganda? “I interviewed a reformed child soldier who was forced to bite to death a woman,” he told the New York Times.
First six issues of the comic have recently released in a trade paperback and is an excellent way to get into this series which has been receiving rave (if horrified) reviews from both critics and comic greats who know something about releasing horrifying material like Garth “Preacher” Ennis and Warren “Transmetropolitan” Ellis.
For my money, Unknown Soldier is perhaps one of the finest examples of Gonzo Journalism to date — it is a work of fiction that tells The Truth better than The Facts ever could.
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[...] I have already written a lengthy yap on Unknown Soldier by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli. It continued to be mind-blowingly violent [...]