Light Brigade
by Peter J. Tomasi and Peter Snejbjerg
DC Comics, $156
Vimanarama
by Grant Morrison and Philip Bond Vertigo, $101
During the past two years, there has been a rush in the US to create books that will please Christian Evangelists, but few people in publishing really know what they want. Light Brigade, a graphic novel, is one such attempt. It's Sgt Rock meets Indiana Jones, but with the Germans sprouting evil wings and lots of praying.
The story is based on texts in the Bible about the sons of God sleeping with the daughters of men (Gen 6:1-5). This degeneration was partly to blame for the great flood. The world needed a good, moral scrubbing (as many Evangelists believe it does today). The Bible has many passages that make little sense to most people (who can explain God's concern for curtains in Exodus 26?). These passages are, perhaps, among them, but some fundamentalists take them to be proof of demons. In Peter J. Tomasi and Peter Snejbjerg's work, the unholy offspring of these carnal encounters, the Nephilin, are searching for a way back into heaven, and believe they've found it in the shape of a magic sword.