36-37: DMZ: MIA (9) and Collective Punishment (10), by Brian Wood, et al. (2011 trade paperbacks, single issues 50-54/2010 and 55-59/2010-11)

When I attended Comic Con for the first time in 2007, I bought my first DMZ trade so I could get it signed by Brian Wood. My sister Sarah was a Wood fan, so I decided to become one on the spot. Since we have pretty similar taste in other literature, it makes sense that the same is true of the comic medium as well. It's good that I had Sarah as a guide, because at first glance it's not really my thing--DMZ stands for DeMilitarized Zone, after all--but Wood is one of the best comic authors around today, and his tale of Manhattan being caught in the crossfires of a second American Civil War is both horrifying and compelling.

The premise of this series is a war between the Free States (a coalition of anti-establishment militias whose numbers swell as the US attends to overseas wars), holding New Jersey and the inland, and The United States, stationed in the boroughs. Enter Matty Roth, a young man who uses his parents' connections to get attached to a famous journalist as a phototech.  It's no real spoiler to tell you that the insertion of this press team goes awry immediately, leaving Matty as the only living member of the team, as it happens in the first or second issues of the series. Rather than leave the DMZ, Matty decides to stay and report from the inside, becoming the voice of the people who remain. It's a rough and desperate world, where people fight to survive and hold power, in both barbaric and heroic fashion.

I'm not going to catch you up on the whole series, leaving that pleasure up to you, but suffice it to say that Matty ends up as both hero and savage in varying episodes, witnessing the harshness and kindness of the DMZ's citizens.  Volume 9 of DMZ charts Matty's actions as he contemplates his need to atone for his role in events which heightened unrest among DMZ citizens after a period of relative peace (for which he was also partly responsible).  Volume 10 continues Matty's quest for atonement, while also sharing the stories of a variety of DMZ residents--mothers hiding with children, the boss of Chinatown, an army infiltrator working to fit in with the local populace--all while under a continuous onslaught of bombs from the US.

Each time I pick up a DMZ trade, I reflect on the war theme and wonder, "Is this really for me?" Yet, again and again I find myself drawn into the gritty world imagined by Wood and illustrated by Riccardo Burchielli (and others).  Having read Wood's other work--which runs the gamut from short stories of identity-seeking teen and twentysomethings in Demo to big, hairy Vikings in Northlander--I can recognize that his writing is one of the main reasons I like a comic series on modern (if imagined) warfare.  I simply admire all of his work--including his regular tweets about NYC (where he lives), his interests, and his three-year-old daughter and her famously mismatched outfits.