Broken Frontier

In World War II, a group of Soviet women pilots set out to prove that sometimes it takes a woman to do a man’s job.

Writer Garth Ennis wanders into interesting new territory here as he crafts a story of historical fiction based on the WW II careers of the real Night Witches. This is actually Ennis at some of his best with a story that may seem surprising given some of his recent work.

Little Anna Kharkova is eager to prove that she and her fellow female pilots can be equals to the men in this war. Her gunner, Zoya, has a more cynical view as she sees that the women have been given planes from the last war and billeted in the base’s old cowshed. It will not be only a struggle to prove their worth; it will be a struggle just to survive against the better equipped advancing German army. Meanwhile, young German soldier Kurt Graf pushes deeper into Russia along with his squad and sees more and more the tolls of war both physical and psychological.

Ennis hits a nail on the head with a startling accuracy here as he portrays the very humanness of the war. Graf, the German, tries to come to grips with the brutality of the fighting while the Night Witches struggle to both survive the fight and deal with a time period and a culture that does not hold women in high regard. And on both sides there are the slippery, subtle signs of hypocrisy. The characterizations here are natural – no one is a stereotype, not even the German soldiers and Anna and Zoya come across as real women – one young, optimistic and a little naïve and one older and cynical but both determined to carry on this fight for their country no matter what it takes.

On Ennis’s Battlefields, his capable right hand is artist Russ Braun. Braun not only captures the gritty realities of war – mud, dirt, and blood – he also captures the settings and the trappings. The uniforms are all basically accurate as are the cityscapes, the bombed out remains of buildings, the planes and weapons and the way the attacks are set up and executed. Braun has made a commitment to history here with his own realistic style and that is something to be cheered. Braun has obviously done his research and his homework and for a lot of artists who often like to flex their muscle on the fantastic it can be difficult to tie their art to reality but there is no sign of any difficulty or reluctance here.

Historical fiction as a genre is not one that is utilized much in comic books but Battlefields: The Night Witches proves that, at least in this case, it works very well in the comic book format. Truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction and the real struggle for life, land, and acceptance creates true heroes. Ennis’s work pays tribute to the very real women who took to the skies in WW II by portraying their fictional counterparts as very real and courageous women. If you are a history buff of any stripe or even if you are not, this is one comic that manages to take a very interesting look at one small part of the Russian Front during WW II and what it meant to be a soldier, what it meant to fight, what scars would be carried on and even what it truly meant to be human.