War Birds

It’s the near future, and wouldn’t you know it but America is involved in another armed conflict in Syria.  The difference this time is that most of the conflict is being done with drones – insect-looking recon machines and humanoid ones doing the actual fighting.  Everything is going just as you’d expect until something odd happens.  One of the recon units, MU784, deliberately gets in the line of fire to protect one of the humanoids, R39X, who then rescues it from the battlefield.  This goes against their general programming and leaves the people overseeing the drones to come to a frightening conclusion:  They’ve developed sentience and their actions are a demonstration of love for each other.

“Drones in Love” is the basic premise behind “War Birds” and it’s to writer Geoffrey D. Wessel and artist Steve Parkhouse’s credit that they don’t dwell on the actual romantic aspects of it.  They’re more concerned with what it means for the U.S. Military, the scientists who did the programming in the first place, and the human brother and sister that get caught up in all this.  It’s great that they’re able to capture all of these different perspectives in the story, but there’s not really a whole lot of depth to any of them.  You get the expected anti-war talking points, only as they relate to drones, and that’s about it.

Parkhouse’s art is at least on point.  Though this is a more realistic brand of sci-fi compared to his signature series, “Resident Alien,” he makes the drones fit in this grounded setting while keeping that action and story moving.  Really, there’s nothing bad about “War Birds,” just that its story feels really simple in regards to its subject matter.  It could be that the story’s length, 80 pages, was holding the creators back, but there’s also the fact that, outside of its premise, there’s nothing about the story’s execution that really helps it to stand out.