Escape vol. 1

Milton Shaw is a pilot who headed off to war to fight the fascists.  He promised his wife that he’d be back as soon as his tour – twenty bombing runs – was over.  However, on his twenty-eighth run he finds himself on the most crucial mission of his career:  The destruction of the enemy’s Titan Cannon, which will hopefully bring an end to the war.  It isn’t long before everything goes wrong and Milton finds himself alone behind enemy lines, sneaking through the rubble of the city he helped bomb, trying to desperately complete the mission on his own.

“Escape” is the new series from writer Rick Remender and artist Daniel Acuna who previously worked together to good effect several years ago on “Uncanny Avengers.”  Their new creator-owned series is an anthropomorphic war story that finds itself on the better side of the writer’s style.  Vol. 1 maintains a ferocious pace throughout most of its run, making it easy to get caught up in the action as well as Milton’s own struggle to survive it.  Remender’s musings about humanity are also handled in an efficient manner, while his tendency to grind down his protagonists actually meshes well with the desperate situation this one finds himself in.

It’s also great to see Acuna illustrating a comic again.  I loved seeing his lush style grace many Marvel comics, and he turns in impressively dark and kinetic work here.  The story may move at a fast pace with a ton of action, but the artist excels at keeping everything on the page clear and understandable.  The man’s character work is also extremely solid as the slower moments have their own drama communicated by the cast’s hopes and fears within them.  Yes, the cast is made up entirely of humanoid animals, but Acuna has no trouble making their emotions crystal clear.

The only thing holding this story back is a curious storytelling choice on the part of the creators.  While it’s extremely obvious that “Escape” is meant to be a WWII story with Milton flying for America against Nazi Germany, it’s actually not.  The story is set in a fictional world in an unnamed conflict where Germany is called Narenia.  Remender talks a bit in the backmatter about how the decision to have an anthropomorphized cast was meant to allow the reader to better empathize with the characters in their situation.  He’s not wrong, but it leaves you wondering why the writer made this decision in the first place.  Maybe he thought having dogs, bears, cats, and bats fight WWII would’ve been disrespectful to those who actually served?

Whatever the case is, the result is distracting and comes off as an unforced error on the part of the creators.  Fortunately it’s one that doesn’t sink the series as Milton’s struggle is still an easy one to get caught up in on the page.  You get to see Remender deliver a disciplined version of his familiar style and Acuna turn out some detailed and empathic work.  I don’t think that “Escape” is meant to run for more than another volume, but it’s one that I’ll be looking forward to when it arrives.