Army@Love

The revolution’s gonna be graphic-novelized. In his Vertigo/DC monthly comic book, _Army@Love_, comiconoclast Rick Veitch drops subversive sci-fi-satire bombs. A collection of the first six issues, _Army@Love Vol. 1: The Hot Zone Club_, takes place five years in the future in “Afbaghistan” with an unwinnable war still unwon. “I didn’t want to wait until the [Iraq] war was over,” says Veitch. “I wanted to do this now, to take this tragedy we watch unfold every day in the paper and on TV, and add a satiric something for folks to chew on while it’s all still happening.”

Writer/artist Veitch has been dosing daring readers with Kirby-meets-Crumb fantasias since his psychedelic stint for Marvel’s _Epic Illustrated_ in the early ’80s. His own King Hell Press recently re-released and re-mastered these full-color painted gems: _Shiny Beasts_, a compilation of hilarious shorts (including his first collaboration with legendary writer Alan Moore), and _Abraxas and the Spaceman_, a graphic novel about space whalers. _Rare Bit Fiends_, Veitch’s dream diary in comic form, led Moore to declare, “Rick Veitch unconscious is worth 10 other men awake.”

In _Army@Love_, Veitch’s voluptuously vicious vision of the future, the U.S. military is faced with depleted funds, spent troops and low recruitment, and turns to marketing, of course. A corporate draft brings middle management to the Middle East—”turnaround specialists, brand resuscitators and buying pattern analysts”—who cook up MoMo, the office of Motivation and Morale, which successfully sells tours of duty as “retreats” offering “peak life experience” to a Playstation-addled generation. Soldiers are instructed to win the hearts of the “Baghis” by reminding them that “without globalization, there won’t be chocolate bars.” The pitch-black humor is tempered by a _Desperate Housewives_-ish schtuparama and it’s not hard to deduce what constitutes a “Hot Zone Club” membership.

Veitch has done his homework, and the futurism in _Army@Love_ rocks as hard as that in Warren Ellis’ _Transmetropolitan_ or Cory Doctorow’s _Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom_. “I’ve been doing research on weapons development and what our military may have up its khaki sleeve,” says Veitch. A “gunpowder ignition inhibitor” ultrasonically stops potassium from combining with sulfur. Lie detector tests are conducted by way of a microwave burst to the inner ear, reversing a victim’s sense of balance—all this while he is running on a treadmill, which elevates his metabolism and forces a panic attack. And how are the bombers controlled? Not via radio waves from some high tech headquarters, but by a “head”: a hippie who navigates from afar with his guitar, reaching Hendrixian crescendos as death is dealt.

This first volume closes with the Secretary of War Stellaphane pressuring MoMo head honcho Healey (whose operation may be getting a bit too big for the Secretary to handle) to wrangle military sponsorship from his civilian employer, Polka Cola. Whether this occurs and whether we’ll get the chance to learn more about this potential future depend on reader reaction. “Vertigo has committed to 12 issues [another graphic novel's worth],” says Veitch. “If this thing goes well, sure, we’ll keep it going.” At the very least, let’s hope Veitch’s satire goes on longer than its real-life inspiration.