Because he can do no wrong.

Now, the comic at hand. It's good. Not perfect. But a good start. This is an all-new Devil-Slayer, one firmly entrenched into today's war in Iraq and a lifer in the Armed Forces. Danny Sylva has nothing at home to keep him a civilian, he's got no girl (she left him), no job (no one's hiring as the job market sucks), and no prospects. So he rejoins after having some scuffs with the law and finds himself back in Iraq. He meets a new private, Miles, and gets back to basics, essentially.

That's when everything goes to shit.

And this doesn't feel like a MAX comic until right close to the end. Granted, some cursing sprinkled throughout. But once we find out that a few people have gone missing and one of their own was kidnapped, the troop gets a quick briefing and are on their way to catch up and hopefully get back their old buddy Wahl. Only, he's not really a buddy anymore.

That's when the book picked up for me. I liked the touches of humanity. I loved it. It felt very real. For a guy who has friends in the military and works with one, it felt like a nice touch. To firmly entrench the book into that mythology and add little touches from the Marvel-verse (Bloodstone, etc), it got me going. Once I heard the name Bloodstone, my brain flared.

One of the first comics I ever got had Ulysses Bloodstone in it, so I know a bunch about him. Seems in this MAX-verse, Bloodstone is like Black Water, only they deal with the occult and demons. And of course, they completely screw over Sylva's team and he seems to be the last one standing in a room full of bloody bodies, corpses, and demons.

Keene does an admirable job. He takes the task of writing these characters as flesh and blood and makes them sing. They aren't perfect, they aren't complete, but these are people. It sucks that we get to meet a bunch of them only for them to be shuffled off the immortal coil, but such is war. He has a big job ahead of him with the rest of this series, and the demonic stuff is coming and gets my blood running.

Samnee is amazing. Pure and simple. The black lines and use of shadow is where he hones the best of his skills, but his art evokes David Mazzuchelli and Michael Lark and a number of other artists, all while keeping it his own. He is aided on art here, but I'm assuming he did the thick black inks all on his own. They are great. It is gritty and determined art that feels like a war comic should feel. And I dig the hell out of it.

As I mentioned, I purchased this for Samnee's art, and I do not regret it. The price tag is hefty as it's a MAX book and the mini-series are always 3.99, but it was well worth it. A nice start, and with the art by Samnee, pushed into something even better than it would have been. I know had it been another artist, I may not have purchased it. But I will be checking out the rest of it for the rest of the story to see how far it goes to explore the Devil-Slayer and the Bloodstone Group.