Freedom Fighters No. 4 and 5 prove the power of images

Uncle Sam returns from the graveyard of forgotten ideals in this two-part mini-arc of Freedom Fighters.

Unfortunately, due to a mix-up, we didn’t review issue four of Freedom Fighters and didn’t realize this until part five of the DC maxiseries, “Crossing Enemy Lines.” Luckily, the two issues work very well together, giving a brief origin for Uncle Sam and showing his return from the grave in The Heartland — an extradimensional Realm of Ideas.

This series has been enjoyable since the first issue, but it has taken a while to get into its groove, to understand not just what the story is, but how Robert Venditti and Eddy Barrows are working to tell it. One could expect a solid story about heroic underdogs, and it is.

It’s also a book where Venditti is clearly writing to the strengths of his artistic collaborators: Barrow, inker Eber Ferreira, and colorist Adriano Lucas. All throughout these two issues, there are full and double-page spreads that serve to tell the story with iconic images, the way war and propaganda posters have to generations past. A reader can get the broad strokes of the story, just by focusing on these pages.

Part four, “Not Dead Yet,” opens with a beautifully shocking image of an American Eagle being shot. From there, we get a two-page shot of Mount Reuchsmehr (Mt. Rushmore) bearing the ugly image of Hitler and his children across it, with hundreds of fresh-faced Nazi cadets standing at attention beneath.

Freedom Fighters art by Eddy Barrows, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas (Courtesy of DC Comics).

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The next over-sized spread is that same mountain blowing up, thanks to the Freedom Fighters. In between, there are great pages of Uncle Sam soliloquizing as he gropes his way out of the mystical Heartland.

Toward the end, we get another pair of great full-page images: Uncle Sam standing strong in a shaft of godly light with Hitler II figuratively under his foot and, on the final page, the Spirit of ‘76 now back on Earth-X, his home. Uncle Sam has just punched out his first Nazi in 50 years and delivered his mission statement, “One ratzi down, the rest of them to go.” With so much visceral evil on the pages of this comic, the platitude sounds silly and quaint, but at least he’s acting his age.

Freedom Fighters art by Eddy Barrows, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas (Courtesy of DC Comics).

Issue five, “Crossing Enemy Lines” has six full-page spreads. The book opens with a fierce double-page spread of Uncle Sam sending a contingent of fascist police flying. Across the rest of the chapter, we get flashbacks telling Sam’s origin and cuts to Overman, the Nazi Übermensch who enabled their takeover of the world.

As the book goes on, Uncle Sam gets tired and weaker. He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone or how bad things have gotten. In the end, before being run over by a ridiculous War Wheel, he’s rescued by Human Bomb.

The last page is a final strong, frightening image of Overman mindlessly repeating his oath to Hitler, “My name is Overman. Overman serves the Führer.” The point we’re told through the page-sized “posters” is that Uncle Sam and his idealism are weak, while Overman has existed unchanged and indomitable since he last beat the Freedom Fighters.

Freedom Fighters art by Eddy Barrows, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas (Courtesy of DC Comics).

Readers like myself have bemoaned the tendency for comics creators to turn over too much storytelling real-estate to splashy but meaningless layouts and images. Freedom Fighters is not guilty of that. Eddy Barrows (Detective Comics, Blackest Night, Earth 2) has been a great artist for a long time, but he might be doing career-best work on this series. I hope readers – and his bosses – recognize that.

Selling a niche book with lesser known characters isn’t easy in today’s market, but Barrows’ work is as strong as any classic patriotic propaganda. Readers just have to see it to heed the call.