Random Happenstance

I don't think I've read a ton from them, but I think Titan Comics picked up the Conan license. And today's book is more like the Cimmerian titles from Ablaze, in a way: from 2017, The Forever War #5, written by Joe Haldeman, art by Marvano. 

This was an adaptation of Haldeman's novel, a sci-fi classic I couldn't recommend more: in the early 21st century, young physics student William Mandella is drafted for a war in space with the alien Taurans--about whom virtually nothing is known, that's not even their name. Due to relativity and time distortion, he first leaves earth in 1997, returning two years later to 2024. This leads to future-shock, as he attempts to adjust to two decades of radical changes in society; but he and his girl Marygay are also more-or-less coerced back into the service for another tour. They are later given different assignments, meaning even if they somehow survived, they would almost certainly never see each other again, separated by time dilation. By this point, Mandella has ranked up just by seniority, being the oldest living soldier and commanding a squad of gay clones: by 2471, heterosexuality was no longer the norm, which leads to some resentment towards him.

Despite only having a few years real-time over everyone else, Mandella knows the score: he, and everyone else there, were pretty much doomed. He describes his squad's chances as "like playing Russian roulette with bullets in four of the six chambers. If you can pull the trigger ten times without decorating the opposite wall, congratulations! You're a civilian. Good luck." And even then, their current mission would leave them 700 years in the future, and he would be alone: Mandella moves seemingly out of inertia rather than anything else. 

Sadly, I only found this random issue in the quarter bin so far, but I still recommend it or the novel: it's not only an allegory for Haldeman's Vietnam experience, it's a bit of a pushback at Heinlein's Starship Troopers--I read that one years before the movie and didn't enjoy it in the slightest.

Speaking of time dilation: I didn't recognize it from this single issue, until I saw the cover of volume 1 on Wikipedia: this had originally been published in three volumes, in Belgium in 1988! I feel like that cover was in an ad in the back of Savage Sword of Conan or something. Not unlike the Cimmerian titles, Titan chopped it into a six-issue mini, which I think had more variant covers than the GCD currently shows. Do these sell better as singles than collections; or first one then the other for the American market? Ugh, I can't crunch those numbers...