Just like most contemporary sci-fi stories that incorporate war and violence, We Stand on Guard is essentially a tale of a family that's torn apart, and the young brother and sister who are forced to survive after their parents are murdered when US invades Canada. Little Tommy and Amber become orphans in their native Ottawa, in the year 2112, and as they grow up into Canadian rebels and eventually freedom fighters (at least Amber does; Tommy ends up in a US POW camp), they evolve into less-than-compassionate killers of their enemy. When Amber, pressured into shooting an American operator of a giant drone robot after the latter kills a Canadian freedom fighter, pulls the trigger without a second thought, we know we're dealing with a new kind of (anti)hero: one without a cold nerve, nor an ounce of remorse on her conscience.
Writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Steve Skroce create a cold (literally and figuratively) world in which a very thin line separates the good guys from the bad (is the opposing interrogator woman, whom they call The American, really all that villainous and heartless in comparison with the Canadian rebels?). Vaughan also gives us archetypal battle-ready characters, the members of the so-called The Two-Four, who seem to have walked in right out of a James Cameron sci-fi action movie. There's Vic, the Chief, an all-black wearing female leader, who appears to be quite a fearless badass; Les Lepage is the former comedic actor, who mostly speaks in French, and whose cynicism and wit is sprinkled throughout the action and destruction; Dunn, the large, scarred and mean-looking man, with an artificial right arm, who has a general appearance of a lumberjack; and Highway, a former geologist who perhaps possesses more compassion than his fellow freedom fighters, among others. These characters are distinctly imagined, and for the most part, come across convincingly.
Skroce's artwork is quite marvelous. His graphic design of every frame, page and even scene is visually impressive and at once commanding of the reader's attention. The coloring, by Matt Hollingsworth, is equally impressive, and it complements Skroce's design fittingly. Vaughan has created another original comic, brutal and uncompromising, but still possessing that human element which many will able to relate to. Amber's ultimate sacrifice isn't for naught, for she has saved her country from further US occupation, and has also reunited with her family somewhere in the afterlife. Perhaps that was the main reason why she was in a such a hurry to die for her homeland after all.
B+
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