Guerillas Vol. 2

LIBRARY JOURNAL -- Right out of central casting come homesick newbie soldier John Francis Clayton, his gung-ho veteran father, and his hard-bitten squadmates bushwacking through 'Nam and watching friends get killed far too often. But Clayton's in for some outside-the-box challenges: a crew of chain-smoking chimpanzee soldiers gone AWOL. The chimp corps takes this war comic to a wilder and more interesting place. All seven animals are depicted as individual, idiosyncratic characters with nearly plausible, if over-the-top, battle skills. Even Tarzan couldn't get off machine-gun rounds with his feet. The chimps adopt the wounded Clayton, as Revel interweaves three narrative threads: Clayton's reminiscences, his real-time Vietnam slog with his squad and then with the chimps, and the fate of another squad, assigned to help a German scientist recapture the missing "soldiers" with the help of a nasty tracker baboon named Adolf. VERDICT Brahm's gritty blacks and grays suit this enjoyable and socially relevant read, and the narrative addresses plenty of real war horrors and the doomed futility of the entire Vietnam misadventure. This will mesmerize fans of war comics and action stories. Older teens up due to violence and cursing. The concluding volume is expected next year.