When Brian Wood’s brilliant America-at-war comic DMZ completed its six-year run in 2012, I wished for Vertigo to bring out a single edition collecting the whole series. They haven’t quite gotten there, but with tomorrow’s release of DMZ: The Deluxe Edition Book One, they’re getting close. The large, beautifully produced, gorgeous hardcover collects the first 12 issues of the comic — the equivalent of the first two trade paperback collections. A followup collection, due in June, picks up issues 13-28. At this rate, the whole thing will end up in four-to-six books, suitable to being drunk down in one long, engrossing, chilling, thrilling draft.
Here’s my synopsis of the setup from my review of the final volume (which was nothing less than brilliant — Wood really nailed the ending):
If you’re just tuning in, DMZ is the story of an America caught in the midst of so many “elective” overseas military adventures that the nation itself crumbles and is gripped in a civil war between a guerrilla force of the “Free United States” and the military-industrial complex, mostly in the form of vicious, private military contractors. NYC is the place where the two forces clash, the “DMZ” where there are many civilians, but no innocents. Matty Roth, the story’s hero, is a helper with a news crew for Liberty News, the hyper-patriotic, semi-state-owned propaganda news service. As he arrives in New York, his helicopter is shot down, and he finds himself catapulted into a new role as a boy reporter. From those beginnings, the story unrolls, as Roth discovers the truth of war, becomes the story he is reporting on, and finally falls too deep.
If you’re looking for a perfect way to tune into one of the best comics of the 21st century, this volume is it.