Why "The Unnamed War" Rocks
My favorite ongoing comic universe
(All links are affiliate links, if you buy through them, I get a piece.)
In 2023 I did something I’d never done before: I went to my local comic shop down the road and started a pull file.
I’ve been reading comics off-and-on my whole life, but it’d be wrong to say I knew the ins and outs of monthly issues or the industry. I knew various iterations of the big characters and that was it.
If I read or owned a complete book series it was usually something that intrigued me personally, but otherwise hadn’t gained widespread traction. Jeff Smith’s Bone series is an exception to this, but it was an exception to pretty much everything.
Other series I’ve read over the years, like Skullkickers or Atomic Robo were in trade paperbacks that I discovered a long time after they came out. I never bought monthly issues one-by-one.
When Skybound (Image) announced they were doing a new Transformers series, I decided to check it out. Not only did that get me into a new series that I’ve enjoyed, it also put me in the right place to discover an absolute favorite: The Unnamed War, from Ghost Machine.
This series is pulled directly from the chaotic caffeine-enhanced depths of my own mind. It’s like it was cooked up in a lab to appeal specifically to me.
The Unnamed War is a collection of titles featuring overlapping characters. There is a timeline at the end of each book to show you where the character fits, and it’s all building towards something huge in the future. Chronologically, here’s what they’ve got so far:
REDCOAT
His name is Simon Pure, and he accidentally fell into an occult ritual in 1776 that was meant to make Benjamin Franklin immortal, so long as America remained a country. The problem, among many, is that Simon is a Brit, not a Yankee. He’s also not the only immortal, and there are other occultists looking to mess with America over the decades.
Simon is a reluctant hero who encounters major American figures over time. His first arc (issues 1-7) has him meeting Albert Einstein as a child, and later being with him when he dies. He also has run-ins with the Bloody Benders (a real family of Kansas serial killers), Johnny Appleseed, and Annie Oakley.
We know from glimpses and appearances in other issues that he lives all the way into the 2050s, and he meets other Unnamed characters along the way.
The Graham Factor: Obviously my love of American lore and history plays a role here, and the little tidbits dropped throughout the Redcoat books show me that the writers care enough to do some homework that ties this story to our past. George Washington even has an appearance in Redcoat #6 and we get a tease for more.
JUNKYARD JOE
A robot built to fight in Vietnam, deployed by Nixon and Kissinger, Joe (“Unit Beta”) malfunctioned and rebelled against his programming, deciding he wanted to end wars instead of fight them. His book remains one of my all-time favorites. Since he’s a robot, he’s basically immortal too, and lately he’s appeared in issues of Geiger, so we know he lasts like Simon Pure. We even had a glimpse of a conversation between Simon and Joe in a previous issue, suggesting a future reveal of their interactions.
The Graham Factor: Joe’s origins weren’t just about a robot in a war. His story is about how a human in his unit, Morris “Muddie” Davis, went on to become a cartoonist after ‘Nam. His comic, set in a perpetual boot comp featuring several soldiers and one robot, was a direct stand-in for comics like Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes, even going so far as to reprint panels from those comics with permission from the rights holder.
I’ve read a biography of Schulz and a history of C&H, and I have tremendous childhood love for both of those cartoons. Telling the story that way was an unexpected treat and it cemented Junkyard Joe as an all-time favorite comic.
GEIGER
This character is a combination of Hulk and Ghost Rider, set in a Fallout-style world. Tariq Geiger was a cancer patient undergoing an experimental treatment when nuclear war broke out, destroying the developed world. His treatment gave him superpowers, as it does, but he was unable to save his family. Now he’s on a trek across America, not just in search of a purpose, but of redemption.
The Graham Factor: Geiger fills his spare time reading books. Unlike other goods in the wasteland, books are easy to find because you can’t eat them. Survivors are looking for more practical things. Geiger’s home was also in Boulder City, Nevada—I’m a Henderson boy, BC was right in my backyard. The drawings in the early part of Volume 1 reminded me of the desert by the dam, where I grew up and where I worked during my early 30s. This is a piece of home.
THE NORTHERNER
The most recent arrival is The Northerner, who doesn’t get his own book yet—he’s in the current issues of Redcoat, when we see what Simon got up to during the Civil War. We don’t know much about him after two issues, but we know he’s a time traveler and he’s somewhat indestructible. At the very least he’s bulletproof and immune to grenades. Since he’s from the future, he knows more about Simon than he lets on, and he’s trying to get the Unnamed War on the right track.
The Graham Factor: This one made me do an actual double-take. In the last five years I’ve read half a dozen books on the Civil War, maybe more. One thing that amuses me is how similar Jefferson Davis looks to Abraham Lincoln. Most Americans couldn’t point out Davis in a picture if they had to. That gave me an idea for a scene in an Intrepids novel where someone replaces the statue of the Lincoln Memorial with a bust of Jefferson Davis, and tourists don’t notice for a long time.
(Side note: the main difference between Davis and Lincoln is the beard. According to the rules of sci-fi, this means Lincoln is an Evil Davis.)
The writers of Redcoat pulled that exact trick on me with The Northerner. Apparently he’s in 1864 to chase another time traveler, The Cobbler, who went back to change history and make the South win. The Northerner carries a future 5 dollar bill and he checks it to see if he has fixed the timeline yet.
At a glance, it looks like a regular fiver, so much so that I wondered if Ghost Machine would get in trouble for printing it on a page. Then I paused and I looked at the name of the country (Confederate States of America), and the face on the bill (Davis, instead of Lincoln.)
And I laughed. These guys had the same idea I did. I freaking love that.
FIRST GHOST
This is an upcoming character and we don’t know anything yet. The next issue of Redcoat will be the end of a three-parter with the Northerner, and serves as a prelude to First Ghost, which will be an isolated event or series. We’ll have to see what happens but I’m excited.
THE BLIZZARD
This is just a standalone book in the Unnamed War, and I mostly enjoyed it. The art was a little soft and could have been done better. The story is isolated, it deals with a sasquatch-type creature that comes out of a snowstorm and kills the guilty. In this case, it overturns a bus full of prisoners on their way to incarceration.
The Graham Factor: Not only does this book riff on Gary Plauche, it directly references whether he was right to do what he did, and that’s a fascinating subject for debate. If you’re unfamiliar, Gary Plauche was a father whose son was kidnapped and sexually molested by his karate instructor. When the instructor turned himself in to the police, Gary found out where he was going to be and shot the dude in the head on live television. When you hear people call Gary “Father of the Year,” that’s what they’re talking about. This happened in the spring of 1984 (what a wonderful year…)
The Future
In addition to First Ghost, there are other referenced characters in the war, like The Monster and Widow X. We’ll see where they fit in as the Unnamed Trinity (Redcoat, Joe, Geiger) continue their escapades. For now I’m enjoying this great story, the strong concepts behind it, the personal Easter eggs within it, and the mind-blowing art that carries it all along.
Follow me, but don’t tailgate.
