So, I read this book not sure what to expect really. The only word I could utter after reading it was: "Fuckwin". Read the review.
OK. So. Wow. Fuckwin. High praise and nothing but. I loved it, it didn't piss around trying to force some half-assed generic plot into it. This is the true continuation of the Ares-saga, and it is very well done. Ares is quickly becoming a character that Marvel has managed to drag up from obscurity into a new level of awesome. The book is intelligent, witty and brutal. It is almost like it was forged from the fires of Hades and cooled in the river Styx. And there goes all the mythological references I care to put into this review, any more and I would have to scour Wikipedia.
The plot is: Norman has a clever plan, he has a bunch of H.A.M.M.E.R. recruits and he has Ares GOD of WAR (not that pussy Kratos) and he realizes he can combine the two. This scenario can be compared to Ralph Hermanson who in 1979 realized he had a scanner, a picture of a naked woman and a Class Five connection to the Defense Mainframe of ARPANET and thus "internet porn" was created (after about a month of uploading the 8-bit monochrome bitmap). Ralph died tragically later in a freak Goblin-glider accident. Am I saying that Drill Sgt. Ares is better than internet-porn? No, he ain't even close, but it is a comic that has "Fuckwin!", and when you compare it to the great number of books that have absolutely no amount of "Fuckwin!" it stands out like a giant wooden horse in the middle of your impenetrable fortifications.
So is this book solely about Ares and him doing stuff? Sort of, but it is also about the recruits and here is where it feels strongest, the recruits aren't a bunch of cardboard grunts that Ares does horrible stuff to, the recruits are fleshed out characters who Ares does horrible things to. I feel that this makes the book whole, it would have been easy to just have a bunch of nameless redshirts with no other role than "take shit from Ares" but that would have been too easy for... wait a minute gotta check who wrote this book... Kieron Gillen (you rule). Seriously the expression on Baldie-with-goatee when he pouts about not throwing the grenades is priceless.
The art is great. I can't find any faults at all really. Captures the book perfectly. I could probably say something about lines and colors and shit like I knew what I was talking about, but not being able to draw stick figures realistically, I opt out and just say: "The art is great".