Brian Wood's DMZ—one of the two best new comics about Iraq—offers a potent portrait of a city torn by civil war. But the city isn't Baghdad; it's New York, sometime in the near future. An uprising that started in Montana has boiled over nationwide, and the United States is in the midst of a war between isolationist "Free State" rebels and the reeling U.S. government. The rebels have claimed huge swaths of the heartland and are closing in on major cities. One of many battlegrounds is New York, with the "Free States" holding New Jersey and the U.S. Army massed on Long Island. In between is Manhattan, the demilitarized zone that gives the series its title; it's demilitarized in name only, barraged by sniper fire, ruled by private militias, and subject to frequent violent incursions from both sides.