Marvel has published an original graphic novel about Army life called Combat Zone, written by American Enterprise editor and embedded journalist Karl Zinsmeister—just before he was named President Bush's top domestic policy adviser. The book is a throwback to war comics of the 1950s and 1960s, filled with square-jawed soldiers doing their damnedest for their buddies and America. There's also plenty of combat jargon and equipment porn, mainstays of teen-oriented combat comics.

Compared with the complex, well-researched soldiers' stories in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, though, Combat Zone feels flat. The book's soldiers are stock characters—the country boy, the intellectual, the hard-bitten commander—and casualties are kept to a minimum. The comic ends with patriotic martyrdom, as a soldier throws himself onto a live grenade to save his comrades (and a few wide-eyed Iraqi children, of course). "Kulzinski went out with his boots on," says his teary CO after the battle ends, and offers the movie-ready eulogy shown here. It's easy to imagine real soldiers hooting at such squareness.