20th Century Men (2023)
20th Century Men Review
20th Century Men is a superhero war graphic novel that was written by Deniz Camp and illustrated by Stipan Morian. It was first published in 2023.
At the end of the 20th century, superheroes, geniuses and activists rush towards WWIII. A Soviet hero, a super-powered American president, an insane cyborg soldier and an Afghan woman hell-bent on building a better life for her people all collide in a story that mixes history, politics and comic book mythology. This series consists of six issues, but because the story functions better when viewed as a whole than individually, I am writing about this entire series in one review.
While I appreciated the undeniable artistic integrity and phenomenal messaging behind this project, I have to admit that I ended up having mixed feelings about it. Deniz Camp is strong at world building and he has a lot to say about war and politics, but he doesn’t have a knack at telling a compelling, well-defined storyline or characters.
I admired the comic’s very anti-American military stance, which was audacious coming from an American writer. Both the Russians and the Americans are depicted in a negative light here, but the latter were particularly criticized for bringing chaos and destruction everywhere their military goes, which is very much true, so I did respect this messaging a lot. The final issue states that America is in the war game because of the huge financial gains stemming from it, which was also truthful.
So thematically speaking, I have no qualms with his writing, but I had issues with his weak characterization and terrible pacing and structure. The graphic novel is not easy to get into as it’s very slow and structured in such a way that it jumps from point to point and character to character, never settling on one thing enough for it to stick with the reader. Platonov was the best character of the bunch and the coolest, but most other characters did not get particularly strong arcs unfortunately.
The dialogue is also repetitive as the same point is revisited way too many times. I just wished for a more coherent, more involving story. It obviously tries to emulate ‘Watchmen’, but it lacked the storytelling power of that iconic graphic novel. What it does have, though, is absolutely astonishing art. This is the reason why I ended up liking this work in spite of its problematic writing. Stipan Morian is such a talented illustrator and he is particularly adept at drawing machines and the war scenes.
The panel grid is especially inventive as the comic would go from huge panels to smaller ones to no panels at all. I did wish that the letters on so many of them weren’t so small to read, but the panels also having little or extensive dialogue appealed to me. It’s a very unique structure in that regard. But the sheer artistry on display is admirable as every single panel is meticulously detailed, polished and evoking potent imagery that is both disturbing and effective.
