Preview: Dredger And Major Eazy Bring All The ‘Battle Action’ For Issue #3

The third issue of Rebellion’s Battle Action brings out the nasty with Dredger and the brilliance with Major Eazy, two more classic characters from Brit comics past.

(Cover by Keith Burns)

The Battle Action continues! This issue we have Garth Ennis and John Higgins taking on Dredger, the hard-as-nails and not-all-that-nice secret agent from Action, Britain’s most notorious comic. Then we have Rob Williams and Henry Flint take on Major Eazy, one of the iconic characters from Battle Picture Weekly.

Two very different strips for sure but two very good interpretations of that classic Brit comics scene.

DREDGER: O MOTHER, WHERE ART THOU? – by Garth Ennis & John Higgins, colours by John Higgins and Sally Jane Hurst, letters by Rob Steen

Dredger created by Pat Mills, Gerry Findley-Day and Horacio Altuna

From the pages of Action, Dredger was, and is, a nasty piece of work. A Brit secret agent, Dredger was violent, amoral, and ruthless. So it’s no wonder that Garth Ennis decided this was one he wanted to write again. After all, in so many ways, he’s been writing versions of Dredger for years, most notably with Billy Butcher of The Boys.

So here we get a classic bit of Ennis’ writing, as Dredger’s Mom gets kidnapped and Dredger goes looking for her. Basically, it’s an opportunity for Ennis to write his Get Carter, with Dredger mercilessly hunting down all involved, dishing out the brutal violence along the way. Just like this…

It’s all over-the-top stuff, there’s nothing clever or sophisticated about this, but that’s exactly how it’s meant to be. What you get is exactly what you’re expecting, a tight little story from Ennis, loads of violence, and some very good looking artwork from Higgins and Hurst.

MAJOR EAZY: THE DEVIL’S GARDEN – by Rob Williams & Henry Flint, letters by Rob Steen

Major Eazy created by Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra

Now, if Dredger was all those dark and nasty gangster films of the ’60s and ’70s, Major Eazy was always a bloody wonderful war movie. Hell, it even starred James Coburn.

Eazy is that archetypal rebel soldier, the one who’s risen through the ranks, total disregard for the etiquette of warfare, anti-authority, no respect for rank and a constant thorn in the side of the pompous officers above him. Like Rob Williams says in his introduction to this one, no one worried too much about just how he go a vintage Bentley onto the various battlefields, they just loved the image of the man.

And of course, the image came from Carlos Ezquerra, typically brilliant, full of invention packed into the tight pages of the time. And he made Major Eazy look wonderfully grubby, a lived-in dirt that all added to the wartime feel.

Anyway, here we have Rob Williams and Henry Flint writing and drawing a love letter to Major Eazy. Williams has taken the standard format of Major Eazy – where he’d always come up with some insane plan that looks suicidal to everyone and then comes through it all – and just come up with his own version. And it’s a great little story, obviously written and drawn by two huge fans who’ve managed to capture every essence of what made Major Eazy such a great strip.

So, time to enjoy Major Eazy in the African campaign, through the eyes of one young soldier caught up in it all…