Unknown Soldier #2

The second chapter of "Haunted House" arrives in this 2009 Vertigo series, with a cover by Igor Kordey that sets an immediate, unsettling tone — a bandage-wrapped, bare-chested soldier dominates the foreground, rifle slung across his body, while silhouetted figures of children loom against a burning orange African sky. Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli's war story clearly has something raw and serious to say, and Warren Ellis's blurb right on the cover — calling it "immensely brave, intelligent and ruthless" — only adds to the anticipation. This is mature Vertigo storytelling with real weight behind it.