1 out of 4 stars
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The wall along the border between the United States and Mexico has been built. During the rally to unveil the wall, the President is shot. It's up to Joey Gunns (a.k.a. Forge Qaletaqa) and his mercenary team to hunt down the shooter or shooters and bring them to justice.
The Wall by Some guy is classified as a graphic novel, but it isn't what I would consider a graphic novel. Instead of the entire book being shown in pictures with the only words being dialogue, this is a short novella with about five illustrations thrown in. I have no complaints about the artwork itself, but I didn't feel that the few illustrations there were added anything to the story. I am thankful that it wasn't a fully illustrated graphic novel because I probably would have lost my lunch reading this if it had been.
The Wall begins ten years before the main events of the novella when Gunns (known as Forge at this time) and his team are still working for the UN. While on their mission they enter a cave and come across a nasty demon ripping a group of men to shreds. Forge is able to defeat the monster and save his team, but afterwards, being tortured and questioned about what really happened he finds himself unable to lie, not even to save himself and his team from further torture. As a result, the team is discharged. Ten years later they are a mercenary group working for the President of the United States.
I can't say that there was a whole like I actually liked about this novella. Initially the appearance of the demon had my interest, but then the description of what it does to it's victims made me feel a little sick. I unfortunately chose to eat lunch while reading it.
The characters were annoying at best. The only one I even remotely liked was Gunns and I didn't like him all that much. I don't know if the characters were modeled after actual military men, but if they were and that is actually how they behave then I'm glad I don't know any. The constant farting of Ollie McDonald aka Terminator and the "your mom" jokes between the team members was irritating. The jokes may have been intended to show the bond between the members but I just found it annoying. The men are all ready to kill instead of asking questions and torture to get answers when they think of asking. They also don't seem to shy away from rape.
The only female character with any speaking lines was a fanatic. The only other women are snobs who don't speak and only look down their noses at people.
I can't say much for the plot either as it all seemed to be a set up for the next volume. The novella raises a lot of questions without giving any answers and reads like a prologue to the next volume. Given my feelings toward this volume, I seriously doubt I will read any more of this series.
Very likely this novella wasn't professionally edited. Though I only spotted a couple spelling errors, I don't think a professional editor would have let some of the sentences into the book as they are. The structure and wording just don't quite fit.
Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this novella to anyone.
So, overall I give this book 1 out of 4 stars.
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The Wall
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