A wildly entertaining story that has a great idea and executes it with tremendous style and creative energy. Christmas Eve in Stalingrad 1942 and the bloody, grinding struggle between the invading Germans and the Russians was still dragging on. Russian and German soldiers prefer to rely on their weapons than on any strategy or message from above. A group of German soldiers fall back to a church and get a very nasty surprise. Even in the appalling horror of Stalingrad it then gets worse for the survivors.
The story is a simple idea framed and executed superbly. Where better than in the cauldron of Stalingrad to push further into darkness? The story takes familiar ideas and uses them with sharp skill coming to a very suitable conclusion. Rob Jones, Matthew Hardy have taken a limited context and used it to tremendous effect as the numerous conflicts and dangers that surround everyone become more potent under the pressure from a new threat. There is simply too much bad history for anyone to escape.
The art by Russell MacEwan, William McLaughlan is stunning, rough edged and boiling with energy it captures and concentrates the ferocity of the situation, the grim determination of the soldiers to fight and survive and the sudden incursion by another threat that no one could have foreseen. Black, white, and red all over the art is a wonderful mix of prints and drawings which jumble together in chaos that reads easily and give the story the ferocious energy it deserves. More traditional artwork would not have served the story half as well, it could never have evoked the chaos that was everywhere and the sense thar everyone had simply become used to it. Until real chaos showed up to shake up everyone.
Hell in Stalingrad is a short story that comes out swinging and does not stop till the very last beat, it grips the reader and pulls them into the cold and does not let go. A fantastic comic, it uses the medium with outstanding force and skill .
