The final issue of Tankies is even better than I remembered and maybe even imagined. I’m really glad I forgot the ending–Ennis gives it two finishes, one for the tank company, one for the colonel at command–and it’s just perfect. What the colonel’s ending does is a little different–Tankies is not just a standalone story, it’s Ennis’s story about the men in tank companies….
But packaging it in Tankies, with the humor, with the fourteen-hour present action for three issues, Ennis never gets sentimental (there’s no dedication, for example). Instead, he simply presents the situation of the tank companies and goes with it.
I haven’t mentioned Ennis’s use of Geordie for the corporal. I usually loathe the use of dialect in writing because it’s usually used for all the wrong reasons. Ennis uses it for all the right ones.
Tankies is an amazing piece of work.
