Zeb Larson reviews Burning Fields #3…
Just as Dana learns a secret about Aban that upends the murder investigation, the tensions between the Iraqi populace and the Verge PMC reach a fever pitch, giving the killer a perfect opportunity to strike.
Burning Fields is stringing us along, feeding the reader just enough information to keep going without giving away too many of the secrets. There are no earth-shattering revelations in this issue, though we do get our first glimpse of the killer. I will be discussing spoilers in my review, so read on at your own discretion.
Dana learns a little bit about Aban’s membership in the Brotherhood of Ninurta, an ancient organization deeply wrapped up in Sumerian mythology. Dana briefly suspects the members may be responsible for the murders, but Aban dismisses this and asserts that the group’s leader, Ghada, is the only one who can help them. Before he can lead them to the scrapyard, tensions between the Iraqis and Verge boil over into a shooting in the public square, giving the killer a chance to take another life. Dana finally gets a brief look at the entity and realizes that this is no ordinary murderer, as well as what she was sent to Kirkuk to take care of.
This issue is certainly critical of the idea that it would be easy to win “hearts and minds.” When Decker talks about winning hearts and minds, I suspect it’s intended to evoke Paul Wolfowitz’s prediction about the U.S. Army being greeted as liberators. There’s a lot of political bitterness in this book, but I doubt it’s going to offend anyone. Whatever your politics, pretty much every person can see that the occupation of Iraq proved to be far more complicated than the Bush Administration predicted it would be. Burning Fields shows much of the difficulty in creating a trusting relationship when one side is dominant by virtue of force of arms.
The layer of Sumerian mythology is also deepening in this issue, as Ninurta is another well-known figure in the Sumerian mythos. Ninurta had a variety of beliefs ascribed to him, but one of those was releasing people from the power of demons. That would fit well with the current theory that Asag is a demon, though it’s unclear what kind of power he’s wielding over other people. This issue also presents interesting questions about whether Decker or anybody else on the American side understands the supernatural nature of these crimes, or if they’re unable to see the bigger picture.
Apart from that, I feel like Decker is starting to come together as a character, as well as a source of guilt for Dana. His endgame in all of this is the most interesting because it’s still a mystery. Dana and Aban are basically decent people who want to stop the violence before it gets out of hand. Decker, on the other hand, could be a cynic who just says what he needs to, or a man tremendously out of his depth. Both of those archetypes should be familiar from this war.
I’m really digging the way Burning Fields can tell this horror story while integrating it into the conduct of the Iraq War. For those of us who came of political consciousness during the war, the cynicism and anger in this story feels familiar. More importantly, the questions and problems here need to be asked. I’m looking forward to the next issue.
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ONsp_bmDYXc&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published March 19, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
