Demo - "One Shot, Don't Miss"

   The disquiet of "What You Wish For" gives way to the grim, disorienting landscapes of "One Shot, Don't Miss." In this story, PFC John Hatfield flies into Iraq with his reputation preceding him. He isn't just a crack shot - he never misses. Stationed on patrol, his colleagues explain to him how to spot a suicide bomber: they're the ones that don't stop their vehicles. Hatfield is instructed to shoot the driver of any vehicle that doesn't stop. When he's confronted by such a situation, he aims at the tires instead. He is, of course, reprimanded for the failure to follow protocol, but when Hatfield vaguely threatens his commanding officer he is able to negotiate his discharge. His girlfriend Kendra has just had their first child, and she's upset that Hatfield has revoked not only their insurance but also their only source of income. He returns home to face an unhappy Kendra and a deeply uncertain future.

   "One Shot, Don't Miss" is most similar in theme to "Stand Strong." Kendra is as one-dimensional a character as Amy, and for most of the same reasons. Kendra wants Hatfield to support the family and is angry at him for failing to live up to that commitment. She shows no other desires or ideas. Like James McMurray, John Hatfield takes on a job he hates in hopes of upward mobility. He wants to go to college and the army is his only means of ever making enough money. Like McMurray, Hatfield’s ability is seen by others as a tool they can use. He is only valuable insofar as he uses that ability within the limits and directions set by others.

   Unlike James McMurray, John doesn’t have a sense of lineage. They are both cogs in a machine, but James's life is leavened by a sense of familial responsibility. The moving ambiguity of James's reaction to the course of life he chose by allying himself with his father is replaced with Hatfield's desire for a family unit that he will likely never have. He doesn't have parents or friends, only Kendra and their daughter. 

   “One Shot, Don’t Miss” is about the those left out of the shrinking middle class. The metaphor of the Iraq conflict, still so fresh when this issue came out in 2005, helps illustrate the struggle as Wood & Cloonan imagine it. Hatfield, like all the other soldiers, fights in an endless battle with no real opponents and a shifting landscape upon which he never quite knows his place. He doesn't know what the obstacles are, much less what will help him overcome them. He is adrift - the featureless white backgrounds of the Iraqi desert mirroring those of the homefront. Though Kendra is shallowly rendered, she asks important questions. Where will the money come from now? They had to borrow from her father to even get Hatfield to qualify for the GI fund and now face the prospect of telling him that Hatfield quit.

   Kendra thinks Hatfield couldn’t hack it, but the problem is much more complex (that the story so clearly illustrates the fact, while Kendra remains belligerently ignorant of it, is to Wood & Cloonan's discredit because it makes Kendra all the less likable and her point of view that much more difficult to integrate into the story's themes). Hatfield makes the distinction men in war are told not to make when he calls killing “murder.” For Hatfield, though, it’s an even more ethically charged proposition because he can kill so easily. He cannot miss when he fires a gun - if he wants to kill a man then that man will die. The dilemma is keenly portrayed in the scene with the suspected suicide bomber. There is enough ambiguity in the situation to offer the possibility that the truck isn’t loaded with explosives. We are never told if the truck, in fact, exploded and all Hatfield's commander intimates is that the PFC disobeyed orders. Hatfield does not see the conflict as the others do. For them, it’s a fight. They have to assume the worst because they cannot guarantee that they will survive otherwise. For Hatfield, he knows that he has the better of every gunfight he’s in.

  The matter at stake is competing virtues, and how economic conditions put people into such untenable binds. Hatfield has an ability that seems designed only for killing. Take the best sharpshooter in comics [Bullseye, left] for example. The ability to shoot things with unerring accuracy seems to be primarily suited for extermination. More particularly, in his historic moment, it makes Hatfield suited for military service. Hatfield is unremarkable in any other way, as Cloonan’s art so potently illustrates. When we first see Hatfield, his face is reflected in the window of his troop transport plane. His eyes are hooded and covered in shadow, his features undistinguishable from all the other soldiers. The only thing that singles Hatfield out from the crowd is his ability to shoot, and he refuses to use that ability. The only thing that makes him special is a thing he is not suited to do. He doesn’t want to fight, to kill, to be injured or maybe to die. Economic necessity forces him to do it. After returning home following his discharge, he finds Kendra sitting in a darkened kitchen smoking. Her eyes are also hooded. He hands her all the money he owns, a measly wad, and goes into the other room to see his daughter. The final splash page is of Kendra and Hatfield, their backs to each other and divided by their shadows. She is holding their money and Hatfield cradling their daughter. The competing claims on Hatfield's life, money or family, are starkly opposed.

   “One Shot, Don’t Miss” isn’t so much a story as it is a bleak portrait. It’s one of the most sophisticated issues of Demo, and one of the most emotionally affecting.

Next Week: “Mixtape” and biting off more than you can chew