The Call of Duty: The Brotherhood

(Marvel, 2002-2003)
™ and ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

In an effort to tell stories about ordinary heroes, Marvel offered up several under the banner The Call of Duty, each one focusing on a different branch of New York City’s protective services, i.e. the police, ambulance medics, and the fire department. This series stars James MacDonald, a fireman who is wounded when he falls the through the weakened floor of a Manhattan brownstone while trying to rescue a blonde-haired girl who is standing amid the flames—the same child who has been appearing to and asking for help from policeman Frank Gunzer in The Call of Duty: The Precinct and to Jennifer Montez in The Call of Duty: The Wagon.

After James recovers from his injuries, he and his crew are fighting a fire at a crack house, but things aren’t exactly as black-and-white as they appear at first glance. The fire was set by the residents of the neighborhood who are tired of the drugs in their community, and they make the firemen’s jobs more difficult by cutting off the water supply to the hydrant. Writer Chuck Austen (Ultimate X-Men) and artist David Finch (The Darkness) offer up a number of moral dilemmas in this excellent series.

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