Commando #5881: The Longest War

by Paul Cornell, Steve Yeowell (Cover Art)

This is the story of a Korean man who fought in three different armies, on three different sides, over the course of one war. In 1939, Dae Gwan Lee was press-ganged into service in the Kwantung army of Manchukuo by the Japanese occupiers to fight against the Soviet forces. Before long, Lee was captured by the Soviets and forced to fight against the German invaders of Russia, who in turn captured him and shipped him to Europe. Defending France against the D-Day landings, Lee was captured again, but this time by the Americans. This is his incredible tale of a life during World War Two!

64 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 4, 2025

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

I never really read war comics growing up; same with the films, to an extent (I've still not seen Escape To Victory). And when I did get into them it was via Garth Ennis, so very much the Battle route; I was aware of Commando digests as a thing one saw in newsagents*, but never thought to read any. But with Paul Cornell and Steve Yeowell doing one, here I am at last. Certainly it's not as gung-ho as I'd assumed; there's none of the sense of war as a Boy's Own lark which I think I associated with the brand. It's the possibly true story of Dae Gwan Lee, a Korean baker conscripted into the army of Japan's puppet occupying regime – and then finding himself gradually further and further from home, forcibly recruited into one army after another, each of which is supposedly engaged in grand national and ideological struggles while he seldom cares about; mostly he only wants to keep the guys stood next to him alive, and often he doesn't even want to kill those he's been told are his enemies. There are gestures to the bigger questions: is he spectacularly unlucky that this keeps happening to him, or lucky to survive so many times when those around him fall? And Yeowell recaptures some of his old skill that's been missing in the excess minimalism of a lot of his recent work, using the right few lines to bring out the battered humanity surviving amidst the carnage of conflict. But it still ends up feeling like a sketch of the grand tragicomic picaresque the story could have been.

*No longer as true as it was; I was quite excited about the idea of finally owning one, but even big station Smith's couldn't oblige, and I ended up having to get this digitally.