The focus of the most recent trade collection of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor series, Unsung Hero (Dark Horse), may initially throw readers coming to Pekar's comics from the currently released American Splendor flick. Instead of the autobiographical thoughts and travails of Cleveland's most famous file clerk, Hero recounts the Vietnam experiences of a young black soldier, Robert McNeill, as recollected by the war vet some thirty years later. Narrated to Pekar (who periodically is shown jotting down notes but otherwise stays out of the picture) it's the story of an ordinary guy trying to survive harrowing combat.

Mishandled by the school system, McNeill is driven to enlist in the U.S. Marines, thinking: "I'd come home looking sharp and everyone would look up to me." The war isn't even part of his young boy scenario. When he actually enters basic training, McNeill gets an immediate hard shot of reality ("The first day, when I got to Paris Island, I just knew I had made a mistake.") He unsuccessfully attempts to escape boot camp, then finishes training only to learn that his unit has been assigned riot patrol duty in Watts. The riot duty is cancelled but not before the young black soldier has had to struggle with the thought of taking up bayonets against black Americans.

Pekar, as listener, editor and scripter, charts the teenaged soldier's progress through the military. In the process he does more than just present a Vietnam reminiscence: he shows the steps and attitude changes an ordinary guy must undergo to survive both war and life in the military. It figures that this would be the most intriguing part of the story for Pekar. Though Unsung Hero doesn't stint on depicting battle action once our hero actually gets to Southeast Asia, it's even more detailed in describing McNeill's state of mind throughout the whole experience. The book effectively conveys how both frightening and wearing war can be. Having showed how well he could dramatize his own fears and desperate wishful thoughts in Our Cancer Year, Perkar now turns his ear to a young G.I. whose only goal is to make it through his tour of duty alive.

Thus, our reminiscing vet devotes as much time to the military's unsuccessful attempt at quashing the wearing of black armbands by black soldiers in the field and to an R-&-R in Thailand ("a black man's paradise," he's told). A strenuous night of guard duty is meticulously recreated: having been warned by a little Vietnamese girl that the Viet Cong are "coming," the nervous McNeill sees signs of V-C movement in every shadow - and we believe him. In another episode, he's given a Navy Commendation Medal for saving the other men in his squadron, though at first it's up in the air whether he'll receive any military acknowledgement for his deed since it occurs in a place where the squad is not supposed to be. That the Marine gets a Navy medal is taken by McNeill as a sign that "they really didn't want to give me a medal, but the overwhelming support of my squad made them give me something," though it's just as likely that it was a bureaucratic snafu.