“Sara” is Garth Ennis at his most mature. I imagine it would’ve been tempting to show the decadence of the USSR leadership with an orgy or two, but he holds off his expected excess and it makes “Sara” sing. The story is as stark as its winter setting — but not so cold, for Sara (both the story and the character) honors the humanity of the women fighting alongside her.

If there’s anything “Sara” shares with its writer’s past work, it’s an outlook that war is the act of institutions shoving their citizens into the meat grinder. In Ennis’ war comics, he manages to tell this theme while also avoiding sanctifying his soldier characters. Ennis’ soldiers aren’t pure heroes failed by an undeserving state, just normal blokes who’ve been fed lies about their country’s greatness. Once in combat, they reap the consequences while under fire.

The Red Army’s refrain is “For The Motherland.” In Chapter 5 — “Recognition & Reward” — Sara eyes two of her squadmates being killed by German soldiers and observes “I can’t hear the words. But I know them all the same.” Sara, though, doesn’t believe in those three words; she’s fighting the Nazis because she was told that they razed her village. Her faith in her government is fragile at best (feelings not alleviated by her worrywart political overseer Raisa). She confesses to her friends in Chapter 6 — “Against A Ghost” — that she believes Russia is content to “drown the Fritzies in our own blood.” No war is truly “great and patriotic,” but while dying for an ideology or uncaring state is foolish, dying for your comrades can be noble.

Ennis and Epting are currently working on a spiritual sequel to “Sara” titled “Partisan,” following a Ukrainian mother caught between the warring Germans and Russians in 1942. I have every faith the pair can again strike a clean shot.