Star-Spangled DC War Stories Part 5: October 1959

By Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

All-American Men at War 74

"The Minute Commandoes!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

"No Boots for an Ace!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Mort Drucker

"Everyday is D-Day!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

PE: Perhaps wanting to tap into the science fiction vibe infesting the DC hero titles, Robert Kanigher conjures up the maiden voyage of "The Minute Commandoes," soldiers bathed in a strange green light that transforms them into insect-sized warriors. It's not clear, from the outset, which side is actually using the ray - is it the allies utilizing it to sneak soldiers across enemy lines or is the axis zapping their enemies into more easily defeatable microbes? You get the answer finally midway through. A strange slice of fantasy that would have worked better, with a little shuffling, in a title like Challengers of the Unknown. Surprisingly enough, this was the only adventure of the world's smallest fighting men but not the last we'll see of a melding of military and fantasy. I would have thought this concept would provide gist for a multitude of stories (as opposed to an ostensibly one-note idea like The Haunted Tank) but, possibly, readers hungry for war-time action weren't ready for a heaping helping of science fiction with their bayonets.

"The Minute Commandoes!"

JS: Finally, a little DC science fiction in amongst the GIs! It has been well-documented by historians of the comics that DC was able to revive the superhero genre in the 1950s by focusing on sci-fi aspects in their stories. I, for one, am glad to see this spread to the war books! In one of the Combat Corner letters pages this month, a reader writes in to ask if the DC war comic stories are all true. I wonder what that reader thought of "The Minute Commandoes"?

"No Boots for an Ace!"

PE: Though I really didn't care for "The Minute Commandoes," the other two stories this issue are top-notch. "No Boots For an Ace" is a predecessor to the popular "Enemy Ace" strip (which will show up on our radar when we enter 1965). A World War I pilot dreams of going after the infamous German ace Von Tulz, whose calling card is a pair of boots, dropped on the American air fields, signifying another kill. Our young hero, known only as Brand, finds himself face to propeller with the legendary German and defeats him through a series of tricks and maneuvers. Exciting script, crisp dialogue and fabulous art by Mort Drucker make this a pick for Best of the Month. In the closer, "Every Day is D-Day," a soldier tries to convince himself that D-Day is just one day and that it'll get better at +1. By the end of the story, our once-naive GI is a grizzled veteran of war and comes to realize that there is no "easy day." Jack Abel's art here is a bit more sketchy than we've seen previously but, in this case, it seems to fit the story.

JS: Peter, thanks for saving me the trouble of looking up when Enemy Ace starts! The Drucker story features some cool drawings of WWI biplanes. The only thing missing was Snoopy!

Jerry Grandenetti & Jack Adler

G.I. Combat 77

"H-Hour for a Gunner!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath

"Get the Carriers"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Joe Kubert

"Last on a Match"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

PE: Individuals from the various armed forces are spotlighted in "H-Hour for a Gunner," a meandering story that goes from Point A to Point F without ever looking back and manages to work nonetheless. We see  men preparing for D-Day, performing integral duties as if a giant puzzle were being constructed (and that's just what was happening): frogmen, pilots, a battleship crew, and a lone machine gunner. The latter becomes the focal point (and the hook) of the story when he's forced to face an entire platoon of Japanese soldiers with one damaged machine gun. His superior's assertion that the boy might "look like a man, sound like a man" but would never be "a real man" still rings in his ears as he mows down the enemy. Later, after allies land on the beach, one of his comrades looks over at the sleeping gunner, slumped over his savior, and remarks "Whoever he is -- He's a man -- a real man!" This one's all over the place, like an edited version of a three-hour epic, but it's got some powerful images that can't fail to impress. Another wild cover by Jerry Grandenetti (check out all that pink!).

"H-Hour for a Gunner!"

JS: This was a confusing story but it was powerful nonetheless. I thought that the Japanese had made the island a giant booby trap, but when the soldiers head off into the jungle and did not get blown up I figured I misunderstood. It was pretty neat how the lone gunner wiped out an entire boatload of enemy soldiers and the waves washed away every trace of the carnage.

PE: "Get the Carriers" is a nicely told story of an American fighter pilot determined to sink an enemy battleship and his Japanese counterpart, a kamikaze pilot with the exact same goal and determination. The finale, with our hero parachuting from the descending burning wreckage of his jet, is a bit far-fetched but the whole is very exciting. The only weak story this issue is "Last on a Match," a pretty far-fetched yarn that served only one purpose for me: it explains the origin of the phrase "three on a match" and why it's bad luck. A fascinating tidbit within a story that's not worth writing home for (even though the main protagonist did so).

"Last on a Match!"

JS: It's rare that I'd describe a Joe Kubert story as forgettable, but "Get the Carriers" fits that bill. It's too short at six pages to build much momentum and the battle scenes are bland. Only those Kubert faces are worth a look. I thought "Last on a Match!" was clever and I, like you, did not know the origin of the expression. As in the Mlle. Marie story this month (see below), Dad tells son about an event from WWI and son uses it to his advantage in Korea.

Russ Heath

Our Army at War 87

"Calling Easy Co.!"
Story by Bob Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Tiger Twister!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Mort Drucker

"Worm's-Eye-War!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath

PE: Sgt. Rock narrates the story of four men of Easy who have to head up No-Return Hill and stop an enemy tank in "Calling Easy Co.!" After the fireworks end, the rest of Easy climb the hill to see what became of their comrades. I'm a bit confused as to what they find. At various levels of the climb they find the soldiers, affected by shell shock but holding their ground. Why would the tank have left these men alive? They'd have blasted them to Kingdom Come. Was the only  way Kanigher could get fatalities past the Comics Code to disguise the dead as "shell-shocked"?

"Calling Easy Co.!"

JS: None of them are dead. They heroically defeated the Nazis and held their ground. What puzzles me is when we're going to start getting some continuity in this series. Other than Rock, the men of Easy Co. seem to come and go every month. We're supposed to think of this as a veteran fighting team where everyone has been around so long that they have grown tough together. So why don't I recognize any of them yet? With that said, the Sgt. Rock series is easily the best out of the five comics we're currently reading.

PE: The other two stories this issue also involve tanks. In "Tiger Twister," three GIs work in tandem to wear down a super German tank, one that Germans assert can only be destroyed by an American bazooka. As usual, the Nazis in this story are portrayed as smug, overconfident, and arrogant and the three GIs do indeed slow the pace of the monster and then destroy it with a well-placed bazooka shell. I'm really loving Mort Drucker's art in these war books but there's not much of a story to complement it. A "Worm's-Eye View" is what a paratrooper gets when he's stuck in the middle of a street in Nazi-occupied France and a tank is barreling down on him. He must make do with the weapons at hand and, in the end, survives thanks to some well-placed bazooka men.

JS: I don't know how the soldier in "Worm's-Eye-War!" didn't get shot about ten times. This was one of those stories where he seemed to be bulletproof. The last panel was a surprise, however:

Ooh-la-la!

Jerry Grandenetti

Our Fighting Forces 50

"My Pal, the Pooch!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"It's Always Six O'Clock"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Russ Heath

"The Walking Bridge"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

PE: There aren't too many DC war stories (at least so far) that I would label disposable but I guess it had to happen sooner or later. "My Pal, the Pooch" is sugar sweet and juvenile and doesn't give me much hope in a series that I thought was weak in the first place. The fact that an incredibly smart rover has been introduced to the equation, and effectively replaced the "Sarge" in "Gunner and Sarge," drops it even lower. My research (aka Wikipedia) tells me we'll have to slog through the cutesy adventures of "Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch" until OFF #94. I sure hope you like dogs, Jack.  I know the army employed intelligent canines in the service but this one tests believability at all turns. Screw the pooch.

JS: This was a pretty worthless story, even if the dog was cute. I guess they ran out of ways to have Gunner trail Sarge around blowing things up.

No! Bad dog!

PE: A tail gunner thinks the grass is always greener on the other side of the plane but then has those beliefs tested when he has to fill in for wounded gunners in other seats of the aircraft. "It's Always Six O'Clock" is a short but gripping story with fabulous Heath art. I know I never really paid much attention to the war comics before we began this blog but it seems as though the only artist whose name came up, in the few articles I read on the subject, was Joe Kubert. What a revelation Russ Heath has been. The dynamic way he choreographs air battles elevates even the weaker scripts.

JS: I'm with you. The script is strictly one note but we can just sit back and enjoy that art.

"It's Always Six O'Clock"

PE: I would categorize "The Walking Bridge" as an "educational" strip rather than a "story" script." Some of these are just too brief to involve the reader but they do provide us with a look into how the war was run (and won). Here we find out that the army sometimes had to build floating bridges across rivers to provide crossing for soldiers. The protagonist must fight off enemy forces while a replacement bridge is built.

Jerry Grandenetti

Star-Spangled War Stories 86

"A Medal for Marie!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Mort Drucker

"U-Boat to Nowhere!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath

"Combat Kayo List!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

JS: I finally get my wish in "A Medal for Marie!" when we get to see a new war. Marie finds herself smack dab in the middle of a target when she has to radio an Allied bomber jet plane to drop its load right on top of her. She recalls being a little girl and hearing her father tell her about a similar instance in the Great War. Her grandfather also had the same experience in a prior war. I had to resort to Wikipedia to figure out which war grandpa was in because it looked the same as  WWI and WWII. I concluded that it had to be the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. In any case, Marie's memories give her strength and she does the right thing. She gets a medal of sorts for her heroism--a rose pinned on her blouse. Mort Drucker draws Mlle. Marie this time around and it's certainly different--he's better at men than women, especially faces!

Mlle. Marie needs to see zee plastic surgeon!

PE: I've been hard on the Mademoiselle Marie series as it hasn't really presented me yet with evidence that it can support interesting stories featuring a nattily-dressed French seductress with a machine gun. While the Mlle. is still a little too perky (whenever does this dame find the time to stop between bursts and do her lipstick and rouge?), at least the story held my interest this time. You're right though, Jack, Drucker doesn't draw the scrumptious Marie half as gorgeous as Grandenetti has the last two installments. But that's okay with me. Someone should have taught the Nazis to at least search for a pulse before declaring one of their most wanted enemies dead.

JS: "Combat Kayo List!" is funny. The Sarge has been told to make a list of all of the equipment and ammunition left in Charlie Company's 2d Platoon. He gets so wrapped up in making the list at first that he tells his men not to fire on the enemy because it will mess up his tally. Eventually, everything on the list gets used up and he has to make a new one--of all the enemy items the platoon destroyed!

PE: "U-Boat to Nowhere" is almost a fragment of a story, feeling as though we've wandered into the halfway point of a larger story, but it's exciting and has some nice Heath art. A frogman must face off against the U-Boat responsible for destroying his rendezvous ship. He manages to plant explosives on the sub thanks to a helpful shark.

"Combat Kayo List!"

Coming Next Week!