Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 44: January 1963

The DC War Comics 1959-1976
by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Russ Heath and Jack Adler

G.I. Combat 97

"The Decoy Tank!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Graveyard of Sunken Subs!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"A Promise to Joe!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: Stopping to pick up a wounded GI along the road proves to be a bad mistake for the men of the Jeb Stuart when it's revealed the man is actually a Nazi in disguise. In an effort to capture the Jeb and use it as "The Decoy Tank," the German holds the boys at bay with a live grenade. With a little guidance from the ghost of the original Jeb Stuart, our heroes are able to disarm the Ratzi and take out the German tanks a-waiting. Exciting enough at times but I reiterate that, aside from a few moments, the spirit warrior really has nothing to do in these stories. While we're waiting for The General to take more of an active hand in the action, at least we've got vintage Heath to gape at.

"The Decoy Tank"

Jack: The art is about all that this one has going for it. The story wasn't much. Kanigher likes to start his stories at a high point in the action and then tell what led up to it in a flashback. This time, it all leads to the Nazi holding a grenade in the tank and, after our hero imagines how things could go horribly wrong, he rushes the enemy and grabs the grenade. Not much excitement! These stories are getting repetitive, though Heath keeps them from being as monotonous as the War That Time Forgot series.

"Bad Day for a Frog"

Peter: Something's going on down in "The Slot," a narrow channel in the open sea where Allied subs
seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate. The USS Tarpon is sent to investigate and tagging along on her hull is an American frogman. Our nameless hero soon solves the mystery: there's a "Graveyard of Sunken Subs" at the bottom of "The Slot" and enemy "frogs" have been loading active torpedoes into the dead fish. The torps become activated by passing subs. Unable to act fast enough, our hero is left stranded when the Tarpon gets blasted. Using American ingenuity and an available depth charge, the frogman is able to vanquish the enemy and make it safer for our guys to travel the seas. A very exciting story even if some of it's a bit far-fetched (fistfights under water? depth charges that land on our guy without doing any damage?) and we get good Grandenetti as well. A bit much though that our frogman has to beat the clock to save the next incoming submarine, a sub that carries his brother!

Jack: Much more exciting than the Haunted Tank story this issue, "Graveyard" features what must be the swiftest example of Morse code in comics history: the frogman sees a torpedo heading for his sub, grabs a wrench, and taps out a warning on the hull--all before the torpedo arrives! This guy should have been working a Morse code machine on a ship instead of swimming around under water. Grandenetti's art at this stage in his career can be good and this is an example of when it works, partly because we don't get any of his oddly angular faces.

Peter: Besieged by enemy fire, the only chance a bomber crew has is the machine gun turrets manned by two brothers, Joe and Nick. The brothers had made a promise to each other to always have each other's back and they're doing everything in their power to keep those promises. When the co-pilot checks on the boys, he finds Joe dead and Nick firing furiously away. After all the enemy planes are shot from the sky, the bomber lands and it's revealed that both brothers are dead. A bit of a clumsy, confusing script with a hazy Twilight Zone-esque climax (it's hinted at that both brothers were dead before the firing stopped), "A Promise to Joe" is buoyed by knockout visuals courtesy of Irv Novick. I've liked Novick's art but, seriously, his work in this strip elevates Irv to Heath and Kubert levels (if maybe just for the one strip), especially the panel depicting Nick's insane gaze as he mans his dead brother's machine gun. Never mind the words, this visual is what war is all about.

Jack: Great point, Peter. I looked closely at this one after reading your comment and I can convince myself it's Novick, but it doesn't look like any Novick we've seen before. But if it's not Irv, who is it? Maybe it's the work of more than one artist, with Novick doing some face work? It is an exciting story with an unnecessarily mysterious twist at the end. It's unusual that both gunners die. I was expecting to see Joe with a bandage around his head in the final panel.

Russ Heath

Our Army at War 126

"The End of Easy Company!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Fort That Wouldn't Stay Up!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Irv Novick

Jack: As Easy Co. tries to take Dogtag Hill and a soldier named Buddy is injured, another soldier named the Canary Kid asks Rock why they should risk their lives taking what seems to be a worthless piece of ground. Fearing this could be "The End of Easy Company," Rock thinks back to when Canary Kid joined Easy Co. and received his nickname because of his habit of whistling all the time. He was instrumental in defeating an attacking tank; another time, he was loading a machine gun for Buddy when Buddy saved his life by leaping on top of him. When Easy Co. received orders to take Dogtag Hill, the enemy dropped fliers telling them that they knew they were coming. Rock led his men up the hill against Nazis who aimed spotlights and bullets down from the crest. In the end, Easy Co. prevails and Canary continues to whistle along with them. This was not as good as some other Kubert art I've seen on the Easy Co. series, but Kanigher's introduction of what looks like another regular character is entertaining.

"The End of Easy Company"

Peter: Kubert's art is as startling as always but the story seems to be one from Column A and one from Column B..., a sort of mish-mash of previous installments: the story within the story; Rock having to take the time while on the battlefield to relate what's going on to an incident in the past, the untakeable hill that has to be taken (a plot device that's used again in Our Fighting Forces this month!). It's all in there. All that's missing, in fact, is the green recruit who can't work up the nerve to storm the hill until the final panels. Ah, but there's the Kubert artwork to drool over!

"The Fort That Wouldn't Stay Up!"

Jack: The first time Capt. Smith and his crew crash land their B-17 bomber and walk back to base, their C.O. is mad until an infantry general bursts in and explains how they sacrificed their flying fortress to save men on the ground. The next time "The Fort That Wouldn't Stay Up!" crashes, a Navy general explains that a Nazi ship was destroyed. Finally, the B-17 has a malfunction in one of its engines but manages to keep 'em flying long enough to destroy Nazi fighter planes. Novick's art is again solid but the story is a bit of a march through the three branches of fighting men and it's a bit predictable by the end.

Peter: Way too cutesy pie for my tastes (especially with its endless supply of Generals bursting through the door to hand out medals and shoosh the Colonel's dressing downs) and yet another theme that's growing tired. With all the derring-do these DC military boys accomplish without so much as a scratch, it's a wonder that the kids in 1963 didn't believe America got out of WWII free of casualties.

Jerry Grandenetti

Our Fighting Forces 73

"The Hero-Maker!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"Pass Out the Silver Stars!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Buck Fever!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

Jack: Gunner is left alone on the beach to guard a shipment of ammunition while Sarge and the rest of the Marines go for a swim. Just then, a Japanese Zero attacks and blows up one of the piles of ammo boxes. Gunner fights him off before he can blow up the other and the man with the machine gun receives a medal for bravery. Gunner laughs that Sarge accidentally became "The Hero-Maker!" so Sarge decides to take Gunner out on more patrols to give him an opportunity for additional heroics. The duo destroy some more Japanese traps, the last of which requires Sarge to perform some heroics of his own. Despite his best efforts to remain anonymous, Sarge also receives a medal when Gunner turns in a camera that the enemy had used to photograph the battle and the pictures display Sarge's actions. Weak art by Grandenetti drags down an otherwise decent story. My biggest fear was when I saw the words "TNT Trio" on the cover. Happily, they are used to describe Gunner, Sarge and Pooch, not to herald the return of Big Al, Little Al and Charlie Cigar.

"The Hero-Maker!"

Peter: When I read each story for Star Spangled DC War Stories (and Do You Dare Enter?), I make notes and assign each a 1-4 star rating. This not only helps me collect my thoughts when I write about what I've read, it also makes it super simple to pick my Top Tens at the end of the year. The reason I bring this up is that, through 28 installments, I've never given a Gunner and Sarge (and Pooch) tale more than a star and a half until now. Don't get too excited; this one only got a two. It's nothing earth-shattering in the scheme of war comics (and the art is pretty lousy) but the fact that I could finish a G+S saga without wondering what the hell Kanigher was thinking when he turned a script in is a minor miracle. It could all be up to the fact that Colonel Hakawa was having his teeth cleaned or that Pooch had laryngitis (only two Arf Arf Arfs in the entire thirteen-page epic!) or that Big Bob just got tired of writing crappy racially-questionable war parodies. Could a two-and-a-half star rating be in the future?  All we can do is hope.

"Pass Out the Silver Stars!"

Jack: Five men from Dog Company are ordered to reach the top of Zero Hill and the Lieutenant will "Pass Out the Silver Stars!" to the first three men to make it. Mickey vows to get one but, when he and the Lieutenant are the only ones who live to make it to their destination, he takes the stars and throws them back to his three comrades who died in the fighting along the way. At three and a half pages, this is too short to be anything but a vignette, but Novick again shows why he was one of DC's solid, reliable artists for so many years.

Peter: What a load of crap. At what point did this selfish kid decide that the men who laid down their lives for him deserved the medals more than him? In the penultimate panel? After each GI dies, we get a shot of Mickey practically salivating over his comrades' corpses, a silver star within grasp, and then, wham-O, he's a conscientious young man doing the right thing. Baloney. And the "hill that has to be taken" plot really shouldn't be dusted off twice in one month.

"Buck Fever!"

Jack: Billy freezes up with "Buck Fever!" the first time he is supposed to fire a bazooka at an oncoming enemy tank. His weapon is downgraded to a rifle, but he gets Buck Fever again when faced with an enemy motorcycle attack. It takes an appearance by a cute little doggie, being chased by a bigger, meaner doggie, to unfreeze Billy so that he can start firing and heroically defeat an enemy attack. Grandenetti's art is not good once again and this is just too many dogs for one issue!

Peter: A double shot of Grandenetti in one issue is usually a recipe for disaster and this cliched time-waster is certainly a disaster. The characters in both "Buck Fever" and "The Hero-Maker" have those copyrighted Grandenetti saucer eyes and funky lips that would ruin so many otherwise good DC mystery stories in the late 60s. Chapman's strip is straight out of Lassie Goes to War. Would Billy's Sarge really put him in charge of single-handedly guarding a bridge the enemy might attempt to take when the kid has frozen so many times before?

Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Star Spangled War Stories 106

"The Nightmare War!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"The Flying Island!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"Battle Odds!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Stop me if you've heard this before: Three GIs land on an island of dinosaurs and have to overcome insurmountable odds and being dropped from ungodly heights before a miraculous rescue from "The Nightmare War," only to face incoming amnesia. The only new wrinkle Kanigher throws into this same-old-toybox story is an attempted explanation for the dinosaur island: a misty cloud that the boys fly through before being plopped onto the island. There is some speculation that, rather than the dinos having survived a million years on a Pacific island, these men have actually flown through a time portal and back into the past.  Of course, that ignores the fact that the previous fifteen dino-adventures occurred without the benefit of a cloud cover. And, when the trio finally make it off the island (via an amiable pterodactyl), they find themselves dumped into the sea right next to a carrier. When the CO questions them, what are they going to say? I see court-martials for dereliction of duty in the near future.

Jack: One thing we have noticed with DC comics of this era is that the cover is almost always repeated on the splash page. This story takes it one better: the line about twisting a cannon into a pretzel is right there on the cover, then on the splash page two different characters say the exact same line in their word balloons! Wasn't anyone paying attention at all? The main character works at a natural history museum in the dinosaur wing and has recurring nightmares about being attacked by a dino. Then he joins the Army and passes through a time warp cloud onto dinosaur island! What are the odds?

Peter: The skipper says the big bomber is nothing but "The Flying Island." The crew disagree and mount several arguments to the contrary, all the while being shot at. Eventually, the bomber ends up in the drink, caught up on a coral reef, and really does become "The Flying Island." Despite insurmountable odds (enemy battleships, zeroes, torpedoes, etc.), the skipper uses a little ingenuity to avoid certain death and, despite losing "The Flying Island," the crew is saved in the end. This is one of those endless "call-out phrase" stories where the words "The Flying Island" are used more than a few times and the reader's patience is tested after the third panel. This is neither good Grandenetti nor bad, it's just bland and by-the-numbers. I'll put money on Bob Haney as author (of course, my chances of being right are one in three) since he's the guy most fond of running phrases into the ground.

Jack: Enough Grandenetti already! Not a good month for Jerry.

Peter: "Peanuts" Potter is the worst jockey in the world, finishing last in every race he's ever begun, so it's no surprise he'll be no better when he's drafted into the army. Ah-ha! If you thought that, you'd be wrong, for little did you suspect that "Peanuts" would be captured by the Nazis and forced into manual labor using.... (ah, you guessed it, didn't you?)... a thoroughbred! "Peanuts" uses his powers as a horse whisperer (crooning the bugle call into Flicka's ear) to motivate the old nag to blow up a camouflaged German military base. "Peanuts" becomes a first-place finisher at last! A grueling cliche from start to finish (I hate these silly war animal stories), "Battle Odds" doesn't win Worst Story of the Month but it does place.

Jack: Bad DC War comic stories fall into a few categories. This one is just dumb, not so bad it's good, not Grandenetti, just bland. It's strange that this is Jack Abel's only contribution for the month, since he usually provides the majority of the back up stories.

Beginning this Thursday...
The Best of Pre-Code Horror!

And in our Next Tomb-Twirling Issue of
 Do You Dare Enter?...