Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 47: April 1963

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

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 129

"Heroes Need Cowards!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Drowned Bomber!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

"Undying Ski Fighter!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: When Sgt. Rock overhears a couple of desk soldiers joking around and calling each other cowards, he thinks about how combat vets never use that word. He recalls his own feelings of cowardice the first time he faced a tank in North Africa, though he managed to disable it with a grenade and destroy it with a bazooka. Rock recounts the story of how Ice Cream Soldier got his nickname--he melted like Ice Cream in the sun--but when the temperature grew cold he was a dynamo. The sergeant sees a pair of new soldiers in Easy Co. and their banter earns them the nicknames High Boy and Goldfish. High Boy gets scared crossing a river and Goldfish treats him like a coward afterwards, until Goldfish feels fear of his own when Easy Co. has to climb a narrow mountain pass. High Boy helps him get through it alive and the two realize, like other vets, that "Heroes Need Cowards!" because today's coward is tomorrow's hero. Kanigher tackles a weighty issue this time around and we get the origins of Rock and Ice Cream Soldier's nicknames thrown in for good measure. Kubert is really on his game here, using long, vertical panels in the mountain sequence to give a sense of height and narrow ledges.

"Heroes Need Cowards!"

Peter: A good, solid Rock yarn. Is this the first time we've seen an account of how the Sarge got his nickname? I love that last series of panels where Rock blows a smoke ring--so out of character! Another dynamite cover, by the way. The black borders almost symbolize the danger that's closing in on Rock and his men. Very stylish!

Jack: A pilot and his crew take a new flying fortress over Nazi territory. Their mission: drop a blockbuster bomb on a concrete shelf guarding a Nazi rocket factory. The combination of a storm, Nazi planes, and flak causes the fortress to be shot down and its bomb misses the target. "The Drowned Bomber!" lands in a lake and is pulled out by the Nazis and towed to the rocket factory for destruction along with its crew. What the Nazis don't realize is that a self-destruct button was pushed in the flying fortress before it crash-landed. Being dunked in the lake delayed the explosion but, back at the factory, the sun dries out the plane and boom! The worst thing about this story is that it is narrated by the plane, which insists that "I'll make it! I won't fail!" Jack Abel's art is uninspired.

"The Drowned Bomber!"

Peter: I'm not a fan of the talking equipment stories that pop up now and then. They strike me as silly and take me out of the narrative. This one's no exception.

Jack: A US soldier skis into an Alpine village, his head filled with valuable information on Nazi positions and strength. He sees a statue of another skier and learns the legend of Emile Legrand, who had thwarted Napolean's troops and led them to their deaths when he skied off the edge of a great crevasse. The American skier leads the Nazis on a chase over the mountains until a ghostly figure of a skier appears and the Nazis follow him off the edge of a crevasse to their death. Was it the ghost of Emile Legrand? Must have been! Abel's art is slightly better than in the prior story, mainly due to the snowy backdrop, but the story is a bit light on details and I saw the end coming a mile away.

"Undying Ski Fighter!"

Peter: Like everyone, I like a good ghostly war story now and then (and I'm really looking forward to tackling Weird War Tales if and when we live long enough to enter the 1970s war titles) and this one fits the bill nicely. Nice art by Abel, the standout panel being, of course, that shot of the ghostly Emile skiing by our hero.

Joe Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 75

"Purple Heart Patrol!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"No Target for a Frogman!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Jack: Pooch has a recurring nightmare about having to pull a wounded Gunner and Sarge down a river on a rubber raft while they are being fired on by Japanese soldiers. The first raft they set out with gets shot full of holes by a sniper, while the second is destroyed by a Japanese Zero. They borrow an enemy raft filled with TNT and use the explosives to detonate a bridge, but not before Pooch's nightmare comes true. After the great Kubert cover it's a letdown to open the comic and see Jerry Grandenetti's sketchy art. I am puzzled as to how our trio of heroes manages to avoid sniper fire by hiding beneath a rubber raft. Kanigher must have loved the idea of Pooch pulling the raft, since we get to see it on the cover, the splash page, and three times in the course of the story!

Grandenetti's not so bad as long as
he stays away from human faces!

Peter: I'm not sure why Pooch doesn't use Morse code to communicate with Sarge and Gunner since he can clearly understand everything that's going on in this big war. This series is so ludicrous on so many levels, I find something new to laugh about in each succeeding episode. How is it that an entire bridge full of enemy snipers can't mow down two men and a Pooch in a slow-moving raft?

Jack: Three American frogmen are given the task of sinking a Japanese destroyer. Bill, the strong one, wants to hit it hard and fast, but the destroyer spots the frogmen and fires depth charges at them before escaping. Sam, the crafty one, gets to try to wreck target number two, a Japanese sub, but his attempt to stick TNT on its hull is foiled when he discovers it is wired to repel frogmen. Target number three is a torpedo boat, and Ed, the one with brains, leads a sneak attack but enemy frogmen capture the Americans and bring them aboard the boat. Not giving up, our frogmen manage to fire a torpedo at the destroyer, causing it to fire back and knock all of the Japanese off of the torpedo boat. Bill, Sam and Ed manage to drop depth charges on top of the sub and destroy it, then they ram the torpedo boat into the destroyer, effectively eliminating the last of their targets. This story goes on and on and features terrible writing and art that is barely adequate. Here's an example of the prose: "quicker than you can say suki yaki the sea voomed with scores of man-made volcanoes . . ." Give me Pooch any day!

The Japanese caricatures are bad enough, but blond hair?

Peter: Exciting enough but overlong. Of course, anything, including Superboy and Krypto stories, would seem exciting after a Gunner and Sarge story. I'm amazed that, even on into 1963, Andru and Esposito could get away with the buck-toothed Japanese caricatures but then, in the end, it's all equal since our boys look like The Three Stooges.

Russ Heath

All American Men of War 96

"The Last Flight of Lt. Moon!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Bail-Out Blues!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

"Silent Pilot!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Lt. Johnny Cloud must do everything he can to protect a fort pilot who's found the location of a Nazi terror-rockets site. When Cloud runs out of ammo, he prepares to launch a difficult maneuver that could spell the end of the great Johnny Cloud. While mentally preparing, Cloud flashes back to his meeting with a green lieutenant named Moon, a rookie who idolizes Johnny for all his daring feats. While on their first mission together, Moon gives his life to save Johnny by "splitting the enemy" and taking out two fighter pilots. Now, while readying himself to do just the same, Johnny hopes to pull up the same kind of luck and bravery that Moon once found.

"Lt. Moon"

"The Last Flight of Lt. Moon" is an exciting entry in the Johnny Cloud series but, as with most other Cloud adventures, there's always something just a bit annoying. Did Lt. Moon really have to be such a monumental kiss-ass? Seriously, this guy must have Cloud's picture under his bunk pillow ("Trust me, Lt. Cloud! Think I want to fly with you only once? After dreaming about this moment since ..."). Novick's air battles are nicely choreographed and the sequence at the beginning, where HQ can't get a line on what our beleaguered fort ace is broadcasting, generates legitimate tension. Oh, and let's not forget the biggest surprise of all when our favorite Rock-hard Army sgt. makes a cameo in what must have been the first (but not last) DC war title crossover. That's really cool. Maybe we'll get to see Sarge, Gunner, and Pooch eaten by dinosaurs someday?

Jack: The story starts off well by jumping right into the middle of an air battle, but it quickly sputters and dies with the flashback to the incredibly annoying Lt. Moon. I don't understand why Moon couldn't have bailed out of his plane after crashing into the other planes in mid-air--Johnny managed to do this later on! What bothered me most about this story was that it could have starred any pilot in the DC War Comics universe; there was nothing in particular that made it a Johnny Cloud tale, other than random references to Big-Brother-In-The-Sky or the Navajo Ace.

"Bail-Out Blues!"

Peter: Pilot Marty's desperately trying to save his GI buddy Rick and his brave band of GIs who are pinned down by enemy fire but Marty's got the "Bail-Out Blues!" Every time Marty gets near the site, he's shot down but three time's the charm and he finally takes out the big guns and saves the day. Another one of those stories that shows one military man defying insane odds. I'm sure stuff like this happened but, when Marty bails out safely twice and then kamikazes his plane into the cave holding the big guns and walks away without a scratch, you really do have to question the odds

Jack: A boring story except for one fabulous panel of our hero getting blown out of his plane that I'll attach below. Now that All American Men of War has settled into a pattern of having three stories in each issue featuring "Battle Aces of 3 Wars," we can expect to get a Johnny Cloud story from WWII and a story from the Korean War with Migs zooming around all over the place. I will bet that the third story has WWI biplanes. I am a little slow on the uptake, but I am beginning to think this comic book is all about planes and stuff. Just a wild guess.

Ouch!

Peter: Doug sees his little brother, Jimmy, join the squadron of WWI pilots that Doug commands but the siblings don't get along much after Doug orders Jimmy to stay out of dogfights. Doug's afraid Jimmy isn't up to battle with German superstar Von Todt just yet and, sure enough, little brother is killed in his first air battle with the deadly ace. Fists clenched, Doug hops in his brother's Nieuport and rides the ace down into the ground, his dead brother Jimmy, a "Silent Pilot" right there in the cockpit with him. Stories like this (the "brothers in arms," oh please!) usually come off as maudlin but "Silent Pilot!" managed to avoid my groans, maybe because there's a sincerity to Robert Kanigher's script or maybe because Jack Abel really steps up with his art here. The panel of the haunted Doug, flying off to destroy Von Todt, is especially powerful.

"Silent Pilot!"

Jack: Whaddya know, a WWI biplane story! Despite captions along the lines of "As I revved up the 300 Hispano-Suiza engine of my Nieuport" (I'm lost already!), Kanigher's writing is noticeably stronger than that of Chapman, who usually writes these back of the book stories. And once again, as you note, Abel's art is above average.

Peter: The annual Postal statement appears this issue and declares that All American Men of War was selling 185,000 copies a month.

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