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| The DC War Comics 1959-1976 by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook |
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| Joe Kubert |
"Booby-Trap Mascot!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert
"Slowpoke Spad"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Irv Novick
Jack: Before the June 6, 1944 invasion at Normandy, Sgt. Rock and Easy Co. were part of a "dry-run" invasion at Calais. The men were to meet a French resistance fighter named Andre Lune, who would lead them to a monster Nazi gun that needed to be destroyed. To Rock's surprise, Lune turns out to be a French boy whose father was killed in a fight with the Nazis and who is a fourth-generation soldier.
Easy Co. fights off an enemy tank and plane on the way to a seaside cliff where the Nazi gun is hidden. Rock and Lune scale the mountain and crawl through a tight tunnel to emerge in the base of an elevator shaft, with the gun being lowered toward them! They survive in a small space at the bottom, plant explosives on the underside of the elevator, and hightail it to safety. The gun blows up and, later, Rock spots young Lune during the invasion at Normandy Beach.
Peter: By this time, we're used to Hank Chapman playing second fiddle to Kanigher but it's stories like "Slowpoke Spad" that show you why. This won't be the last time I question why editor Kanigher looked the other way while Hank continued to hand in reboots of previous scripts; doubtless it was due to time constraints and a dearth of funny book writers who wanted to pen war scripts. This one's based on the framework of "the green pilot who just can't shoot straight until, one day, he does and he's instantly the greatest ace in aviation history," a germ of an idea that, I can attest to, Chapman mined time and again throughout the years. Good news though: it's a Kanigher and Kubert double feature next issue as Enemy Ace returns!
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| Joe Kubert |
"Death Trap!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert
"Shadow of a Ranger"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel
Peter: The men of the Jeb Stuart find themselves kicked out of their own tank and walking through the desert with only one canteen and a single sidearm. If they're to come to the aid of nearby Easy Company, they'll need to think of something fast. Luckily, they're able to track the Jeb and, through deception and a game of Musical Chairs, win the Haunted Tank back.
Robert Kanigher was such a clever and accomplished storyteller that he could consistently write several different series and instill each with a distinctive "voice" (even a Gomer Pyle voice for Gunner and Sarge), one that felt just right with the tone and setting of each strip. 99% of the time Bob would get that tone right but here, in "Death Trap," the "Sgt. Rock voice" somehow overwhelms the "Haunted Tank voice." Granted, Rock makes an appearance but Jeb's narrative seems almost to be elicited from the Sarge rather than the tank commander. Kubert's magnificent as always but there are a few panels where red flashes represent the heat coming off the desert as well as machine gun fire. That can cause confusion at times. The story's well written but I can't help but feel we've read this one before.
That feeling is magnified one hundred fold with "Shadow of a Ranger," yet another example of how Hank Chapman was able to wring another paycheck out of the same old story line. This one's yet another retelling of the sibling who lives in the shadow of his dead war hero brother. The green G.I. pinballs from one calamity to another, wiping out regiments of seemingly inept Nazis at every twist and turn. The inanity reaches its crescendo when our hero meets up with, you guessed it, his resurrected brother (who was captured, not killed, by the enemy) on an enemy battleship in the middle of the sea. Who'da thunk it?Jack: One odd thing about the Haunted Tank story is the suggestion that everyone in Easy Co. was wiped out. In the first wide panel where we see them, it looks like Rock is alive and the rest of the company is dead. Several pages later, Jeb thinks about "Sgt. Rock's combat-happy Joes . . . lying where they fell . . . with their rifles still pointing at the enemy . . ." Have we seen the last of Ice Cream Soldier, Bulldozer and Little Sure Shot? The other odd thing about this story occurs when the Nazis yank the members of the tank crew out of the tank and toss them on the desert. Later, Jeb remarks that "The enemy had stripped my crew of their sidearms and canteens when they thought they were dead . . ." It seems to me that it would be fairly obvious if someone you pulled out of a tank was alive or dead, even if they were unconscious, but then I've never gone to war.
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| Joe Kubert |
"The Bomb That Stopped the War!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Abel
"Ball and Chain Bombardier!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel
Jack: During the Korean War, Lt. Jackson tries to escape from a P.O.W. camp but is stopped by an electrified, barbed-wire fence. For his troubles he is fitted with a heavy ball and chain shacked to his right ankle. It seems that Jackson was a bombardier assigned to destroy a bridge being used by the enemy to move tanks and supplies. He blows up the bridge but is forced to parachute to the ground when his plane is destroyed by flak.
He discovers that the bridge he blew up was a decoy and that the enemy has another bridge that slides out of two caves to meet in the middle and form a road to move heavy equipment. Captured and imprisoned in a P.O.W. camp, Jackson's attempt at escape and subsequent status as a "Ball and Chain Bombardier" occur because he wants to warn his base of the existence of the mechanical bridge. He lifts the heavy ball every day until it seems light as a feather, then he uses it and the chain to stage a daring escape, avoiding enemy gunners and tanks in the snow-covered woods and even commandeering an enemy motorboat to get back to his C.O.He warns the chief about the bridge and soon finds himself back in a bomber jet plane. His is among the planes to bomb the decoy bridge again, but this time it's a trick that works and the enemy sends its heavy equipment across the real bridge, which also gets bombed. Jackson ends his mission by flying over the P.O.W. camp and dropping the ball and chain on the enemy commander, killing him in the process.
We give Hank Chapman a lot of flak for his weak stories, but this one is far better than average and certainly better than the Gunner and Sarge tale that takes up the first 60% of the comic. The escape from the camp is exciting and Jackson's use of the ball and chain makes for some action-packed visuals. The image of the dead camp commander in the last panel is subtle and effective.
Peter: You're right on both counts, Jack: we give Hank a lot of flak (pun?) and this is a really good story. That makes Chapman two for four in the decent story department this month (see Star Spangled 120 for the other one) and, for Hank, that's a winning average. I didn't find the Gunner and Sarge tale to be too annoying this month, perhaps because humor was pretty much avoided and we didn't have too many "What's that, Pooch? The bridge is just ahead and there are snipers on each end?" moments. A bit of jocularity at the tail end but, otherwise, a fairly serious script from Kanigher this time out. I wouldn't say I liked "The Bomb That Stopped the War," but just the fact that I was able to give it two (out of four) stars is saying a lot!
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| Joe Kubert |
"The Tank Eater!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
"Dryland PT Boat!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel
Peter: Mace and Morgan, the two G.I.s who "hate each other more than the war around them," are once again marooned on Dinosaur Island when the plane that is carrying them (and the super-tank they're in charge of) is shot down. They quickly come across a small caveboy fighting off a T. Rex and the two soldiers intervene, saving the day for the loinclothed lad. Unfortunately, the super-tank has been captured by an enemy sub and the pair feel it's their duty to destroy it before the enemy can study the weapon. With the help of Dino the baby pterodactyl and "Caveboy," Morgan and Mace dive to the bottom of the sea and blow the tank to smithereens. Up top, the four discuss the rapidly growing ranks of the Suicide Squad.
Now pretty much ignoring the war elements of The War That Time Forgot, Bob Kanigher officially crosses the line into juvenalia with "The Tank Eater." This series never made much sense, I know, but how is it that several sets of G.I.s manage to land on this island time and again yet never report their findings to their C.O.s? Imagine what the army could do with an island full of dinosaurs. And how much you wanna bet we never actually find out how this caveboy came to be on this island? My favorite moment is when proud papas Mace and Morgan witness "Caveboy" plant explosives on the enemy sub.
In "Dryland PT Boat!" a skipper must lug his PT across an island to avoid enemy fire, all the while standing in the shadow of his war hero father, who had died saving his men. The extra pressure ("the academy expects you to live up to your father, son!") proves to be a positive in this case and the skipper saves the day in the end. Despite the unending "I had to be a hero like my pop" dialogue, I thought "Dryland" was a decent little drama, certainly better than its lead-in this issue. Chapman has his hero stumbling over Army/Navy lingo in a cute way but, seriously, Hank needs a new foundation for these stories. Two characters trying to fight their way out from under a legendary relative in one month is too much. Kudos to Jack Abel, who serves up some nicely choreographed battle scenes.
Jack: We've seen some bad War That Time Forgot stories, but this one takes the TNT cake! Caveboy? He even gets a little introduction on the splash page! He looks a bit like DC's Binky. It's amazing how quickly he learns English, though. In one panel, he's saying "Unnoo! Glidd! Kooo--!" and not long after that he comes out with "Dino--Dino--Friend!" So where did this teen idol from the Stone Age come from, anyway? Did he have a Mom and Pop? Maybe he's like Tarzan and was a baby born to English parents who were marooned on Dinosaur Island. The parents died and he was raised by dinosaurs! Hey, it's as good an explanation as any.
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