Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 93: April/May 1967

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

Kubert

 Our Army at War 179

"A Penny for Jackie Johnson!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Charlie's Castle"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Sharkey is the newest recruit in Easy Co. and he's a mountain man who has no time for Black soldiers like Jackie Johnson, even though Sgt. Rock tells him that the only color in Easy Co. is "G.I." Jackie bears the insults quietly but Bulldozer does not, though Sharkey turns out to be a tough fighter. The new man says that he doesn't shake hands with Black men--so he drops "A Penny for Jackie Johnson!" in the G.I.'s hand as if it were a tip. Jackie says he'll hold onto it until Sharkey asks for it back. Suddenly, machine gun fire erupts from the underbrush and the men of Easy Co. are in battle once again.

"A Penny for
Jackie Johnson!"

Though both Jackie and Sharkey acquit themselves admirably in the hand to hand combat that follows, Sharkey still has no respect for Jackie, and the penny burns a hole in the Black soldier's pocket. Rock takes the men out on a night patrol and more close fighting ensues, but when it ends Sharkey still clings to his hatred. A shot from a tank gun hits Sharkey and the tank rolls toward his body; Jackie leaps off of the rumbling machine and rescues his tormentor, carrying him back to camp. Next morning, Sharkey admits he has learned his lesson and asks for the return of his penny, which Jackie gives back.

Even though I knew it was coming, the end of this fairly powerful tale still set off a chorus of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" in my head. Once again, Kanigher uses a contemporary theme to deepen the meaning of a story set decades before. With all of the strife going on today, in 2016, it's a good reminder to see how similar problems were overcome in the past.

Peter: "Jackie Johnson" has a good, solid story right up until the sappy climax, where stone-racist Sharkey has an epiphany before our eyes. It's too bad real life isn't that easy. I could have done without all the reminders that the penny was "burning a hole through Jackie's palm" but, still, the best Rock in quite a while.

"Charlie's Castle"

Jack: Raised in an orphanage, Charlie Carter joins the Army and feels at home for the first time. Each time he stops somewhere in Europe, he turns his temporary resting place into a cozy getaway. Charlie also happens to be a terrific soldier, though his motivation seems to be to locate good real estate and make it his for however long he can stay. When he finds himself alone and defending a pillbox formerly occupied by Nazis, no amount of enemy tanks or guns can dislodge him. Injured in the fighting, he makes his hospital bed his latest home.

A slight but enjoyable tale, with passable art by Jack Abel, "Charlie's Castle" is fun to read but goes nowhere in the end.

Peter: Seeing that Howard Liss wrote "Charlie's Castle," I was hoping for a little more psycho-analysis about Charlie's almost OCD-like complex, but the tale quickly devolves into Howard Chapman-esque redundancy about cleaning houses and a Hollywood happy ending. Even my heroes have feet of clay at times. In "Readers--Sound Off!," Big Bob gives over an entire page to the critiquing of recent Kanigher work by future film editor Paul Seydor (author of one of my all-time favorite film books, Peckinpah: The Western Film--A Reconsideration). 

Novick/Kubert

 Our Fighting Forces 106

"Trial by Fury!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

"Hunter's Hellcats!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Capt. Hunter and Lu Lin finally find Hunter's brother, Phil, in a Viet Cong hut, awaiting transport to Hanoi for "Trial by Fury!" Capt. Hunter is captured and both brothers are taken through the jungle in cages strapped to elephants. Lu Lin helps fashion an escape but Phil is injured; Capt. Hunter isn't about to leave his brother behind now that he's found him. A final battle with a North Vietnamese soldier ends well for our hero, and the Hunters return safely to base, where their father shows them his new book: Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.

Welcome home, son!

A bizarre way to end this series, but welcome nonetheless because neither Peter nor I will miss Capt. Hunter and his Vietnamese kewpie doll. The first of a series of stories supposedly taken from Lt. Hunter's book follows, and it tells the tale of "Hunter's Hellcats!" Back in WWII, Lt. Ben Hunter enters the prison stockade and goes knuckle to knuckle with a soldier nicknamed Brute, defeating him and showing the other prisoners who's boss. Brute is joined by five other volunteers in forming the Hellcats, who follow Lt. Hunter on a mission to blow up an air base located inside a mountain on an island held by the Japanese.  After being let off near the island, the Hellcats fight their way through the jungle to the hidden base, where they con their way in, blow the place sky high, and get out safely.

Meet the
Hellcats!

Uh oh! This story is filled with more references to "Nips" and "Japs" than you can shake a stick of TNT at! It looks like DC's Vietnam experiment went down the drain and editor Bob Kanigher decided to give us more WWII hokum, based on the best-selling 1965 novel, The Dirty Dozen. Perhaps he knew a movie adaptation of the novel was coming out in June? Whatever the case, this series is off to a dreadful start and hopefully will improve over time.

Peter: Both "Trial by Fury" and "Hunter's Hellcats" prove that Howard Liss couldn't come up with the kind of magic he usually presented when saddled with the restrictions of a regular cast. Both stories are chock full of the usual Kanigher motifs: the unbelievable coincidences, cliched dialogue, and recycled plots. My favorite scene in any of the war titles this month would have to be Lu Lin and Hunter digging a pit and whittling several sharp stakes, all while running from the Cong. It was a foregone conclusion that Hunter's twin would be in that hut as he's been in most every village Hunter has traveled through on his Vietnam tour. My elation that Hunter's search has come to an end dissipated when I realized we were going to get yet another Hunter series, this time starring the pinnacle of DC war dads, Colonel Hunter. How about a Father of the Year award for the supportive Colonel, welcoming home his POW son in a most peculiar way: "Call this Kindergarten a war? Read about my war, boys!" And, holy hell, just like that, we're going to have to read about his war. For the next two years and a total of seventeen installments, unfortunately (the first eight of which are assigned to the same Liss/Abel team), we'll doubtless be subject to the same kind of "impossible mission" as the James Bond-esque adventure the Seamy Seven tackle this issue. Every Kanigher series has a mantra and HH is no exception; expect that Brute will be endlessly reminding Hunter that, when the war is over, he'll get "another crack at him" and Hunter will be looking over his shoulder at the miscreants following him.

Heath

 G.I. Combat 123

"The Target of Terror!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Sausage Pilot!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: Commander Jeb Stuart receives an important message from his CO that Mademoiselle Marie requires the assistance of some big guns pronto, so he instructs his men to make short work of the German tank that has its sights on them at the moment. Nazis in the grave, the Haunted Tank heads for Marie's coordinates but, along the way, Jeb (the Commander) gets some of the usual philosophical, but vague, advice from Jeb Stuart (the ghost): "The mission you go on will be veiled in smoke to all--" Jeb thanks his ghostly bodyguard for nothing and heads into the unknown. When the boys finally roll up to the lovely Marie, she's taking out a Panzer with a machine gun but finishes her work in time to tell Jeb that she has a form of amnesia and can't remember "The Target of Terror!" they're looking for. No problem for Jeb, as he fires up the tank and heads into several skirmishes, hoping to find the right target. Marie pooh-poohs each and every one as "just not right," until the group happens upon a deserted castle in the forest and, suddenly, Marie knows that "thees ees zee one, Jeb!" Sure enough, the courtyard is full of terror-rockets aimed at London (don't ask Jeb how he knows that). Jeb and Marie arm the explosives and blow the castle to hell. Jeb begs Marie to come back to civilization with him but Marie insists that the underground is where she belongs.

I can just imagine how happy Jack is to see his favorite character, Mlle. Marie, back in action, and I have to admit that the pretty little ball of fire adds some needed pizzazz to the proceedings. It's lucky the Jeb ran across the castle or this "Terror Tour" might have made it all the way to Berlin before finding a target worthy of Marie's faulty memory. As usual, Russ Heath makes the entire thing much more bearable; his men are gritty in that Kubert way but his Marie is soft and lovely and the action scenes are filled with immediacy and realism. But, seriously, why would you summon a ghost who gives you nothing but riddles if, in the end, the information never helps you in your task?

Jack: I am thrilled to see Mlle. Marie back in action and drawn by Russ Heath! Described as the "beautiful babe who carries lipstick and a tommygun as standard equipment," she mangles the English language and adds something new to the Haunted Tank series. Vive Mlle. Marie!

Peter: Poor Kelley dreams of being a World War I ace but he's stuck being a "Sausage Pilot!," in an observation dirigible. Matters become worse for Kelley when Matt Miller, his hometown rival for sweetheart Suzy, arrives on the scene and mocks Kelley for writing letters home about being a war hero. But the worm finally turns and Kelley gets to show his true manliness, destroying the entire German Luftstreitkräfte and saving Miller's sausage in the bargain. There are only two reasons to waste your time with "Sausage Pilot!": Irv Novick's spot-on imitation of Joe Kubert and Hank Chapman's Ed Wood-worthy dialogue. I wonder if any soldier crammed his speech as full of lunacies and unintentional double entendres as a Chapman character. Would anyone on a battlefield be able to follow what was being said?

"I've got to shishkabab that high-flying liverwurst fast--before my punctured wienie starts dropping!"

"My sausage is beginning to lose weight and altitude! Now I'll have to put all my TNT eggs in one basket!"

"I'm launched and gaining altitude like an eagle on the hunt for a big, fat sausage!"

"Big cooking in no-man's land. The Jerries are boiling out of their trenches like sauerkraut!"

Is there any funny book writer who penned scripts as deliciously odiferous as Chapman?

Jack: Like a "sausage on a hot griddle," Chapman's prose left me overcooked and dried out. Welcome back, Hank! Kanigher and Liss can't write all the stories by themselves!

Kubert

 Our Army at War 180

"You Can't Kill a General!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Frogman Roulette!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Sgt. Rock takes three new recruits out on patrol in the desert but is unable to protect them from harm as, one by one, they are killed by Nazi gunfire. Rock manages to take a Nazi general hostage and march him back to the Allied lines, despite crippling heat, brutal thirst, and a series of attacks by Nazis on patrol who are looking for their general.

"You Can't Kill a General! features outstanding work by Kanigher and Heath, who turns in what is surely his best work yet for the Sgt. Rock series. Kubert makes a cameo, providing what I think is an early nominee for cover of the year, and Heath conveys a tangible sense of heat and dust as Rock trudges through the desert with his cocky prisoner.

Eli Wallach as Sgt. Rock?

Peter: Bob Kanigher takes one of his most cherished plot lines (the brothers at arms) and actually does something a little more interesting with it this time. Rather than make the brothers the focus, Kanigher uses them as the launching pad to something more complex: will Rock avoid giving in to his murderous urges and mow this General down for his role in the killing of two of the kindergartners? Well, really, we know the answer to that after reading 98 issues of Our Army War, but the suspense is well played and Heath seems to be coming around to this Rock-illustrating thing after struggling through his first few installments (although that panel of Rock at the bottom of page nine must be Eli Wallach rather than our storied Sergeant, right?).

Jack: On a U.S. sub in WWII, a frogman named Regan learns that Death always wins when you play "Frogman Roulette!" He spins his spear in a game on board the sub and is assigned what seems like an easy mission, but one of the two frogman with him is killed when they encounter resistance from a Japanese sub. Regan's second mission also ends in another frogman's death so, to relax, he goes for a night swim. Encountering enemy frogmen, he is captured and manages to blow up a Japanese sub and get away safely.

Another buck-toothed Asian,
courtesy of Jack Abel

As good as the lead story is in this issue, the backup story is average. The return of Hank Chapman means more corny writing and by the numbers plots, and if I never saw another story drawn by Jack Abel I'd probably sleep just fine.

Peter: "Frogman Roulette" is mediocre but that translates to better-than-average when we're talking about a Hank Chapman story. Hank goes a little overboard on reminding us of the title but there's no denying the author works up a bit of excitement towards the conclusion. And no one draws bucktoothed-Asians like Jack Abel.

Heath

Star Spangled War Stories 132

"The Big House of Monsters!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Nest of the Hawks!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Young cop Jackie Blane is escorting murdering hood Nick Tarty to the slammer when the train they're riding in derails. Turns out Nick's men planted something on the tracks and then they plant dough in Jackie's pocket, setting him up for the frame and for disrespect. War comes and both are drafted; coincidences happen and both land in the same POW camp, joining forces to break out. The duo end up on a rubber raft, drifting through an eerie fog that lands them on "The Big House of Monsters!"

"The Big House of Monsters!"

"The Big House of Monsters!"

At each other's throats constantly (Nick swears he'll never go to prison and Jackie's one goal in life is to clear his good name), the Allied enemies end up pinballing from one encounter with a terror monster from the dinosaur stone age to another until Jackie and Nick decide it might be safer on the water after all. Huge tentacles reach into the raft and take Jackie away; the man screams for help as Nick laughs and asks, "Help you to take me back to the big house?" With his adversary dead, Nick rows back to the island and realizes he's alone and it's only a matter of time before he runs out of grenades and meets the same fate as Jackie.  As you'd expect in a series this limited in scope that's been chugging along for seven years, plots will be recycled (Big Bob lifts not only the main thrust of "The Big House of Monsters!" from "The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!" (SSWS #121, July 1965), but also from The Fugitive) but, thank goodness, "Big House of Monsters!" at least avoids the cliched conclusion, going instead for a major surprise. I would never guess this finale was penned by Kanigher; Heath is stellar here, his dinos are fierce rather than silly, his lines are precise, his men far from the sketchy doodles we're used to with most of the other artists. The best WTTF installment in many years.

Jack: I thought the prior issue's story with Tommy the bird man ("Revenge of the Big Birds!") was the best WTTF story I could remember. This one has too many recycled Kanigher plot points to work for me. On the other hand, the art is once again stellar, with many panels looking like they could have been drawn for the cover of a men's adventure magazine. I blew right past the ending, thinking there were more pages to the story, then had to turn back and realize that was it.

"Nest of the Hawks!"

Peter: When an American WWI ace crashes, his German captors set up an elaborate ruse to convince him that the war is over and Germany has surrendered. If the ace is convinced, he'll surely lead the Germans to a secret air base and a huge blow will be dealt. A slip of the monocle leads to our hero's figuring out something ain't right. He warns the air base and his escort is blown out of the sky, saving our secret base and many innocent lives. When the American lands, he's told an armistice is to be signed--the war is over! While nothing earth-shattering, "Nest of the Hawks!" is a pleasing page-turner with above-average Jack Abel art and an ironic final panel twist. The letters page is once again given over to a full-length rant from Paul Seydor, this time extolling the excellence of the off-beat WTTF entry, "My Brothers with Wings!" from SSWS #129. Oddly, Bob thanks Paul and promises a second Bird-Man story soon, a story that appeared last issue!

Jack: Seydor also has the gumption to ask if he can have Heath's original art pages from the story he likes! Kanigher tells him that the pages are "unavailable." Liss's story starts out boring but takes an interesting turn when the pilot is hospitalized and the Nazis pretend that the war is over. Above-average Abel art is still not very exciting, though.

"I Was Trapped on Dinosaur Island!" from
the imaginary Men's Dinosaur Tales #1

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