Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 94: June/July 1967

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

Heath

 Our Army at War 181

"Monday's Coward--Tuesday's Hero!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Paper Bullets!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Easy Co. happens upon a fight between a lone U.S. sergeant and three Nazis in a jeep. Rock destroys the jeep and, with his dying breath, the other sergeant asks Rock to take over for him and escort three cowardly soldiers back to base for court martial. The trio tags along with Easy Co. and witnesses first Ice Cream Soldier, then Bulldozer, and finally Little Sure Shot get wounded in battle. The Combat Happy Joes give their rifles to the cowardly soldiers in the hopes that they will use them and, in the end, the trio rise to the occasion, rescuing Sgt. Rock from an enemy tank and demonstrating that each of them is "Monday's Coward--Tuesday's Hero!"

"Monday's Coward--Tuesday's Hero!"

Every time I open an issue of Our Army  at War and see that the Easy Co. story is not drawn by Joe Kubert, I feel a little bit disappointed. Still, Heath does a competent job of bringing Kanigher's story to life, and this one is fun even though we all know that the cowards are likely to become heroes by story's end. The title kind of gives it away, doesn't it?

Peter: Russ Heath's art is a wonder to behold but "Monday's Coward . . ." is like an Abbott and Costello routine, constantly going back to the punchline (in this case, the wounded Easys handing their rifles over to the chickens) and the climax is bogus. Is the moral that if you stick three cowards into action, they'll eventually become heroes? Is Bob telling us that the trio had never seen any battles or bravery prior to being handed over to Rock? The change in personality is just a flip of the switch. Time for some new story lines.

"Paper Bullets!"

Jack: A helicopter pilot in Vietnam is frustrated that other soldiers get to fight while he only gets to use "Paper Bullets!" His job is to drop leaflets among the Viet Cong to convince them to surrender. When his brother's chopper is shot down over an enemy camp, the pilot must use his own copter's rotor blades and the small arms he has on board to fight the North Vietnamese and rescue his brother. In the end, the paper bullets turn out to be useful after all, since Vietnamese farmers attack the camp and help defeat the bad guys.

Most of the time, the bloodless nature of these DC war stories isn't something I notice, but in this story I think enemy combatants are killed by spinning helicopter rotor blades--and not a drop of blood in sight. I saw Dawn of the Dead so I know what really happened here!

Peter: The back-up is more awful Hank Chapman crap wherein real men fight with real bullets, not "Paper Bullets," stocked sky-high with the trademarked Chapman vagaries and silliness (throwing grenades underwater?). It always takes me twice as long to read a Hank Chapman story as I'm constantly doubling back to try to work out just what the character is saying ("We got one Charlie flak-crew but that other Charlie ack-ack's aimin' to pay us off!"). As for Jack Abel's contributions . . . well, let's just say I don't go back to look them over again (in the final panel, the lieutenant looks like his eyes are on his forehead). A rare totally-skippable issue of Our Army.

Heath

 Star Spangled War Stories 133

"You Owe Me a Death!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Thunder in the Desert"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jerry Grandenetti
(reprinted from Our Army at War #44, March 1956)

Peter: When their plane hits the backside of a flying dinosaur monster horror of the stone age, Jim Lucas and Buster March share a parachute down to a mysterious island below. Most G.I.s are blood brothers, but Buster is actually out for Jim's blood; he's convinced that a parachuting accident that left his brother dead is Jim's fault. No amount of reasoning will convince him otherwise and Buster screeches endlessly, "You Owe Me a Death!" The allied enemies fight several prehistoric monsters side-by-side but it's only when Jim tumbles into a giant spider's web (after being accidentally shot by Buster) that Buster sees the error of his ways. The men shake hands but don't have enough time to seal their new-found love since what seems to be an abandoned Landing Ship Tank (LST) is nearing the shore and it might have been hijacked by the enemy. The boys man a handy cannon on the beach but the imagined Nazis don't emerge; rather, it's a veritable Noah's Ark of dinosaurs! Jim and Buster blow the dinos to hell and vow to stand on this island, to fight any enemy that comes their way.

What kind of prehistoric ant spun webs?

Big Bob pays a visit to the "overused plot" well again and draws a bucketful of pap; neither Buster nor Jim contains one iota of believability. How many of these misunderstandings do we have to live through on Dino Island? Luckily, Russ came to the job with his A-game (although that spider looks more like an ant to me), so the sixteen pages aren't a complete waste. The sequence that opens the story, with the plane landing on the back of the pterodactyl, is exciting and well-choreographed, but that's about it. Biggest laugh in a story filled with unintentional guffaws: the LST (which looks to be abandoned) "drifts nearer . . . nearer . . . nearer . . ." and out of the ship pops a bevy of creatures. How the hell did these big guys fit in the hold and how is the boat drifting under the weight of these mega-ton TNT Godzillas?

Jack: Buster is yet another soldier in need of anger management! How did we manage to win the war when so many of our soldiers hated each other? Kanigher's story follows the same pattern of so many others, with an angry soldier showing unreasonable amounts of stubbornness. I don't know how Heath managed to draw such impressive pages in the face of such uninspired writing.

Decent Grandenetti art

Peter: The reprint, "Thunder in the Desert!," is an above-average quickie with decent Jerry Grandenetti art (when was the last time I used that name in the same sentence as the word "decent"?), about a lone G.I. stranded in the desert who can't see because it's too dark, but then is blinded by the piercing light from an enemy tank. Our hero manages to push a box of ammo in the tank's line of travel and then set it off with gunfire. The dawn finds his vision returned and he can, at last, see the awesome wreckage around him. As was his wont around this time, Big Bob gives over the entire letters page to one missive, this time a letter from Harold Boscoble of Boston, who begs Kanigher to bring back Mlle. Marie. What's most interesting about this particular letter, however, is not the content itself but the reaction it evokes from Bob. Boscoble praises the art of the particular story and asks who is responsible, leading to a reply wherein Kanigher allows how he "underestimated (Mort) Drucker, and that although I preferred him to many artists to do Marie, I didn't appreciate him enough at the time. . . My apologies, Mort--I made a mistake in not telling you often enough how good a job you were doing." Amen! Bring back Mort Drucker.

Jack: I recall one story we read that was drawn by Grandenetti in the early 1950s and was quite good. I think it's safe to say that his art declined steadily over the decades.

Attack of the Inflatable Dinos?

Irv Novick

 Our Fighting Forces 107

"Raid of the Hellcats!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

"Flying Coffin!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Two medical missionaries accidentally discover a nerve gas that destroys man's will to fight! It takes a "Raid of the Hellcats!" to track down the doctors on a Japanese prison ship and lead them through the jungle to safety, all the while fighting off Japanese soldiers who want to capture them and pry out their secrets. The Hellcats are pinned in a cave with the doctors and hold off an attacking Japanese force until American planes finally come to the rescue.

After what may be the worst cover of the year, the lead story in this issue is drawn by Jack Abel, who must have been the bottom of the barrel for DC artists in 1967. Still, I enjoyed this story much more than I had enjoyed the prior series in this title, featuring Capt. Hunter and Lu Lin. The Hellcats are an unusual bunch and Liss makes the most of their diverse abilities: Brute is strong and stupid, Light Fingers can pick pockets, Cracker is a dumb southern boy, Zig Zag is an expert driver, Snake Oil can talk circles around anyone, and so on. Silly but fun.

"Raid of the Hellcats!"

Peter: "Hunter's Hellcats" proves to be just as bad a series as the previous Hunter atrocity. What the set-up reminds me of is one of the late 1960s DC superhero titles, specifically the Metal Men. We get a band of G.I.s with nicknames according to each one's most dominant ability or trait. So we get "Swinger," who swings from trees; "Brute," who's ridiculously big (like Hulk big) for a human being; Zig Zag, who can . . . well, zig zag really well in a boat; and on and on. It's just tedious and stupid. And Jack Abel, who's been on his best behavior lately, suddenly turns in the sloppiest panels in a long, long time (could there be an uncredited inker on board)? We're stuck with this cow flop for 15 more installments so, like Gunner and Sarge, we'll just have to bear it (with no grin).

"Flying Coffin!"

Jack: The men who have to take to the air in a patched up old P-40 plane call it the "Flying Coffin!" because they don't have much faith that it will survive a battle and make it home safely. After the plane crashes, a pilot named Stoney repairs it one more time and uses it to complete a dangerous bombing mission before barely making it home.

It's been a while since we had a "talking plane" story, but Howard Liss follows in the footsteps of his predecessors and gives us the thoughts of an old P-40. And a cranky plane it is, too! "The target's right in front--what're you yappin' for?" it thinks at one point. I expected this story to be worse than it was but by the end I was rooting for the old bucket of bolts.

Peter: "Flying Coffin!" proves that Howard Liss can fit in with the below-average war writers like Hank Chapman and . . . well, Hank Chapman. This talking plane romp is just as bad as the last one. Nothing more than a whole bunch of panels filled with dueling dialogue like: Pilot: This is a hunk of junk! Plane: No, I'm not! The September 12, 1966 issue of Newsweek ran a piece on war comics, with DC receiving a good chunk of the coverage (the article included an interview with Bob Kanigher). The letters page in this issue's OFF is given over to congratulations on the nod but, ironically, Newsweek's findings were that war comics were losing their audience. This particular nugget was not discussed by Big Bob with his correspondents.

Heath

 G.I. Combat 124

"Scratch That Tank!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Death of a Boy--Birth of a Man!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: Jeb Stuart and his men receive a bright and shiny new tank (after their old one was destroyed last issue--continuity at last!) and all they can think of is that they need to "Scratch That Tank!" No tin can crew wants to be seen in a vehicle that looks as though it's seen no action, so the boys roll out looking for battle. They find quite a bit of fight but, time after time, a friend (including Johnny Cloud in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo) comes to their aid before the Jeb can engage. Finally, after picking up a shell-shocked young G.I. along the road, the boys have a mission: to rescue a group of POWs held in a Nazi tin can. To complete that mission, the new tank must roll through a building and blast the enemy to smithereens. No more pristine M-3! Amiable enough without too much substance, this Haunted Tank installment is a decent page-turner with the requisite three panels of ghostly Jeb Stuart and his cryptic puzzles, without too much hammering of the message. Since we never see his face, I'm not sure that's the real Johnny Cloud zeroing in on the enemy tank. Could be a stand-in.

"Scratch That Tank!"

Jack: This story raises the question of whether it's the tank that's haunted or whether it's the man inside that's haunted. If the old haunted tank is destroyed and the men get a shiny, new one, why isn't the ghost of General Stuart hanging out at the scrap yard with his old tank? I contend it's Jeb Stuart himself who's haunted, not the armored vehicle! The fact that the other members of Jeb's tank crew are almost always inside the tank means that they are indistinguishable from one another and never develop individual identities. Could anyone tell me who is Slim, who is Arch and who is Rick?

"Death of a Boy--Birth of a Man!"

Peter: Years before, when he was still a boy on the reservation, the Smoke-Maker warned Johnny Cloud that he would be responsible for the "death of a boy in the sky." Years later, the shaman's words ring true when Johnny shoots down a young Nazi and learns that it was the brother of the dreaded squadron leader known as . . . The Hammer! The German swears he'll get even for the murder of his little brother and Cloud suspects he's right. Soon after, Captain Cloud is given the task of training a new pilot, a spunky kid named Short. Exercises go well but the young man is antsy and wants action and his first taste of fighting comes at the hands of the dreaded Hammer! The ace shoots the boy down and then heads after Cloud, but the Navajo Ace proves to be a better tactician and the Nazi is soon bailing out of a burning cockpit, swearing to Johnny they'll meet again some day. Back at the base, little Henny Short is recuperating from his wounds and Captain Cloud agrees that there's been a "Death of a Boy--Birth of a Man!"

Infantino pitches in?

As with a Gunner and Sarge adventure, you always know what you're going to get with a story starring Johnny Cloud, Navajo Ace. There's the usual flashback to the Ace's days on the reservation and the warning from the Smoke-Maker (always just as ambiguous as General Jeb Stuart's warnings) and lots of tight aerial battles that Johnny somehow manages to walk away from. I'll be sounding like the proverbial broken record but I can just imagine Cloud in his cockpit, exclaiming at every event, "Hey, that's exactly what the Smoke-Maker told me would happen!" Poor guy can't concentrate on the war at hand while awaiting every prediction unfurled. One aspect of the new Nazi villain, the Hammer!, was not explored: his ESP. Has to be the explanation for how the enemy ace knew Johnny Cloud was an Indian.

Jack: I just figured Johnny had Indian symbols painted on his plane--tee pees and the like. I guess Kanigher's go-to name for German flying Aces is Hammer--like Hans Von Hammer, the Enemy Ace, this Hammer is dangerous! By the way, does anyone else think that Short's face in the panel above looks more like Carmine Infantino's work than Irv Novick's?

Heath

Our Army at War 182

"The Desert Rats of Easy!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"It's My Turn to Die"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Neal Adams

Jack: "The Desert Rats of Easy!" are crossing the desert in North Africa when they find Baker Company, a band of G.I.s lined up in holes in the sand with their guns ready to be fired at Nazi attackers. Sgt. Woods is encouraging them to be ready for the next attack, but there is one problem--the men are all dead! Sgt. Rock and the men of Easy Co. join the corpses of Baker Co. in their foxholes and fight off a Nazi attack. Rock takes three of his men off in a jeep to locate a Nazi ammo dump. When they find it, they blow it up and return to the rest of Easy Co. where they wait with the silent men of Baker Co.

The desert setting and plenty of hand to hand combat bring out the best in Kanigher and Heath, though Big Bob does slip in a Kubert drawing of Sgt. Rock on the splash page to trick the readers into thinking the creator of this strip was back from the newspaper syndicate jungle. Russ makes us forget about Joe for a short while with some very nice man to man fighting.

"The Desert Rats of Easy!"

Peter: "The Desert Rats" marks the 100th appearance of Sgt. Rock in Our Army at War and, for the occasion, Bob Kanigher whips up an exciting yarn. Several spots jump out at me here: the boys of Easy coming upon the Baker squad, with the shell-shocked Sgt. Woods boasting that his men would "hold to the last man"; the jeep adventure, straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster; and the Nazis who man the ammo dump, firing rifles, cannons, maybe even nuclear weapons at the approaching jeep but not even grazing the target!

Neal Adams!!!!!!!!!

Jack: Tired of sending his men out to die at the hands of the Nazis, Capt. Sanders announces that "It's My Turn to Die!" and insists that he has to go out and do some fighting himself. His major sends him back to headquarters, but when he gets there Capt. Sanders finds that the Nazis are attacking and the only men he has to whip into a unit are the cooks and desk jockeys left behind to man the store. Sanders makes them fight like real soldiers and learns that an army not only needs soldiers on the ground, it also needs officers to tell them what to do.

Howard Liss tells an interesting story, on a topic that I don't recall reading before, but the real thrill here is seeing early work from Neal Adams, one of my all-time comic book top three. A few of the panels reminded me of Irv Novick's work, of all things, but the dynamic action shots and especially the faces show the seeds of the Adams magic that would burst forth very soon.

Peter: Neal Adams shows a bit of what will make him comicdom's "big sensation" in "It's My Turn to Die!," which was not only Adams's war debut but also the artist's first work at DC. Liss's script is ho-hum morality, the point hammered home several times, but Neal's choreography is dazzling and energetic; the new blood needed around these premises.

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