The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
25: August 1952
Kurtzman |
"Iwo Jima!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Wally Wood
"The Landing!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin and Will Elder
"The Caves!" ★★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin
"Mopping Up!" ★★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Jack Davis
This special seventh issue of Frontline Combat, like Two-Fisted Tales #26 before it, seeks to depict a legendary bit of warfare through four interconnected vignettes, the subject here being that symbolic mainstay of the Second World War, Iwo Jima, starting off with a blazing front cover by Kurtzman, one of his very best for the war titles.
The first titular tale finds us in an American bombardier plane as the crew tries to hone in on a suitable spot for landing after their engines suffer from heavy enemy fire. The navigator shouts that the nearby Japanese island will do in a pinch for their emergency descent. One of the boys on board prays that his big brother in the Marines has made it safely in his trek across the island. Following a stunning splash by Wally Wood, the majority of the story’s six pages are then devoted to setting the stage of Iwo Jima—literally. Kurtzman outlines the actual geological formation of the island from its origins as an underwater mountain range to the ugly, crag-studded piece of volcanic ash that it is "today." While this doesn’t necessarily come across as thrilling reading, the detailing of Iwo Jima’s “birth” gives the seemingly inconsequential island of eight square miles an epic and primordial feel, an unconventional arena for one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in modern warfare. As such, the lead story doesn’t end up feeling much like a story at all, more of a prologue, and it also means that Wood’s talents are limited to some staid and stilted layouts, but Wood’s power manages to shine through in the occasional panel and ably prepares us for all the hardship and loss to come.
The trusty team of Severin ’n’ Elder pick up right where we left off (and the pace) with their tale, “The Landing!” It’s D-Day, 1945, and the Marines rush ever onward against a constant barrage of Japanese firepower. Some troops are more acclimated to the heat of battle than others; others like the man called Blackie, who drags his feet at every possible moment in fear of death, a habit that leads to the slaughter of his own comrades when they stop to goad him along. Their advance comes to a standstill just outside a yawning cave as a sequestered sniper patiently takes out more of their number even after the Marines respond with their own artillery. Blackie insists on hugging the ground and keeping his eye on the cave. An end to the butchery finally seems to come with the arrival of a flame-throwing tank that promptly incinerates the cave. As the troops move in, the sergeant goes to lambaste Blackie for lagging behind yet again only to see that Blackie is dead and has been for some time, his position on the ground maintained and a bullet in his head.
"The Landing" |
Though “The Landing!” has a twist ending that seems to indicate Kurtzman was trying to impart a moral lesson to the reader, it’s hard to say just what he might have been going for. (Don’t judge others lest, etc.?) The second chapter in this saga offers a decent amount of action and features several panels that are classic Severin/Elder compositions, from the bloodless yet blunt image of a Marine getting a sniper’s bullet right between the eyes to the silent, majestic violence of the tank pouring hellfire upon the cave like a dragon out of legend.
"The Caves" |
Good on Kurtzman for shifting his perspective to “the enemy’s” side of the story, but in of itself “The Caves!” won’t be convincing readers anytime soon that there were “good guys” fighting on the side of the Japanese. The majority of the Axis troops are depicted here as dogmatic and completely resolute in their mission to take down every last man standing, even if it means dying themselves. (It’s funny, because had it been the Americans spouting these lines we would probably have viewed them as being terribly heroic and righteous. So it goes.) Severin seems to be improving with each solo assignment he takes on.
Davis doing what Davis does best. |
“Mopping Up!” starts off with a great splash panel by Jack Davis showing a trio of Marines standing in the artist’s indelible hangdog style over the corpse of the doubting Japanese soldier from “The Caves!” and then proceeds to only get better from there. It is a fitting final note to the ceaseless fight for Iwo Jima, the art as bone-weary and ragged as the characters who occupy the story. Davis’s natural talent for depicting hysteria and its physical manifestations is put to good use throughout “Mopping Up!” as Ralph rants and weeps over each successive death of his brothers in arms. The note of happiness and renewal that the story leaves off on might strike some as an example of Dickensian-levels of coincidence, but the harsh arrival of the fighter plane that occurs behind a shaken and oblivious Ralph results in one of Davis’s best single panels yet, an image that more than a few contemporary readers could probably identify with in these interesting political times of ours.--Jose
Comfortably Numb: The 2016-17 Season in Images by Jack Davis. ("Mopping Up!") |
Corporal Seabrook shows Private Enfantino what he thinks of this issue. ("The Landing") |
Jack: I liked "The Landing!" and "The Caves!" best but I agree that this issue is a letdown. "Iwo Jima!" is a boring waste of Wally Wood's talents. In "The Landing!," things start to perk up when humanist Kurtzman begins to focus on individual soldiers, but it's surprising that the famous flag-raising moment is not shown and barely mentioned. "The Caves!" features a fine switch of perspective and "Mopping Up!" has the best art of the issue but loses points for the coincidental scene at the end when the two brothers meet on the island. Bob Kanigher would later over use similar coincidences in his 1960s DC War comics.
Feldstein |
"The Exile!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood
"The Expert!" ★★ 1/2
"The Ad!" ★★
Stories by Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
"Close Call!" ★★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen
"Mad Journey!" ★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, and Roy Krenkel
Dr. Hugo Strange weighs in. ("The Exile!") |
"The Expert!" |
While finishing up Weird Space-Operas #69, Bill and Al receive devastating news: one of their advertisers has pulled his spot in the latest issue and now the page is blank. What to do? Quick-witted Al comes up with a phony ad for a round-trip to Mars and the page is filled. Some time later, a fan shows up at the EC offices to thank the boys for running "The Ad!," which helped introduce him to his new wife, Glodsk, a three-eyed, four-armed beauty from Mars. Spa Fon! Harmless piece of fun; a look behind-the-scenes at the EC think-tank. It's heartening to know that both Al and Bill realized they were mining an empty vein with their stories on how "the world is wiped out" and a scientist with a gorgeous assistant and a shrew for a wife. Both benefit from an obvious self-deprecating humor; neither took themselves too seriously despite the thousands of letters received crowning them kings of comics. With the humor inherent in these little one-offs and in the horror titles, you just knew it was only a matter of time before the boys would break out a genuine funny book.
"Close Call" |
"Mad Journey" |
The moral of this story: blame the aliens! ("The Exile!") |
Jose: There are great chunks of this issue that are drier than a two-week-old pork chop, but even so there can still be found several silver threads among the mold. “The Exile!” manages to play a good game of keep-away with the reader, cleverly navigating its way from one neat, if albeit obvious, revelation to another. Stories with this type of denouement can be fun in their own right, but I can’t help but always see them as sedatives for the conscience: wouldn’t it be preferable to think that all our worldly misfortunes were caused by alien jailers dumping their worst inmates upon us rather than dealing with the fact that it’s really just been us the whole time? The leaden science fair presentation-jargon that anchors “The Exile!” also makes reading “Mad Journey!” an unfortunate expedition in of itself. I was much fonder of the art than my cohorts. Sure the action may be limited, but Williamson, Frazetta, and Krenkel work a good amount of mood out of these static scenes, their lean, sinewy, and aquiline characters occupying some noir-shaded locales that include a posh office reeking macho status with its brazen sculptures of the human form. The two Quickies on hand are pretty hilarious; I love Gaines and Feldstein in this screwball mode. My favorite line was from “The Ad!”: just before he raids the cash-lined pockets of EC Comics’s biggest fan, Bill offers the proclamation, “Give this man a box of marshmallows, Al!” This is the Humor in a Jugular Vein that I pine for. They say every good story should leave you with more questions than answers, but “Close Call!” refuses to answer certain questions that would determine if the story ever had a genuine external conflict to begin with outside of Dr. Beard’s repulsion to the advances of men. At the end of the day, though, I much prefer a story like this over one that goes (way) out of its way to explain its central phenomena. Taken on its own terms, this is a fairly chilling parable that finds a coldly guarded woman being pushed back by a cold, guarded universe that wants nothing of her cries for companionship. For Dr. Annette Beard, the end of the world comes not with a bang but with the sound of a dial tone.
Ingels |
"A Little Stranger!" ★★★★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Graham Ingels
"Take Your Pick!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen
"Ship-Shape!" ★★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Sid Check
"This Little Piggy . . ." ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Davis
Some years ago, Bavarian villagers were horrified to find a corpse with two puncture marks in its neck and evidence of flesh eaten away. They conclude that it is the work of a vampire and a werewolf, and they're right! Up in a cave in the Alps, Elicia the vampire and Zorgo the werewolf are carrying on a torrid love affair that has to pause between full moons. The villagers find them, kill them, and bury them in the Devil's Graveyard, but that doesn't stop them from being wed by moonlight, with a crowd of corpses in attendance. A year later, Elicia welcomes "A Little Stranger!" to their new family, and the baby is none other than the Old Witch!
Ain't she a cutie? ("A Little Stranger!") |
Although it was reprinted in the 1971 collection Comix, I don't remember this story, so I was completely surprised by the identity of the cute little tyke. Ghastly really outdoes himself here, what with the tremendous cover and the smooth and horrific art gracing this charming little fable. Gaines and Feldstein have fun with the Gothic horror genre and we are all the better for it.
Why so chipper? ("Take Your Pick!") |
Ebenezer Scrooge had nothing on Stuart Braden, who is so mean and cruel that it gets ridiculous. Kamen's art is particularly wooden in this story, but the final panel, with Emma chopping away at Stuart's chest, made me laugh out loud. For some reason, his cruelty toward Emma's Mom reminded me of Steve Martin's old routine, "Mad at My Mother."
Masterpiece Theater Presents: The Grime of the Ancient Mariner. ("Ship-Shape!") |
This is our first exposure to Sid Check, whose art looks more Golden Age than New Trend to me. Still, I like it, and I enjoyed the story, which seems rather Lovecraftian.
It's enough to make you spit! ("This Little Piggy . . .") |
"This Little Piggy . . ." is obviously going to end with Horace on a serving dish, so reading it is just a matter of seeing how Feldstein and Davis get us from point A to point B. The art is nothing special but the last panel is fun.--Jack
When the bare*bones staff thinks of Heaven, it looks something like this! ("A Little Stranger!") |
Peter: The synopsis for "A Little Stranger!" might sound like a really bad Spanish horror movie starring Paul Naschy but the sheer goofiness of the story is what pushes it into classic status for me. Gaines and Feldstein clearly decided to poke fun at the horror genre, in particular the Universal monster fests such as House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein, capped off by that wacky final full-page panel. Thirteen years later, Archie Goodwin would pay homage to “A Little Stranger!” with “Monster Rally” (Creepy #4, August 1965), an origin story for Uncle Creepy (illustrated by Angelo Torres). I only have one technical question: how did the lovely couple make it to the wedding and then . . . um, make it? They're both dead dead. Are they in some kind of spirit world? Should I stop asking dumb questions? "Take Your Pick!" is yet another utterly predictable Feldstein/Kamen preachy about loving your neighbor and "This Little Piggy . . .!" would be an utter boar without Jack's crazy graphics. That leaves "Ship-Shape!," which I liked very much. A nice, nasty climax and a plot-device not yet run into the ground (the deadly abandoned ship) add up to a solid chiller.
Jose: It’s stories like “A Little Stranger!” that make you genuinely thankful for being alive. For those who grew up on the horror genre and fell in love with all the creaky conventions from fluttering bats to tilting graves, the lead tale in this issue reads like a true love letter, inked in blood and written with the utmost affection. Bill and Al might have been attempting to poke some light-hearted fun and send up the genre’s hoariest tropes with this “origin story,” but “A Little Stranger!” is so sumptuously overheated and pulpy that it comes across to me more as a living testament as to just why all us freaks love the genre so much rather than a pointed look at some of its more silly clichés. Just look at that final scene: it’s a black wedding ceremony of a dead werewolf and a dead vampire attended by the moldering occupants of a place called the Devil’s Graveyard. If you’re not grinning ear-to-ear by the time Ingels rolls that scene out with his magnificent pencils then there is no helping you. There are few stories that could live up to the grandiose “A Little Stranger!;” the rest of this issue can’t help but look lacking in comparison, but if you’re like me you’ll be too far into your satanic swoon to mind it much. In “Take Your Pick” and “This Little Piggy …,” Feldstein goes about the business of setting up his nine-pin villains for their eventual meeting with justice in such a resolute manner that he fails to notice that his scoundrels are paper-thin; both fall limply to the ground under the weight of their one-note, incredulity-spurring behavior long before their respective punishments come rolling their way. “Ship-Shape!” tries to take a share of that old purple prose religion from “A Little Stranger!,” and though the narrative does have a small sense of robust adventure, the art by Sid Check is too ungainly to be enjoyed. His panel layout reminds me of Rudy Palais on a really bad day; all the clutter and weird anatomy but with none of Palais' frenzied weirdness to make it interesting or compelling.
Kurtzman |
"Checkers!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin and Will Elder
"Pell's Point!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Wally Wood
"Alamo!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin
"Saipan!" ★★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Jack Davis
"Checkers!" |
The American revolution in full force, our troops battle the British at "Pell's Point!" When the British arrive, commanded by Sir William Howe, they suffer heavy casualties at the muskets of the Yankees but they just keep on coming. Though his comrades are ordered to retreat and regroup, Yankee Jamie Kemp refuses, opting to charge the Brits by himself. Left alone, he is captured and hanged.
Mexican troops storm the Alamo and kill all 150 Texians within the walls (including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett). Santa Anna wins this first battle but the bloody siege reinvigorates a "disorganized Texas" and, soon, Santa Anna's men are wiped out. Gorgeously illustrated but little more than two chapters in Harvey Kurtzman Teaches History to the Kids. Not that I don't respect all the work put into these little glimpses into past conflicts; Harvey probably had the Encyclopedia Britannica and little else to draw information from, as opposed to today's world where the entire conflict is given in minute detail on Wikipedia. I give the edge to "Pell" thanks to its dynamic art; Severin without Elder turns out to be a glass half empty a la Elder's solo story in this month's Weird Science (below).
"Pell's Point!" |
"Saipan!" |
"Alamo!" |
Jose: This is an issue from the war titles that manages to have very good art from all the contributors across the board. I even enjoyed John Severin’s solo effort this time out; “Alamo” is, in my opinion, head and shoulders above his past work without Will Elder at his side, and there are a number of panels that could almost pass for another of their collaborations. Both that tale and “Pell’s Point” are fairly strong entries from Professor Kurtzman’s War History class, but for me “Alamo” gets the edge because it has dynamic art throughout—art that doesn’t rely on those lame topographical map shots from “Pell’s Point”—and is much stronger and more complex on a narrative level as it tells of the infamous siege nested in the framework of a Spanish soldier on a firing squad executing the last five remaining Texans from the battle. “Saipan” could pass for another of the strange-but-true anecdotes from Bennett Cerf that Bill and Al liked (and appropriated) so much. If Kurtzman really did hear the story straight from the mouth of WWII vet, he struck the right note of urban folklore in this tale of high coincidence.
"Saipan!" |
Wood |
"There'll Be Some Changes Made!" ★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood
"Inside Story!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Will Elder
"Strategy!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Sid Check
"They Shall Inherit" ★★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
Sixty-two light years out from Earth, an intrepid space crew gets the literal jolt of their lives when their overdrive conks out, leaving them without feasible means of returning home. The only thing they can do is to search the nearest solar system for a life-sustaining planet to land on and make their repairs. This they find in the form of a vertiginous world that contains ample amounts of I-life (that’s “an intelligent form of life” to all you kids playing hooky out there), including a race of humanoids bearing a remarkable likeness to Earth’s race of Homo sapiens. The aliens retreat to weird, igloo-shaped structures at the advance of the astronauts, but once the Earthlings make nice with the natives by way of that ever-handy EC invention, the universal translator, all’s fun and feasting among the new set of friends. Things get decidedly friendlier when Commander Morrison sets his sights on gorgeous alien Luwana, and soon Morrison figures he’s head over heels, turning in his resignation to his second mate and vowing to stay on planet Gastropodia (wait for it) with his new mate. It isn’t long before Morrison starts to add up some odd facts about his new home, like how all of Gastropodia’s children are housed in an enclosed nursery and only brought into the city once they can leave their own igloo-huts behind. There’s also the matter of Luwana cutting her hair short and losing all her luscious curves. (Good Lord! *Choke*) With his romantic advances spurned for the last time and all the mental tumblers clicking into place, Morrison enters the secluded nursery and confirms his worst suspicions: the people of Gastropodia are snails! Well, they look like people, but they act like snails: the igloo-huts are actually their shells, and the changes that Luwana has been undergoing are signs of the mollusk’s hermaphroditic nature. That’s right; when Morrison returns home he finds hunky blonde Luwana in bed tsking her husband’s slowness in changing his gender.
Hubba-hubba-hubby. ("There'll Be Some Changes Made!") |
Though they might have lacked in execution at times, EC surely made up for the deficit with a surfeit of new and completely strange ideas. “There’ll Be Some Changes Made!” features one such springboard with its race of sex-swapping aliens, but the lead-up is fairly mundane and completely identical to any number of the other “astronauts stranded on an alien planet” stories we’ve read. The disparate clues shaping this mystery make for a solid head-scratcher as the reader tries to decipher the strange rituals and “changes” alluded to in the text, minus Feldstein’s on-the-nose dubbing of the planet, yet for all that I couldn’t quite get invested in the proceedings, superior Wood art notwithstanding. Having said that, this story has a wild round-up of a climax, one that skates along the rim of the sticky sexual situations that EC was so fond of portraying in their SF books. How those last two panels escaped the wrath of Wertham and the Senate Subcommittee, we’ll never know.
Don't we all? ("Inside Story!") |
Come on, kids! Time for your lECture! ("Inside Story!") |
The gonzo workings of this humorous SF tale are given a sheen of Golden Age innocence by Will Elder’s cutesy illustrations. Despite the graphic nature of the story, there’s not a drop of blood to be seen, further adding to this one’s docile charms. Judging by this first solo effort, Elder sans Severin is a more palatable brew than Severin sans Elder; for all the art’s primitiveness, it remains easier on the eyes than the naked pencils from past Severin assignments. You might think for a moment that you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a strip from the Sunday funnies rather than a yarn from the house that the Crypt-Keeper built, but “Inside Story!” has an offbeat beat all its own.
Peter and Jack ready Jose to write his parts of the EC post. ("Strategy!") |
You said it! ("Strategy!") |
That cat has seen some serious crap. ("They Shall Inherit") |
General Ratton takes command. ("They Shall Inherit") |
“They Shall Inherit” isn’t quite the rip-snorting farce that Joe Orlando has penned for the last few issues of the SF books. It saves the trippiest image for the very end, as well as those trademark gaping-mawed faces, but for the most part Feldstein’s script, whether intentionally or not, acts as a nicely rendered mounting of suspense that pits two tangentially-related storylines against each other to highlight the cryptic clues and discoveries that crop up in each of them. Thankfully, there isn’t any time wasted on a drawn-out explanation for the rats’ advanced progression along the evolutionary scale either; the brief mention we receive of the “contained” radiation leak is enough for us to understand that the vermin have become contaminated and have now mutated into super-rats. Science! --Jose
Peter, seen here feeling the sudden loss of no Jack Kamen stories in this issue. ("Inside Story!") |
Jack, pictured here responding to Jose's request for a check. ("They Shall Inherit") |
Next Week: The curtain closes on The War That Time Forgot! Join us as we get sorta emotional. |
6 comments:
I can't thank you enough for doing this series. Just awesome fun. What a bizarre month. I think I like those WEIRD FANTASY stories more than you do, but I'd be a terrible EC reviewer and all my entries would just echo the Chris Farley Show. "Remember this one? Wasn't it awesome?"
That Graham Ingels "A Little Stranger" panel is just beautiful. Ditto for all the FRONTLINE COMBAT and TWO-FISTED TALES panel. Such a treasure trove.
I congratulate you on another successful overview and also for managing to showcasing the wonderful weirdness of this month's issue of WEIRD SCIENCE. That's probably one of my most-remembered issues of the title.
Thanks for the kind words! It's a lot of work but we all enjoy reading and writing about these comics. I'm very glad you enjoy our posts!
And we can't thank you enough for coming around the tree-house every two weeks, B!
I often fall into the "Chris Farley" method of reviewing when it comes to Wally Wood's art; I just have to get out the thesaurus to change the words now and then!
I hope you're reading and enjoying the War blog as well.
I am indeed and the Hitchcock one, as well. I'm not as familiar with those, so the wealth of detail in those is very enjoyable. It's interesting terrain.
I've got to up my commenting game to keep up with you guys! Cheers and keep 'em coming.
Hello, just wanted to say thanks for posting these.
I was having a bit of a time finding any specifics about the Iwo Jima issue of Frontline Comics until I got to your page.
My grandpa Ralph was Corporal Ralph, and my great-uncle Dave was, I believe, the baby-brother Dave. They were friends of Harvey Kurtzman's from way back and he [with some degree of artistic license - I think only my grandfather was on Iwo Jima] inserted them into this story. Grandpa Ralph did pretty OK for himself compared to Corporal Ralph. But I do think the intended depiction of the battle was welcome from his perspective.
Thanks very much for your comment, Craig! That's a fascinating story!
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