Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 105: April/May 1969

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

Kubert

 Star Spangled War Stories 144

"Death Takes No Holiday!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Neal Adams and Joe Kubert

Peter: While fighting a brutal air battle, Hans von Hammer sees a bewildering sight: a French pilot in a Death's-Head mask diving at him and unloading his machine guns at the Ace. Through aerial artistry, the Hammer is able to elude the grinning skull but not before taking heavy losses. The skull disappears in the clouds and Hans must land to attend to a fellow pilot, Stefan, who has crashed and is trapped in the burning wreckage. The Hammer manages to drag the boy to safety but both he and Stefan are burned and must recuperate in the hospital. Stefan incurs mental as well as physical scars and protests to his mentor that he could never fly again. After a long respite, the duo head back to their jagdstaffel and arrive just in time to see the latest attack by the French. Hans and Stefan hop into the nearest available Albatross DIII and head for the sky. At first gun shy, gunner Stefan soon snaps out of it and begins raking the French with MG fire. The next morning, the Nieuports return, strafing the airfield and challenging the Ace to defend himself and his men. As Hans begins his ascent, the Death's-Head pilot returns, blitzing the Ace with a torrent of bullets. In an act of heroism, Stefan flies his plane square into the Frenchman and both erupt in a ball of flames. The Hammer follows one of the other French pilots and discovers their hidden airfield. Unloading all his fire power, the Hammer destroys the airfield and the surviving French pilots have no choice but to surrender.

Another instant classic from the team of Kanigher and Kubert, this time getting a little help from New Kid on the Block, the sensational Neal Adams. Adams's pencils and Kubert's inks on "Death Takes No Holiday!" meld so well together you can almost be forgiven for not knowing there was a guest artist this issue. Kanigher continues to come up with dynamic guest "villains" and never seems to be repeating himself. The Death's-Head pilot is a brilliant touch and almost seems to be a tossed-in element as he's not really the focus of the narrative. The Hammer is at first shocked by the grinning skull but then almost shrugs and takes it for what it is: just another way for a pilot to gain a psychological edge on his foe.

Jack: I was so excited to see the Neal Adams credit on the cover that I spent the entire issue looking for traces of that Adams magic and paid little attention to the story. From what I saw during a cursory look online, Kubert was having trouble meeting his deadline and first gave this issue to Alex Toth to pencil. Kubert was not happy with the result, so he tried again with Adams. Now, one writer credits Adams for doing an incredible Kubert impersonation here, but it looks to me like Joe had either very sketchy layouts or a heavy hand with the inker's pen, because I can barely see a hint of Adams in this story. Not that that's a bad thing, since I love Kubert's art, but when you put the name of Neal Adams on the cover to sell more comics, the story inside should look something like the work of Neal Adams, if you ask me.

Kubert

 Our Army at War 205

"Medal for a War Dog"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #28,
December 1955)

"The Tank with a Memory!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Russ Heath
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #34, June 1955)

"Battle Zoo!"
Story by Jack Miller
Art by Joe Kubert
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #59, June 1957)

Jack: Private Brown is about to get a medal for holding off an enemy attack at the Tiburi River, but he tells the officer that it should be a "Medal for a War Dog" because Andy, the super dog, is the one who deserves it. Andy knocked Phil out of the way of a sniper's bullet, then located the sniper so that he could be killed. Andy batted a grenade under an enemy tank so it blew up. Andy brought an ammunition belt and a note so Phil could hold off the enemy with machine gun fire and then guided Phil's aim when the soldier was temporarily blinded by a bullet to the helmet. Thank goodness the canine wonder made it back safely from the front to accompany Phil at the medal ceremony!

"Medal for a War Dog"

Andy has to be a prototype for Pooch, since he looks just like our favorite canine war dog and is in action with Marines on a Pacific Island, just like Pooch. Andy's story appeared in 1955 and the Gunner, Sarge and Pooch series started in 1959. I take back what I said last time about vintage Andru and Esposito art being better than later examples--this has all the hallmarks of their worst '60s work.

Fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia in WWII is no picnic. Private Al Thompson helps an elephant escape from a bog and the beast follows him around, so Al rides the pachyderm bareback and attacks an enemy village, wiping out everyone with his machine gun from his perch atop the elephant's back. When "The Tank With a Memory!" finds its way back to Al's base, the soldier has to admit elephants are swell.

Not surprisingly, Russ Heath's artwork goes a long way toward making this story bearable. Not much happens, but at least it looks good.

Another G.I. in the Pacific in WWII, Hank Adams seems to attract friendly and helpful animals to assist him in battling the enemy. It's almost as if he has his own "Battle Zoo!" A cute little puppy diverts Japanese gunners so Hank can get a bead on them. A sweet little kitty helps Hank destroy an enemy MG nest. An adorable little birdie helps Hank surprise and destroy Japanese soldiers setting up a big gun. Gosh, ain't nature grand?

"Battle Zoo!"

Like the elephant story before it, this is pretty weak tea but for Kubert's mid-'50s art which, while it doesn't reach the heights of his late '60s work, is pretty darn good in its own right.

The Kubert cover is nice but the opening page, in which Rock once again informs the men of Easy Co. that he's going to tell them some stories, makes me wonder how Easy Co. managed to stay awake sometimes.

Peter: We've seen our fair share (some would say more than fair share) of animal war stories but "Battle Zoo!" has to be the silliest I've ever read and pert near unreadable even with Joe's art. "Medal for a War Dog" makes me pine for the days when we had to read Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch . . . not! That leaves "The Tank with a Memory!" the default "best" story of the issue even though it's not that good. There have been an awful lot of reprints in the few months since Kubert took over editorship. I suspect the poor guy was wearing one too many caps, what with providing a Rock story and all the covers every month. If I was a strapping war fan back in '69, I suspect I'd be angry that we're getting a silly intro by the Sarge ("Whattya mean you're tired of lugging that machine gun around? Do you know what the vikings used to have to do?") and then some sub-par reprints. Why wasn't Joe serving up some A-1 Rock classics? One of our favorite features, the Circulation Statement, arrives this month and shows that Our Army at War was selling an average of 189,221 copies during the previous 12 months.

"The Tank With a Memory!"

Kubert

 G.I. Combat 135

"Death is the Joker"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"Kill the Green Beret"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ed Robbins

"The Hound and the Hare!"
Story Uncredited
Art by George Evans

Peter: Jeb Stuart (the ghost) warns Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) that the Jeb Stuart (the Haunted Tank) will encounter an enemy from the sky and will have to look one step before the graveyard for their friends. Young Jeb mutters something indecipherable about pain-in-the-ass puzzles and looks skyward just in time to see a couple of enemy tanks parachuting in. The Jeb is able to blow one from the sky and take care of the other when it lands. Enemy defeated, the Jeb heads toward its initial destination: a vital crossroads town the enemy is descending upon, a village unmanned and unprotected . . . or so it is believed! When the Haunted Tank rolls into the town, the men are greeted by a group of aged veterans, their leader in a wheelchair. He tells a sad story of the fall of their village to the Germans in WWI and how a nasty statue was erected in the town square to commemorate the villagers' cowardice. The man explains that his group is prepared to die today rather than let the Nazis overtake their home again. To their chagrin, the tank crew watches as an elite Nazi group known as the Black Lions marches in and starts emptying machine guns into anything that walks. Madder than hell and sick of taking it, the veterans open fire on the Rat-bastards. The vicious battle comes to an end when the French leader wheels himself, armed to the teeth with TNT, into the Germans and blows himself, the enemy, and that annoying statue straight to hell! Despite the awful art courtesy of Mike and Ross, "Death is the Joker" is not a bad little Haunted Tank yarn, one with an exciting story and an explosively downbeat climax. If there's a complaint to be lodged (isn't there always?), it's that the fearsome Black Lions do not get enough "air time." I was intrigued by Big Bob's intro to the group but then they're relegated to background noise for the rest of the adventure. That's a shame. Also, if you're going to advertise The Joker, at least show him!

"Death is the Joker"

An American G.I./skier attempts to capture the infamous "Hare" on a dangerous slope but the Hare gets the best of his enemy and manages to trap him in an icy grave. American intuition saves the day, though, and soon the G.I. is back on the Hare's trail. In the end, the Hare falls into a similar crevasse and the mountain closes in on him. A fitting punishment for the Hare. "The Hound and the Hare" is an edge-of-your-seater that might stretch the limits of credibility a bit (well, okay, more than just a bit when our hero uses a grenade to create an avalanche that saves him from his prison) but provides a suitably fine read (it helps that I'm a sucker for the Nazis-on-skis subgenre). The script is uncredited but I'm willing to put money down that it's a Big Bob creation; his fingerprints are all over it. The visuals are great but they sure don't resemble the work of the great George Evans, whose work we're currently surveying on the EC blog. That's not to say they don't cut the mustard though; quite the opposite. George might not have the penciling skills in 1969 that he had in '53 but his choreography is still dazzling. "Kill the Green Beret!" is a mercifully short vignette about a Green Beret who escapes from his POW camp and teaches his captors a lesson. The Ed Robbins art is extremely scratchy and ugly, looking something like a cross-pollination of Jerry Grandenetti and Mike Sekowsky. I'd say the Asians look cliche but, as a matter of fact, so do the Americans. The Fact File feature this issue spotlights Sargon the Sorcerer, a semi-sorta Doctor Strange of the 1940s, who popped up in at least three titles. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this feature is a whole lot of fun and Joe (or the powers that be) should be patted on the back for giving us something to read other than an X-Ray Glasses ad. The circulation statement shows that G.I. Combat sold an average of 209,640 copies per issue in the preceding twelve months, making it, easily, the best-selling DC war title.

"Kill the Green Beret!"
Bring back more ads!

Jack: One caveat to your comment about best-selling war titles--remember that Our Army at War was selling 189,000 copies a month, while G.I. Combat was a bi-monthly. I also like snow/ski chases and the art of George Evans, so "The Hound and the Hare!" was my favorite story this time around. The Fact File entries are great and this one, on Sargon, was particularly interesting. In the next five years or so, DC began to reprint many wonderful Golden Age stories in their 100-page comics, and I loved seeing them. Did you notice, in the Green Beret story, that the title character is called "Captain" and has a name tag that reads "Hunter"? Is this an uncredited "Captain Hunter" story? Like you, I miss having Russ Heath around to draw the Haunted Tank stories. In the letters column of this month's issue of Our Fighting Forces, Kubert mentions that Heath was busy elsewhere and unavailable. In the letters column of this month's G.I. Combat, one reader writes in to praise the artwork of Sekowsky and Giella on a recent story and Kubert responds that he's very happy with Andru and Esposito's work in this issue. I guess it takes all kinds. 

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 118

"Hell Underwater"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Art Saaf

"Battle Light!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #41, December 1955)

"Yankee Stallion"
Story and Art by Fred Ray

Jack: Yet another Punch the Looie Day is interrupted when Hunter's Hellcats are taken aboard a submarine and told to blow the target out of the water. After exiting through the torpedo tubes, the Hellcats fight off Nazi frogmen and reach their goal: an underwater supply depot for enemy submarines! They blow it up and it's like "Hell Underwater," though when they get back on the sub's deck above the waves they still have to fight off a Nazi plane that has targeted their ride. Fortunately, small arms fire succeeds in blowing it off course and it crashes in the water near the sub.

"Hell Underwater"

Boy do I miss Frank Thorne! Art Saaf's art here is average at best and almost has a hint of Andru & Esposito to it, which is not a compliment. Bob Kanigher could write stories like this in his sleep and probably did; at one point, he ventures into Hank Chapman territory by referring to plastic explosives as "plastic boom-boom bundles." I happened across a TV show called Garrison's Gorillas that was also based on The Dirty Dozen, but some quick checking revealed that Hunter's Hellcats came first.

Peter: I'm not used to throwing accolades at a Hunter's Hellcats entry (and, obviously, there's plenty of derision to counterbalance the praise) but "Hell Underwater" is the best HH adventure yet. Big Bob dispenses with the obligatory "Punch the Looie Day" right up front and then gets down to business, avoiding the usual in-group fighting for the most part. The Hellcats don't spend a lot of time underwater but their discovery, a submarine refueling depot, is an interesting contraption (not sure it would work, but then I was never in the Navy), and the action is well-choreographed. Art Saaf's work will never be mistaken for that of Joe Kubert but then neither is it at the depths of Mike Sekowsky so . . . somewhere in the range of barely tolerable?

"Battle Light!"

Jack: A sergeant and his men are told to hold a hill overnight with very little ammunition and just one flare to make a "Battle Light!" The sarge goes out alone and finds some enemy scouts but manages not to waste his meager equipment and the men are able to polish off the enemy before dawn.

A four-page space filler with more mediocre art by a younger Irv Novick than we're used to, "Battle Light!" goes nowhere fast.

Peter: The reprint, "Battle Light!," is decent enough but I couldn't help but wonder why the Sarge doesn't grab up the weapons and ammo from the fallen enemy. Might come in handy, no?

"Yankee Stallion"

Jack: In 1862, Confederate soldier Rafe picks up a fine Yankee stallion after a battle but the horse seems to have a mind of its own. When Rafe is sent to take a message to Stonewall Jackson, the "Yankee Stallion" runs straight to the nearest Union camp and the message is intercepted. The Union soldiers march toward where they think the Confederates are but the Southerners ambush and defeat them; it turns out that the message was a fake, designed to lure the Yankees into a trap!

Slightly better than the reprints of history lessons we've been seeing lately, Fred Ray's story still relies on too much corn pone dialogue and never really goes anywhere interesting, though the final revelation that the message was a trick is mildly interesting.

Peter: "Yankee Stallion" comes off as another attempt to imitate Harvey Kurtzman with its far-afield Civil War theme and semi-humorous lead character. The story doesn't work (it's too long and boring) but I have to admire Ray (and Kubert) for trying to change things up.  According to the handy circulation statement this issue, Our Fighting Forces was firmly in last place of the four war titles, selling an average of 158,350 copies a month.

Kubert

Our Army at War 206

"There's a War On!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Wall"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti
(Reprinted from  All-American Men at War #7,
November 1953)

"Death Crowns an Ace"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ken Barr

Jack: Tired of the constant heroics of Sgt. Rock and Easy Co., a Nazi commander decides that the best way to demoralize American soldiers is to capture Sgt. Rock. When Rock and his men arrive at a castle to spend the night, they are met by a bevy of French beauties who claim that they had been held hostage by Nazis who fled when they saw Easy Co. approach. The French gals ply the soldiers with delicious food and drink but one slips a drug into Rock's coffee and he goes on a psychedelic head trip. Luckily, he comes to his senses before the Nazis arrive and he and his men avoid the trap. Somewhere, the Nazi commander admits that if things keep going as they are, they may lose the war.

"There's a War On!"

"There's a War On!" is kind of goofy but very much of its time. Thank goodness Joe Kubert was able to fit a new story into his schedule, though it's only a total of 12 pages long and features two full-page depictions of Rock's "trip." I don't recall a Nazi in one of these stories ever suggesting that they might lose the war before this.

Peter: Following up the embarrassing "Flower Power in WWII" story from #200, Big Bob shows just how hip he is by sending Rock on what can only be an acid trip. Man, those kids in 1969 must have just eaten up this contemporary nonsense, right? Am I to believe that the German powers-that-be have collected a dossier on Rock, one soldier among hundreds of thousands? And how is it that the unarmed Easy can overtake a squad of Ratzis toting machine guns? Never mind the script, just look at the great pictures.

Jack: In the American Revolutionary War, men with little fighting experience defend "The Wall" against an onslaught of British soldiers. By successfully holding their position, they prevent a flanking maneuver from succeeding and allow the Continental Army to advance on Lexington.

"The Wall"

It's funny how many of these early to mid-'50s reprints that we're seeing in the DC War comics seem like knockoffs of the superior EC War stories we read every other week. There's nothing wrong with this four-pager, it's just kind of boring. Grandenetti's art is mediocre but at least he's not yet into his terrible habits.

Peter: Like "Yankee Stallion," "The Wall" is a Kurtzman-esque history lesson but, unlike the Fred Ray tale, this one is short and to the point. Nice Grandenetti art as well.

Jack: An American pilot and a German pilot face off in the sky, each determined to get the one more kill that will qualify him as an ace. However, when both planes crash into each other, the result is that "Death Crowns an Ace."

Another four-page filler, this seems like a file story from years before and is notable mostly for the death of both pilots at the conclusion.

"Death Crowns an Ace"

Peter: The gimmick of "Death Crowns an Ace" has been used before but the story gives us our first look at the work of artist Ken Barr, who won't stick around the DC war bullpen very long before hitting the big time with his sharp covers for Marvel in the 1970s.

Next Week...
Jack has to remind Jose of his priorities...
yet again!