The DC War Comics
1959-1976 by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook |
Glanzman |
"Siren Song!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman
"The Aegean Eagle!"
Story and Art by George Evans
Peter: Stuck in Yugoslavia, the men of the Haunted Tank have got to find a way to get back to the front and that salvation may have come in the form of a freighter docked at a ruined shipyard. The Captain, Dimitri Stavros, immediately agrees to get the boys back home and has a crane load the tank on board the massive ship. Quite a relief to Gus, who's been patching the Jeb with excess wires and scrap metal pulled from various sources, but the going was getting tough. The men relax once on the ship and prepare for a long journey. Very quickly, Jeb realizes the boat is not heading to Italy and he confronts Stavros, who admits that he's taking them all to Greece. Years before, the Nazis sunk Stavros's first ship, killing his wife and infant son and, by collaborating with the enemy, he's discovered which sub was responsible. Now that he has an honest-to-goodness tank on board, he's sailing to the waters the sub patrols. The ship reaches the zone and, sure enough, the U-boat spots them and puts a torpedo in its side. As the boat is sinking, the Jeb gives it all it's got, blasting those *%$#ing Nazis past hell and right to Cleveland! The surviving Nazis try to surrender but Stavros is having none of that and he stitches the lot of them with MG fire. The boys make it to shore but Stavros decides he'd rather join his wife in Davey Jones's locker and sinks to the bottom. Now, how to get a tank in from deep waters?
"Siren Song!" |
"Siren Song!" |
"The Aegean Eagle!" |
Jack: So they have, Peter, so they have. It's jarring to read Evans's EC work from 1955 and then to read his DC work from 1973. The guy still knew his way around a WWI plane but the quality of the art sharply deteriorated in the nearly two decades between companies. In the wake of Joe Kubert's work on Enemy Ace in the '60s, Evans in 1973 looks pretty weak. Not as weak as Sam Glanzman, though, whose chicken scratching on the Haunted Tank makes me want to tear out what little hair I have left. Goodwin's story is not very good but it is dragged down immeasurably by the Glanzman art, just as Stavros's boat is dragged down into the briny deep.
Kubert |
"Hell's Island!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath
"Big Man, Little Man"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Thorne
Jack: On an island somewhere in the Pacific, Sgt. Rock and the rest of the wounded men from the destroyed hospital ship find themselves under fire from Japanese soldiers until Rock runs toward the guns and tosses a grenade. Shot in the shoulder, he is patched up by a pretty nurse and manages to disarm the lone Japanese survivor before he can toss a grenade of his own.
The enemy soldier is shocked to learn that Americans are not the murderers he was told they are. Rock heads off into the jungle to try to find a way to reconnect with Allied troops and discovers that other wounded men have followed him to help support him. After Rock shoots a sniper out of a tree, the men see that Allied ships are coming in for a landing. Unfortunately, Japanese guns are hidden behind a waterfall and they are shooting at the ships. Rock and his comrades swim under water and then scale the side of the cliff to get a good vantage point from which to toss grenades into the machine gun nest.
"Hell's Island!" |
It should be clear from the time it took to summarize this story that it's not your run of the mill Rock tale. Kanigher takes things in a dark direction with the innocent Japanese civilians throwing themselves off the cliff to their death and, as usual, Heath is up to the challenge. This has been a great continuing story!
"Big Man, Little Man" |
"Big Man, Little Man" features enjoyable art by Frank Thorne and a simple lesson in how cleverness and preparation can make up for a difference in size, but overall it seems out of place in Our Army at War.
Peter: The Rock this issue is a sequel within an arc, a tough thing to pull off at times, but Big Bob lands the plane nicely. A patented RK sequence (and that's a compliment, before you pelt me with K-rations) is the one in which the Japanese wives grab up their children and begin flinging themselves from a high cliff (something that actually happened) rather than let "the butchers" get to them. It's a horrifying moment in the midst of a lot of gung-ho gunplay and killer sharks and the like, but it does remind me that Big Bob can inject a rather somber tone to his work (even the non-"Gallery" stuff) when he's in the mood. Speaking of "Bob Kanigher's Gallery of War," this issue's felt a bit weak to me but that may be due to the fact that it seems overly familiar.
"Hell's Island!" |
Kubert |
"The Lost Mission"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin
"Dirt!"
Story and Art by Tom Sutton
Jack: As the monkeys take off through the jungle canopy with their stolen jewels, the Losers observe a group of Nazis machine-gunning a British patrol and do some shooting of their own to destroy the Nazis. The sole British survivor tells the Losers about "The Lost Mission," involving a raft loaded with TNT that was going to be used to destroy a Nazi fort farther down the river. The Losers find the raft and, after killing more marauding Nazis, they sail it down the river until they see the fort. That night, the Nazis blow up what they think is the TNT-laden raft but the Losers surprise them by launching the TNT on logs and destroying the fort. After hours of wandering, the Losers come across another fort, this one manned by dead members of the French Foreign Legion and by one very live Major Fouchet, who welcomes them to Fort Fini!
"The Lost Mission" |
Henri Trudeau is a French soldier who survives the long, horrible battle of Verdun only to find himself alone in a trench as several German soldiers approach. Filled with rage at how his beautiful land has been turned to so much "Dirt!" by the prolonged fighting, he becomes a one-man killing machine, shooting and bayoneting the enemy until he himself is killed.
Archie Goodwin's first issue as editor of Our Fighting Forces features great art by the old pro, John Severin, and pretty decent art by the up-and-comer, Tom Sutton, who also wrote this short back up story. It is over-written and the captions take some time to slog through, but I like to see new blood among the ranks of the creative folks at DC.
"Dirt!" |
"The Lost Mission" |
Kubert |
"No Holds Barred!"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling
"The Kill!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Thorne
Peter: In an effort to get behind enemy lines in Japan and destroy their crucial submarine re-fueling base, the Unknown Soldier must impersonate Der Deutsche Angel, a German fighter who's set for a match against Japan's premier Sumo wrestler, Nikomo the Mountain. All goes well until US gets in the ring with the gargantuan Sumo and realizes that, even with the cheater drug he's dropped into Nikomo's tea, this may be the US's final mission! With some help from an undercover Japanese spy, US pins the Mountain to the mat and blows up the gas tanks for good measure. The script for "No Holds Barred!," while just as comical and outlandish as the previous installment, at least contains some excitement and surprises. The art, though, is hideous, and will doubtless remain so throughout Sparling's tenure.
His C.O. didn't have the heart to tell US that wrestling isn't real. |
"The Kill!" |
Jack: That panel you reproduce is one example of an almost Ross Andru-like style used by Thorne here to draw the pilot's face, and any artist who draws like Ross Andru does not impress me. The story was a bore. "No Holds Barred!" opens with a neat photo collage organized around the Japanese war flag (I think Kubert does these) but I agree with you about Sparling's art. It could be worse, though; Robbins could be drawing instead of writing! He's a better writer than he is an artist and the story breezes by quickly but it's nothing special.
George Evans |
"Dead Man's Hands"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans
"A Gun Named Marie!"
Story by Michael J. Pellowski and E. Nelson Bridwell
Art by Ernie Chua
Peter: Colonel Victor Bretaine has built a reputation as a relentless ace, a pilot who manages to get the kill no matter the odds. If only his comrades knew that Bretaine does not subscribe to the theory that aces are honorable; he's just as apt to shoot down a German pilot whose guns have stalled or is retreating. Only one thing eludes the great Colonel and that's the beautiful Denise, who has no interest in the much-older Bretaine. The ruthless pilot holds his pride above everything else and, suddenly, after the arrival of the young gun, Lt. Andre Voison, Bretaine is not the talk of the base.
"Dead Man's Hands" |
Ouch! Another piece of evidence in my case to prove Bob Kanigher should not have been writing horror stories, even those with military elements. What an original idea: hands of the dead man come to life to act out revenge. And the unusually long (for WWT, at least) story length doesn't help much either. There's a lot of wheel spinning and padding in this one. Some months ago, Jack and I had some disagreement over whether George Evans had lost his touch and this is the first time I'd have to agree with Jack's assessment. There's way too much sketchiness and clunky looking characters, something I'd not seen much of in Evans's previous work.
"A Gun Named Marie!" |
Jack: A terrific cover, though, don't you think? I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of this disappointing issue. Kanigher's story is as old as they come and Evans's art is running on fumes. The Chua (Chan) tale has also been told before and his art is not holding up well against some of the other Filipino artists we've been seeing lately in the pages of this comic.
Kubert |
"Split-Second Target"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #55, March 1958)
"The G.I. Who Replaced Himself!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #38, October 1956)
"The Last Wave!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Mort Drucker
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War 47, July 1957)
"Split-Second Target" |
It's such a pleasure to see classic Kubert art from 1958 in this exciting reprint story that opens the second issue of G.I. War Tales. The narrative almost veers into familiar Kanigher territory with the repetition of similar incidents, but Kubert's fine work and a good sense of fun keep it entertaining.
"The G.I. Who Replaced Himself" |
More classic art from the '50s! This time it's courtesy of Russ Heath, who gives Kubert a run for his money in six pages of tank-blasting thrills. As with the prior story, the gimmick does not get in the way of the action.
"The Last Wave!" |
Mort Drucker's gritty, photo-realistic style puts the perfect capper on this issue, which features three great examples of DC War comics at their best. Issues like this one, even though it's all reprints, remind us that, among all of the mediocre art by the Ross Andrus and Sam Glanzmans, DC could put out some really fine comic pages when they wanted to.
Peter: I really liked the camaraderie between the two G.I.s in "Split-Second Target"; the strip's almost like an intelligent Gunner and Sarge (if that's possible) and it manages to avoid most of the pitfalls of Big Bob's 1950s scripts (notice I said most). The other two stories are blahsville, but I can't argue with the quality of the art in all three. Kubert, Heath, and Drucker never fail to elicit smiles from this DC War veteran. What stands out the most about the two new reprint titles is a lack of cohesion; there's no theme, so I assume someone in the DC bullpen (Kubert? Kanigher?) simply grabbed old stories that would fit in the allotted space (although publishing the final three panels of "Split-Second" at the top of a page of text begs the question of whether these guys even cared if they fit!) rather than tales that shared a common thread.
Next Week . . . Read our thoughts on Extra, Valor, & Aces High . . . Or Else! |
One of each, please! |
6 comments:
Yes...not a very good issue of WEIRD WAR TALES...but my first and interesting enough for me as an 8yo to pick up the next issue I saw...even at that age, the HANDS OF ORLAC, etc., idea struck me as unoriginal, but I did like the historical setting...and there was an appealing goofiness to the German yelling at the sentient (one gathers) gun that managed to avenge its owner...
Something very like the second comic book I bought...the first was a few years earlier (I'm going to guess I was five or possibly six0 and I never have been able to ID it...another DC title, an sf anthology I believe with the lead story being about a summer-camp style experience for human and juveniles of other species, where some sort of skullduggery is uncovered by the Very Diverse kids...the backing story being a guy wandering through some sort of armageddon, with a very impressionistic (in fact wavy) illustration style I recognized later in DC books, but I can't name the artist (possible it was the same artist working for Marvel or someone else then).
And, hey, I don't have to be all alone...a heavily made up Asian teen can come live with me! (I've never taken on the ads for my blog, after my dubious experiment with Amazon turned up exactly No sales, even given the traffic on my book reviews...clearly doing something wrong. Does the advertising net you much here?)
"Split-Second Target" is actually reprinted from All-American Men of War #55.
Thanks for the correction, Mantis. I fixed it on the post.
Todd, you should look through the issues of From Beyond the Unknown on the GCD. That sounds like it could be one of those. We have never set up the ad thingy. Blogger puts ads on but we don't get anything for them.
Thanks! And, weird (if not warlike or a tale), that last...
Post a Comment