Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 152: September 1974

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

Kubert

Our Army at War 272

"The Bloody Flag"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"A Sergeant Dies ..."
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: As Easy Co. cautiously enters a French town overrun with Nazis, a new recruit conveniently nicknamed Green Apple laments having seen no action. The townsfolk tell Sgt. Rock that Nazis shot at them for displaying the flag that symbolizes French resistance and, as if on cue, here comes a jeepful of Nazis, guns blazing. In the gun battle that follows, the Nazi commander is fatally wounded, and with his last breath he tells Rock that the Nazi battle flag that Rock's men just captured was handed out by Hitler himself.

Green Apple is killed by a sniper's bullet as the dying Nazi commander warns Rock that he'll never be able to hold on to the Nazi battle flag. Easy Co. heads back to base by a route through the woods, but it seems like every tree hides a Nazi sniper, and more G.I.s are killed. Finally tiring of the random carnage, Rock and his men march across a bridge holding the battle flag in front of them and succeed in attracting a swarm of Nazis; after Rock and his men kill all the Nazis, Rock decides to leave "The Bloody Flag" draped over their corpses.

"The Bloody Flag"

Severin's art looks suspiciously like it was inked by someone less skilled, and I wonder if Jack Sparling or even Sam Glanzman is to blame. The layouts are typically Severin, with some impressive, wordless panels, but the art is not good enough to make up for the story, which is a mix of cliches and boring battles. Nothing much to see here, folks.

"A Sergeant
Dies ..."

A Roman soldier fights hard against Egyptian troops before being killed. Centuries pass, and the same scene plays out with a crusader, then a WWII G.I., and finally an Israeli soldier. Each time, Egyptians wonder at the resilience of the enemy. "A Sergeant Dies ..." features the usual unpleasant art by Estrada but contains a surprise, since it doesn't end with WWII but rather moves on a few decades into what I guess is the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Robert Kanigher was Jewish and there is a clear pro-Israeli slant to the last section of this story. I am not going too far out on a  limb to say I don't think we'll see another DC War Comic with a story about the Arab-Israel conflict.

Peter: I love John Severin's art but that sure doesn't look like Sgt. Rock to me. The plot is ludicrous: Rock decides to carry this bloody flag around with him, even though it invites attacks from the enemy, and then decides, after all these attacks from the enemy, that it's not worth the blood drawn to carry around this bloody flag! After a brief flirtation a few months ago with continuity, editor Joe Kubert decides the "one and dones" are the way to go. For me, this creates a sense of disorientation; one month, the boys are in the desert, the next they're in France. At least assign a date to each story. "A Sergeant Dies ..." is one of the weakest of Big Bob's "Gallery of War," with the obvious moral being "war is pointless." There's an original thought.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 150

"Mark Our Graves!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"Catch"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Ed Davis

Jack: As the Losers march through the North African desert by moonlight, they discover an old graveyard and are suddenly attacked by a Nazi tank. The Losers play dead for a moment and surprise the Nazis with gunfire, but there is a new distraction as a jeep of British soldiers appears on the scene and is soon blown up by fire from the tank's gun. Survivors from the jeep turn out not to be British soldiers but rather Jewish men fighting for Israeli independence against the Nazis.

The Jewish fighters are attached to the British Army and have been sent to find German commander Von Eltz's supply dump. The Losers join up with the Jewish freedom fighters and head toward the town of El Karish. On the way, they fight off a band of armed looters and put on the clothes of the vanquished in order to enter the town under cover. They soon discover the supply dump hidden in an abandoned synagogue; the Losers blow up the dump and head back into the desert outside of town, where they help bury some of the Jewish soldiers, who make sure that they "Mark Our Graves!"

Yes, this is from a 1974 DC War Comic!
("Mark Our Graves!")

Just when I thought we'd seen the only story with Jewish fighters and Jewish themes, we get another one with Jewish freedom fighters in WWII, an abandoned synagogue, and soldiers reciting the prayer for the dead in Hebrew! Bob Kanigher must have been affected by current events when he wrote these stories in 1974. I can only imagine what 10 year old kids who liked DC War Comics must have thought of these tales. They are certainly different!

A patrol marches through the Vietnam jungle and, when one steps on a mine, four men die. Two men survive, but one dies when they step off the trail and there is another explosion. James Macklin survives, though injured, and radios for help. A helicopter is dispatched to rescue him and, while he waits for it to arrive, he marvels at the incredible system that has been set up to provide speedy care to injured soldiers. There's just one "Catch": you need to be alive when the helicopter comes to pick you up. Unfortunately for Macklin, he dies of his massive chest wound right before the chopper gets to him.

"Catch"

In five pages, Archie Goodwin tells a thrilling story that really doesn't have much plot at all, yet the details of how medical care has advanced from WWII to the Korean War to the Vietnam War are fascinating. The art by Ed Davis suggests a rougher, less-skilled Alex Niño.

Peter: Above, in my critical comments for the Rock story, I mention my disdain for the "one and dones," and "Mark Our Graves!" illustrates exactly why I like the DC war series with continuity. Each installment of The Losers almost seems to be like a chapter taken from a large novel. The search for Ona continues but the boys stumble into adventures and mishaps along the way. There's a real sense of direction and destination here and Big Bob stocks his tale with intricate detail and dialogue that "sounds" real. The Jewish references aren't forced, like the racial plots found in Rock; it's almost an organic hook. How the hell Bob and Archie managed to mold four useless war series characters into a seamless and enjoyable package is beyond me, but bad news may be on the horizon since Jack Kirby takes over the editing/writing/penciling of OFF with the next issue. Mid-70s Kirby is not something I look forward to. The back-up, "Catch," written by Archie, feels as though it's a hold-over from Goodwin's tenure as editor and chief writer of Blazing Combat for Warren, but it's so much more powerful than any of the BC stories I've read thus far. Yep, the captions are a little wiki-style detail-heavy but they don't dull the power of the climax one bit. Newcomer Ed Davis's art is brilliant; very moody and dark, almost a combination of Toth and Talaoc. That final page is a stunner. This could be the best single issue of Our Fighting Forces we've yet seen (and, with the coming of "King" Kirby, probably the last great issue of OFF we'll see)!

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 29

"Breaking Point"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan

"The Hunted"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Gerry Talaoc


Peter: The Major was a supremely competent Nazi officer and excelled in the art of torture. One might say it was his hobby. One of the Major's favorite tools was a casket, in which a prisoner would be sealed for the length of time it would take him to crack. But deep down inside that gruff interior lies a Hitler-hating mutineer. Oh, he believes in Hitler's cause, just not in the man himself. When the time is right, the Major conspires with several other officers to assassinate Der Führer, but the plan goes awry and his secret plan is discovered by his right-hand man, who informs Berlin that there is a traitor in their midst. The Major is arrested and tortured for days in an effort to discover the names of his conspirators.

"Breaking Point"

"Breaking Point"

True to his word, the Major does not give in and the torture continues. One day in his cell, after days of freezing and starvation, the Major swears he'd serve the devil if he could be free. As if by magic, the door to his cell swings open and the Major escapes. Realizing Satan has made him a free man, he hightails it to the nearby forest but his freedom is short-lived as he rounds a bend and runs straight into his aide, who confesses it was not Satan but he who left the cell door open. Finally past the breaking point, the Major sobs out the names of his allies and is then given a quick death by firing squad. As he stands against the pole, the Major comes to the realization that the ultimate torture is ... hope!

What a great story! Am I giving "Breaking Point"such high praise because Weird War Tales has, of late, been barely readable? That could be, but I'd also cite the fact that writer Jack Oleck slyly nudges us toward believing this thing will end just like any other Oleck script: with the Major on the bad end of a deal with Satan or the Major waking up in the casket to find out the freedom was all a dream or the Major having died in his cell long before his run for the roses or ... you get the picture. But, no, instead we get a highly original twist and a very confusing main character. Here's a guy who loves the art of torture but wants to bring down the most evil man on the planet, not because he wants the suffering to end but because he thinks he himself can do a better job! And Ernie Chan, whom we've griped about in the past, contributes his best work yet. No, he's not Alcala or Niño yet, but there's still hope.

"The Hunted"

"The Hunted" is Robert Kanigher's fictional ode to Lawrence of Arabia. While having a sip from a desert oasis, Lawrence is attacked by a Turkish soldier and shoots him dead. Unfortunately, the soldier's lover is standing right behind him and catches a bullet as well. With her dying breath, the woman places the curse of Anubis on Lawrence. But Lawrence's continued good deeds obviously sway Anubis and the curse is lifted. Gorgeous art (as usual) by Alcala, with an almost insane attention to detail, but the story itself comes off as one of those Big Bob scripts for House of Mystery. Is the jackal that leads Lawrence to a hidden enemy tunnel a supernatural presence? Who knows? The curse doesn't come into play at any point in the tale (and we never really know for sure about that jackal) but that may be due to Big Bob wanting to stick to "the facts" for the most part.

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy"

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy" is a forgettable quickie about a long-dead army coming to the aid of soldiers in World War I. This is a plot that gets taken out of the DC file cabinet every six months or so and, by now, Oleck doesn't even attempt to dust it off. Talaoc's art is like muddy and busy Niño but it has a certain style to it that's not without its merits.

Jack: I liked this issue, too, but I can't decide if I liked it because of or despite the lack of weirdness. "Breaking Point" is entertaining and competently illustrated, but there's really nothing weird about it. The jackal is supposed to inject some weirdness into "The Hunted," but that's stretching a point and I was happy to see Niño drawing a famous episode in the career of T.E. Lawrence. Finally, I've always found the tales of ghosts on the battlefields of WWI interesting, so I enjoyed "The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy." This is one of the better issues of WWT in recent memory.

Next Week...
Johnny Craig joins
the Warren Bullpen!