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!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 151: August 1974

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

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 28

"Isle of Forgotten Warriors"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Alfredo Alcala

Peter: Sadistic Colonel Deermont rules the Black Cat Battalion with an iron fist and its mascot, a cute little feline, with an electric collar. The Battalion comes to an island in the Pacific and wipes out the Japanese soldiers in no time. Then weird stuff starts happening: soldiers and equipment disappear. When the men are ambushed by more Japanese soldiers, the Colonel flees and comes face to face with the secret of the disappearances when he falls down a hole and awakens the size of a pea. The natives have discovered a rite that shrinks the military men down; they place them in a miniature POW camp in the middle of a moat and keep them prisoners for entertainment. Deermont discovers soldiers of different wars in the camp and quickly takes charge. When he discovers there are Japanese on another part of the miniature camp, he focuses his attention on wiping them out. When the ragtag team comes up against numbers too great to vanquish, the Colonel's men mutiny and he mows them down with a machine gun. Using a subterranean tunnel (dug by ants, which he encounters along the way), Colonel Deermont escapes but then encounters his black cat, who toys with him before putting the Colonel out of his misery.

Start to finish, "Isle of Forgotten Warriors" is one huge pile of rubbish, save the usual heroics of Alfredo Alcala. As usual with these stories, the chief antagonist, Deermont, is so sadistic it's hard to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the dopey adventure. The saga is all over the map and stocked with funny book cliches. According to the GCD, this story was originally intended to be published as an installment in the short-lived "Adventurers Club" series in Adventure Comics. It was rewritten to fit in Weird War Tales but it wouldn't have had to be altered much, since the "Adventurers Club" series was simply a narrator (Nelson Strong) relating weird tales that had happened to the members of the club. Strong would appear in bookended panels (a la Cain in House of Mystery), but would not star in the stories themselves. I haven't read the other tales in the "Adventurers Club" series but, after reading "Isle of Forgotten Warriors," I'm not sure I've missed anything.

Jack: I remember those few offbeat issues of Adventure from 1973. I think you give Alcala too much credit here, since his art isn't particularly impressive. We know early on that Lt. Deermont is a bad dude because he tortures his pet cat. Later, he shoots and kills his own men! Part three of the story veers into Incredible Shrinking Man territory, as Lt. Deermont battles giant ants. The end is a nice turnabout, as the black cat gets revenge on the soldier, but this is not much of a story.

Heath

G.I. Combat 172

"At the Mercy of My Foes!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Conqueror!"
Story by John David Warner
Art by Dan Green

Peter: While on patrol, the Haunted Tank is damaged by a Nazi tank and the men must forage for parts before they can get back on the road. Meanwhile, over the next ridge, their old adversary, the vicious but honorable General Preiss (see issues #168 and 170), has had equal problems with the jeep he was riding in. The driver has been mortally wounded and the General is stranded. Luckily for him, a German tank rolls up to his rescue and it just happens to be commanded by his pupil, the vicious and dishonorable Helmut Kuhl. Preiss spots the Jeb Stuart on the other side of the hill and lays down a trap to catch the men. Kuhl would just as soon slaughter them but that's not the way of the honorable General. When Kuhl tries to run Gus and Jeb over with his tank and then toys with them as they dangle off a cliff, Preiss puts a bullet in his student and swears, as God is his witness, he'll kill the crew of the Haunted Tank... but in an honorable way.

"At the Mercy of My Foes!"

I'm too lazy to go through my notes to see just how honorable the good General was in his previous appearances but Archie seems to be setting him up as a quasi-good guy for future cameos. The script for "At the Mercy of My Foes!" is a mish-mosh of good and bad. I liked the little throw-away touches here and there, not designed to make a splash but to resonate: Preiss inquires as to the whereabouts of Kuhl's academy buddy, Steinmetz, to which Kuhl chillingly replies:

"Can you believe it? He actually confided to me his mother was a Jew. I had no choice but to report him. After that, it was the Gestapo's business."

But wrapped around Archie's gems is another plot that finds the Tank crippled and vulnerable but still somehow able to weather any storm. Sam Glanzman's art is horrendous; other than Gus (for obvious reasons), you can't tell one crewman from the other. You have to pay very close attention to the word balloons to decipher identities as they all look like shriveled-up corpses. Still, there are enough positives here to give it a thumb-sideways.

"Conqueror!"

In the back-up, Voltag the "Conqueror" sails the English coast in search of defenseless castles to rape and pillage. Voltag gets wind of a huge castle on a cliff, and he and his men arrive to find no defenses whatsoever. When a holy man meets them at the gate to convince them to turn back, Voltag cleaves him in two and continues over the drawbridge. But when the Vikings break down the inner door, they discover piles of corpses: the castle has been struck with the plague! I'm not a fan of these war stories from ancient times but I have to admit that "Conqueror!" is a cut above the rest. The reveal is predictable but the dialogue is readable and the art is gorgeous. Dan Green renders these Vikings as strong, vicious men and the castle as a great structure; these are not cartoony doodlings, a la Ric Estrada. Green went on to be second banana to Romita and the Buscema brothers, which is a shame since he could probably have had a successful career penciling one of the Conan books, based on his work here.

Jack: I'm not sure I'd call Green's art here "gorgeous" but it is good and a heck of a step up from Sam Glanzman or Ric Estrada. The Haunted Tank story's not bad, despite the dreadful pictures; it's good to see an enemy soldier with ethics who realizes that the rabid youth he's paired with must be sacrificed for the greater good. "Conqueror!" is somewhat predictable but I like the Viking characters and the setting in the Dark Ages.

Kubert

Our Army at War 271

"Brittle Harvest"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"The Gun"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: Privates Krull and Rankin have joined Easy Co. as Sgt. Rock and his men march toward the Kroder Dam, a key spot that the Nazis plan to blow up in order to flood the valley roads around it and make the movement of heavy equipment impossible. Krull is a farmer from Maine who talks about crops, and when three unknown members of Easy Co. are killed in a land mine explosion, Krull compares the guns sticking up from the ground and marking their graves to sticks marking the sports where spinach or carrots have been planted on a farm.

"Brittle Harvest"

On their way to the dam, the men of Easy Co. happen on a Nazi patrol down in a valley, shooting at an American patrol higher up. Rock gets his men to make giant snowballs, which they roll down the hill and which then land on the Nazis, burying them. An American plane then drops bombs on the snowbound Nazis to finish them off. On the way to Kroder Dam, Easy Co. is the target of bullets from a Nazi plane, but Krull shoots it down with what looks like a grenade-launcher; he remarks that it's "easy as shootin' crows in a cornfield." Rock and his men finally reach the dam and see that the plane Krull shot down crashed into the top of the structure, creating a breach that allowed water to flow over the top and drown the Nazis below, who had been planning to blow it up. The cold winter temperatures made the water quickly freeze, leaving the Nazis planted in the ice like "some kind of weird garden," according to Rankin, and Krull calls it a "Bitter Harvest."

Well, thank goodness for Russ Heath! Now that Joe Kubert just does the covers, Heath is the best artist we've got illustrating Sgt. Rock stories. I really like this one, perhaps because Rankin and Krull don't get killed at the end, as I was certain they would. Now, that doesn't mean we'll ever see them again, but for once the new recruits are not just there to provide cannon fodder. Heath's art, of course, is superb.

Like Sam Glanzman, Ric Estrada seems best when
his panels omit human faces ("The Gun")

In North Africa, a young Nazi soldier named Hans is quite fond of his machine gun and thinks it is "invincible...and will last forever!" When American soldiers attack and battle begins, Hans is busy shooting away until his dog tags, hanging off his neck, jam "The Gun" and he is stabbed to death by one of the soldiers he shot. The only winners in this fight are the vultures that feast on the corpses in the desert sun.

There's not much to this five-pager; we know Hans will get his just desserts and Ric Estrada's art is never inspiring.

Peter: It's nice to have Heath back after a two-issue furlough but it would have been nice to drop a decent story in his lap. From eye-rolling crop-growing analogies to snow that folds like turf, this is one goofy script, bulging with such lame dialogue as: "Did y'ever think of bullets as seeds? Seeds we plant into men... that harvest nothing but death?" Sheesh. "The Gun" is better, but it doesn't elevate to the lofty heights of previous Big Bob Gallery classics such as "White Devil... Yellow Devil." Estrada's art bugs the hell out of me; it almost looks as though it was crafted on a computer. I would rather the artists had been flipped on these two stories. Give Heath the superior script and let Estrada handle the pap.

Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 181

"One Guy in the Right Place..."
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling

"Hell's Angels! Part One: The Hammer of Hell"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Thorne

Peter: In a direct sequel to last issue's adventure, The Unknown Soldier continues his journey to find his brother's grave. What he finds is an eerily-quiet jungle about to be invaded by Allied forces. The quiet is disturbed, though, when the soldiers hit the beach and are massacred by hidden Japanese forces. Burdened with his oversight and with the blood of dozens on his hands, US wanders through the jungle until he is discovered by a group of rebels commanded by a gorgeous little gal by the name of Maria (think pig-tailed Mme. Marie, Jack!), who tells the US that a shadow soldier is slipping through the jungle and wiping out the Japanese, leaving the calling card, "Harry Pays Back!" Since our bandaged hero's brother's name was Harry, naturally we are to assume that Harry didn't bite the dust after all but, in a nice twist after the freedom fighters have laid waste to the scummy Japanese, we discover that Maria herself left the notes to provide confidence to her rebels. Maria leads the Soldier to his brother's grave and, at last, he can make peace with himself.

Not a bad story; "One Guy in the Right Place..." is, in fact, the best US story since the Robbins/Sparling crew took office. Just as I was rolling my eyes at the suggestion of the long-dead Harry somehow surviving the blast and wandering through the jungle, never letting on to his brother of his survival, Robbins throws in a tidy twist we all should have seen coming. I do question why the brass back in Washington have no problem with their #1 secret agent taking lots of time off to soul search but if there was no path to reawakening there would be no story.

Sure looks like Kubert
to these untrained eyes!

In the match-up we knew would come some day, Rittmeister Hans von Hammer collides with "Balloon Buster," Steve Savage in part 1 of "Hell's Angels!" After a brief tussle in the sky, Savage runs out of ammo and von Hammer safely escorts him to a German airfield, where Savage is taken prisoner. But for how long? The first Enemy Ace adventure in four years is certainly not on a par with "Killer of the Skies" or the Ace's debut saga (my picks for the two best stories of 1965), but not a bad re-intro to von Hammer and the less long awaited return of Steve Savage (to be fair, Steve's short run was enjoyable as well, just not on the mythic scale of Enemy Ace), Balloon Boy (with nary a balloon in sight!). There's a major twist coming up at the climax of this three-parter, but we'll get to that in a few months. Frank Thorne's art is uncannily close to Kubert's and that's a good thing. Someone upstairs told Archie not to screw up and assign Sparling or Glanzman to this one.

Jack: The Unknown Soldier story gets off to a shaky start as US seems unable to comprehend that Japanese gunners would be guarding the beach where Allied forces were about to land, but as I read it I found myself (yet again) wanting to read a good book about WWII so that I knew more of the historical perspective. By the end, it's a good story; I like US removing his mask at his brother's grave and I like the twist with Maria turning out to be the person leaving notes in the name of the deceased brother.

The Enemy Ace story is good but, at seven pages, too short to get any real air speed going. I agree that Frank Thorne apes Kubert in a few spots (or maybe Joe was helping out?) but Frank is no Joe and his art, for the most part, strikes me as too loose and '70s-groovy for this series (see Steve Savage's tight pants). The old magic is not back yet, but there are two more stories to read.

For some reason, I feel compelled to rank the art in the four comics this month from best to worst:

Inside stories: Heath, Green, Thorne, Alcala, Sparling, Estrada, Glanzman

Covers: Kubert, Heath, Dominguez

Peter? Care to weigh in?

Peter: Oh, Jack, you know I can never ignore a challenge! Therefore:

Heath, Green, Alcala, Thorne, Sparling, Glanzman, Estrada

Next Week...
Uncle Creepy gets a companion!

Star Spangled DC War Stories! Special 150th Issue! July 1974

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

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 27

"Survival of the Fittest!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Frank Robbins

"The General"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Veteran"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Paul Kirchner & Tex Blaisdell

Peter: A blood-thirsty Nazi sea captain enjoys sailing the seas and blowing defenseless ships out of the water, but when he destroys the Althea on December 7, 1941, he sets a strange space/time continuum vortex into motion. He discovers he'll spend the rest of eternity torpedoing the Althea and being saved by her in a loop. While Frank Robbins's art for "Survival of the Fittest!" really doesn't bother me (say, as much as the tired plot does), his layouts make me want to retch. You can't tell, from panel to panel, what the hell is going on and, by the last couple pages, you'll have given up anyway.

Frank Robbins goulash

"The General"

In the distant future, war has destroyed all but a few bands of marauding humans, one of which is commanded by a mysterious man known only as "The General." The commander of a rival gang makes it his life's work to seek out and destroy the General, even if it means forfeiting the lives of all his men. After torturing a prisoner, the Commander discovers the hideout of the General and invades the village, but what he finds will be fatal. Another of those 1970s' "the computers will someday rule the Earth" stories that became old very fast. "The General" climaxes with the reveal that the titular being is actually a General Electric digital computer. What a surprise. A seven-page tale that seems to last seventy. This is not one of Alfredo's standout jobs but then he wasn't given much to work with, since most of the story is talking heads.

In 2060, rocket ship commander Col. Corbin has been told by his doctors he's getting too old for space flight, but "The Veteran" feels he's still got what it takes, so he takes his ship (which is as close to resembling the Enterprise as is legally possible) for one more ride. Unfortunately, Corbin has to turn the reins over to his second-in-command when the flight does indeed get too hairy for him. After landing, the morose rocketeer reflects on a glorious career and considers retirement at the ripe old age of fifteen. "The Veteran" isn't a great story (the climax is a bit of a surprise but then there's no context to the reveal) but it sure beats the first two stories and it's nice to have a protagonist who isn't as comically sadistic as the Captain or the Commander. The Kirchner/Blaisdell art is pretty amateurish; the pair had pumped out the Little Orphan Annie syndicated strip since 1968 and that type of comic seems more suited to the pair's strengths than a SF space-opera.

"The Veteran"

Jack: Didn't we read another story with the same plot, perhaps in an EC comic? I'm sure I remember another one where the space pilot was washed up and at the end turns out to be a teenager. In any case, this issue was awful! I knew it had to be only a matter of time before we were subjected to art by Frank Robbins, since he's been doing some writing for the DC War books for a while. I can't figure out what editors at DC and Marvel saw in him in the '70s. He ruined Captain America and The Invaders. Oleck's story is a mash up of a few Rod Serling scripts, including "The Time Element," "Judgment Night," and "Lone Survivor." "The General" is a pretty weak effort by Alcala, but I admit I got a chuckle out of the General Electric logo--I did not expect it, despite the title.

Frank Thorne

Our Fighting Forces 149

"A Bullet for a Traitor!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"Trial by Combat"
Story and Art by George Evans

Jack: Still wandering in the desert, the Losers spot Ona riding in a Nazi jeep, cozying up to an officer! Before they have time to consider what this means, they witness a Nazi tank destroy a British jeep that is part of a convoy. The Losers help the rest of the British troops blow up the tank and are taken under the wing of British Col. Harcourt Allison, accompanying his troops back to headquarters.

From a nearby hill, Ona sees the Losers marching with the British and recognizes them. Five days later, Allison tells the Losers that they have been attached to his command for a special assignment: attack the Nazi camp as a distraction while Allison's troops target an ammo dump 18 miles away. At the Nazi camp, an officer named Johann professes his love for Ona, whom he met in Norway before the war, but Ona is stringing him along while she cares for her real love, a blinded soldier named Lars.

"A Bullet for a Traitor!"

The Losers succeed in their attack on the camp, but during the fighting Gunner discovers Ona in a tent with Johann. Gunner wants to give Ona "A Bullet for a Traitor!" but his feelings for her get in the way and he runs off, back to the Losers, who remain unaware that their former female member was found.

What a contrast between this enjoyable, well-illustrated story and the dreck found in this month's issue of Weird War Tales! Kanigher's soap opera/battle story held my interest but Severin really sells it with his skill at just about every aspect of comics. Of course, his Ona is not quite as va-va-voom as Frank Thorne's Ona, whose bust strains against her khaki shirt on the cover.

In the late spring of 1914, Baron von Eisen visits Craigh Loche in Scotland, intent on buying it and certain that Germany will soon conquer all of Europe. Pat and Angus, the feisty Scots who live in the castle, vow that not a single grain of earth there will be taken by force. Soon, war is raging and von Eisen becomes a zeppelin commander while Jock, who brought von Eisen to Craigh Loche, becomes a biplane pilot. In a terrible storm, the zeppelin sets out to bomb Scottish targets and Jock takes to the skies to defend his homeland. Jock manages to destroy the zeppelin and von Eisen's body falls to Earth on the grounds of Craigh Loche, where Pat and Angus refuse the dying man's command to bury his body on their land and instead throw him off the edge of a cliff into the sea below.

"Trial By Combat"

Whew! Nice to see George Evans still had it in 1974! This is a terrific story that rewards careful, close reading. His art is the best I've seen in some time and the plotting is perfect, putting the dying German in the hands of the vengeful Scots for a final act of rebellion. "Trial By Combat" is a candidate for my list of best stories of the year!

Peter: Ona's bumping into all sorts of men she knew before the war; makes you realize just what a small war it was. This was a bit of a 'tweeter to me, as if Big Bob were spinning his wheels a bit to s-t-r-e-t-c-h this saga out a couple more issues. Gunner finds Ona but he won't let the other Losers know, so ... what?, he's going to lead them on a wild goose chase trying to find her? Doesn't make much sense to me. "Trial by Combat" was a few pages too long for my tastes but at least it spotlights better art by George, who'd been slipping the last several months. His art here very much resembles that of John Severin. Archie doles out the good news on the letters page that he and Alex Toth (with whom he'd teamed up on the triumphant "Burma Sky" a few months before in OFF #146) have a story coming up set at Midway. Can't wait for that!

Kubert

Our Army at War 270

"Spawn of the Devil"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans

"Lifeless!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: From out of a dense fog comes the latest member of Easy Co.: a soldier named Havok, who feels no remorse when a grenade he throws kills an innocent farmer and child. Nazi soldiers attack and Havok is killed by a grenade blast--or is he? Though he was left for dead, he catches up with Easy Co. a few minutes later, seemingly in good health. Another skirmish ensues and, once again, Havok is killed, this time by a bullet through his helmet. Not long after that, Havok is back, appearing unscathed. Havok is pinned under a beam when a farmhouse is destroyed in battle. He begs Rock to finish him off, but when the farmhouse is engulfed in flames, the men of Easy Co. see a demonic figure rush into the sky holding Havok. Rock tells everyone to forget what they just saw.

"Spawn of the Devil"

At least, I think that's what happened! I guess Weird War Tales must have been selling well enough, despite its uneven quality, to influence Our Army at War. It's hard to understand how George Evans's art can be so uneven in two books released around the same time. The art for "Spawn of the Devil" is certainly below average, though better than what we got from Frank Robbins this month. Were there uncredited inkers helping out? It's hard to believe the folks behind the Grand Comics Database would not have uncovered them, if so.

A spaceman from Earth is exploring the universe, looking for signs of life. He lands on a planet that appears to be "Lifeless!" He encounters an alien spaceman and the duo shoot and kill each other with their ray guns, leaving the home base for both the Earthman and the alien unaware that there is life anywhere but on their own planets.

Ric Estrada will never be the solution to an issue with bad art, since his pages are simplistic and tend toward the Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic. This is an unusually poor entry in Kanigher's Gallery of War series, which could be so much better if drawn by someone like Heath, Severin, or Kubert.

"Lifeless!"

Peter: Trying to slip one of those supernatural sagas into our regular diet of new recruits, Big Bob instead serves up a half-baked pan of gobbledygook that had me scratching my head repeatedly throughout its interminable twelve-page life. What's Kanigher's point? Is there a deep underlying message here I'm not getting? What is the purpose of Havok (subtle!) gunning down innocents? To remind us that war is hell? "Spawn of the Devil" is one dumb Rock tale. "Lifeless!" is an apt title for Big Bob's latest Gallery of War story, a pointless SF saga that proves Kanigher should have kept his excellent series stocked with down-to-Earth war stories rather than jumping on the latest fad. Not a good issue of Our Army.

Next Week...
In the 3rd Issue of the Warren Report...
EC-style battle tales!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 149: June 1974

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

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 26

"The Survivor"
Story by John Albano
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"Jump Into Hell"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"A Time to Die"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan (Chua)

Peter: During the first World War, French Corporal Deauville racks up some pretty astounding numbers as far as German kills go. He's a one-man wrecking machine (and he prefers hand-to-hand combat rather than from afar), but his comrades are deservedly spooked by the man's elan (and queer cackling) during battle. Then, one day during battle, Corporal Dupree has a deserting German in his sights but Deauville prevents the man from firing. It's as if Deauville wanted this particular German to survive. Later that day, that particular German, Corporal Adolf Hitler, muses with a medic on how lucky he is that the French are such poor marksmen.

"The Survivor"

The Hitler twist has been used a few too many times, but "The Survivor" is not that bad despite the obvious silliness (Deauville - oh how subtle you are, John Albano!) and the shorthand needed to fit all this information into six pages. Alfredo Alcala does his job even if there's nothing special to illustrate (give me Alcala werewolf over Alcala Satan any day). Alfredo does double duty this issue and jumps wars to WWII for "Jump Into Hell," a contrived and cliched mess about a band of paratroopers who literally jump into hell when they stumble on a centuries-old Satanic cult that performs human sacrifices for eternal life (I think). Every century (or so the legends say), the town of Germelshausen rises from hell, takes a few pounds of flesh, and then sinks back into hell. So, why bother performing the act if you have to be swallowed back into the pit again? Who knows. At least it looks nice.

"Jump Into Hell"

A year after abandoning his crew to escape his burning plane, Captain James Davis lies in a hospital bed, drifting in and out of a coma. The doctors can hear Davis's mad ramblings about saving his men, but what the docs don't know is that the captain is in a dream-world, trying to go back and correct his fatal mistake. He connects with his men on the "other side" and discovers the men were fated to die the next day in the desert. Now that he's found peace, the captain dies in his hospital bed. "A Time to Die" is yet another cliched Oleck script; it's also maudlin and forgettable. The finale, when one doctor questions whether a man can live in two places at once and another doctor shrugs and empties desert sand from the dead captain's shoe, is about as predictable as they come.

"A Time to Die"

Jack: I knew you would be happy to see two stories by Alcala! In "The Survivor!," Deauville reminded me of a baseball player who takes steroids. You don't really want him on your team until he hits a home run. The Hitler ending was just dumb. "Jump Into Hell" features some nice work by Alcala, especially in a large panel where blank-eyed peasants attack soldiers. The town that reappears every hundred years reminded me of a Satanic Brigadoon. I liked "A Time to Die" the best, even if Chan drew it and not Alcala. The story kept my interest even though the ending with sand in the shoe was strictly from hunger.

Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 180

"The Doomsday Heroes!"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling

"Return"
Story by Gerry Boudreau
Art by Walt Simonson

Peter: Over the Pacific, the Unknown Soldier poses as a pilot and must put his all-around military skills to the test when he's suddenly surrounded by kamikazes aiming for a US battleship. At the moment of truth, the jet's guns jam and US is forced to ram a diving plane, sending both pilots into the drink. US prevents the Japanese pilot from committing harakiri and the two head off in a skimpy life raft to find safer waters. Mines and Great Whites keep the pair busy until they wash up onshore. The two have formed a cautious alliance but, once the duo has landed on a small island, the enemy pilot clobbers our hero and swims out to sea to destroy a crippled aircraft carrier just off-shore. Grabbing hold of a mine, the pilot gets within range of destroying the ship but is eaten by a shark just before completing his mission. The Unknown Soldier swims back to the island to ponder life and wonder why there is war.

"Return"

The Sparling art that had kinda grown on me by our last installment is grating on me with this one. It's really awful. "The Doomsday Heroes!" is the 28th US adventure and, I believe, the first to omit one of those scenes where our hero takes his face off (I'm assuming he's using a new form of latex since he doesn't seem to have the itching problem that gave him away to the Nazis a few issues ago) and shows those obligatory bandages. That gauze must have gotten a bit wet, no? The plot is one that's been used a million times in war comics and movies and this variation adds nothing new. This strip is heading for a slump unless Frank Robbins can find fresh ideas for "the man that no one knows but who is known to everybody."

Gerry Boudreau's "Return" is a sequel to "U.F.M." (from SSWS #170), and it's more of the same ponderous and cliched science fiction but, like its predecessor, it's nicely illustrated by Walt Simonson, and sometimes that's all that matters.

Jack:  As I began to read "The Doomsday Heroes!" I thought it was just a retread of a similar story we saw awhile back in the Sgt. Rock series, but as it went along I got wrapped up in it and found it exciting. My only complaint is that the hero could be anyone and the fact that he's the Unknown Soldier seems meaningless. This is a rare tale where the writing is better than the art. The opposite is true of "Return." The story isn't much but, once again, I'm thrilled to see Walt Simonson's dynamic pages. Too bad all of the men in this future world wear their hair and beards like it's 1974!

Kubert

Our Army at War 269

"A Man Called Rock!
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans

"The Mighty Mosquito"
Story by Ed Herron
Art by Joe Kubert
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #49, September 1957)

"The Sergeant and the Gun!"
Story by Robert Bernstein
Art by Mort Drucker
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #63, November 1958)

"Stop the War--I Want to Get Off!"
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #196, August 1968)

"Death Ship of Three Wars!"
(Reprinted from All-American Men of War #101, February 1964)

"Foxhole Fever!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by John Severin
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #65, January 1958)

"No Loot for the Hellcats!"
(Reprinted from Our Fighting Forces #114, August 1968)

"Horseless!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

"A Man Called Rock!"

Jack: "A Man Called Rock!" leads three replacement soldiers across the edge of a cliff in North Africa when one of the green apples falls onto a ledge below. The other two new men lower Rock down by a rope to rescue the new recruit, but a German plane happens to fly by and its bullets cause a break in the rope, allowing Rock to slide to the foot of the cliff. When he is unable to climb back up, he wanders off and is taken captive by natives, whose chief leads Rock around by means of a rope around his neck. When a Nazi tank approaches the natives' village and starts blasting away, Rock blows up the tank and saves the chief. Fortunately, Easy Co. locates Rock at this point and the dreadful tale comes to an end.

"The Mighty Mosquito"

When I saw the Kubert cover to this issue, I got excited and thought it looked so appealing that I would buy it today! I love the DC 100-page format. However, the first story is not a good one. I can set aside allowances for changing times, but the idea of a tribe of black villagers in North Africa is hard to accept. Even more surprising, for a 1974 comic story, is the caption where Rock thinks of the villagers as "hairy-lookin' monkeys." This is the same company that published so many stories on race relations in the late '60s and early '70s! Kanigher's script must have been bare bones, because many panels are free of captions or dialogue. The story is uninvolving and borders on offensive.

Not much better is "The Mighty Mosquito," a reprint from 1957 with typically strong Kubert art but also typically cornball writing by Ed Herron. The title craft is a small PT boat that finds itself in the middle of a battle with much larger planes and ships. Of course, in the end, it's the little boat that saves the day and earns the title moniker.

"The Sergeant and the Gun!"

When a Soviet MiG destroys the tractor that pulls a big gun, a lone sergeant must enlist the aid of locals on the move to transport the gun to its destination. Along the way, he has to use his wits and some armaments to destroy any enemy that stands in the way. Leave it to Mort Drucker to deliver the best story so far in this big, fat issue, and it's a reprint from 1958! Drucker's realistic art is so detailed and impressive that I found myself turning the pages in this six-pager to see what happens next. The yellow-skinned locals and the Soviet MiG make me peg this story as happening in the Korean War, though time and place are never mentioned.

We then get a reprint of the classic Rock story, "Stop the War--I Want to Get Off!" from 1968, followed by "Death Ship of Three Wars!," a Johnny Cloud reprint from 1964 that Peter and I had very different reactions to when we wrote about it in 2015. Another former EC artist, John Severin, contributes "Foxhole Fever!," a story new to us because it was first published in 1958, before the 1959 start date for issues covered in our War Comics blog. A soldier named Al is an expert at digging foxholes, but when he finds himself in combat he has to resort to a series of makeshift shelters instead of digging the real thing.

"Horseless!"

"No Loot for the Hellcats!" follows, a '68 story about Hunter's Hellcats featuring some nice work by Russ Health, before the issue wraps up with another new story, "Horseless!," by the team of Bob Kanigher and Ric Estrada. After the cavalry wipes out an Indian village, a lone brave follows them and steals their horses. They track him and find that he has ridden into a dead end canyon. The cavalrymen can't climb the slope after him at night in the snow, so they decide to wait till morning. In the morning, the brave is still alive, having skinned a horse and worn its skin to keep warm, while the cavalrymen are dead from the freezing temperatures overnight. The title has a double meaning, since the cavalrymen are both "horseless" in the sense of having no horses to ride, and "horseless" in the sense of not having a warm horse hide to wrap around themselves to avoid a frozen death. The story is effective but Estrada's childish art pales next to the likes of Drucker, Kubert, and Heath.

Peter: I disliked Robert Kanigher's script and George Evans's art for "A Man Called Rock!" immensely. Where does Rock find the time to be in all these different places and training so many green recruits and why would he be separated from the rest of Easy? Big Bob's monstrous monthly workload obviously contributed to the cut-and-pasting from past scripts and the silliness thrown in to ramp up the drama (doubtful the Nazis would waste firepower on a bunch of harmless natives and then sit tight inside their tin can while Rock set them ablaze). Best just to forget this sub-par Sgt. Rock and hope for better out of both Kanigher and Evans next issue. Much better is "Horseless!," another grim "Big Bob's Gallery of War" entry, with passable art by Estrada. Yes, I'd rather this was illustrated by John Severin, but there aren't a lot of close-ups of human faces so Ric's art doesn't grate.

The three reprints offer up a lot of nice artwork from Kubert, Drucker, and Severin, along with the patented catch phrases and impossible GI odds and situations that 1950s' DC War titles excelled in. Any of the three are certainly preferable to the main event this issue.

Kubert

G.I. Combat 171

"The Man Who Killed Jeb Stuart"
Story by John David Warner
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Sword of Blood!"
Story by John David Warner
Art by Ric Estrada

Peter: While rumbling through Italy, the boys of the Jeb Stuart come across a kid named Rod Carson, who's escaped from the decimated town of Carola. He begs the crew to take him to the village so that they can save the men who are trapped by the Germans. After getting the GI aboard, the Haunted Tank heads for Carola, but something about Carson is nagging at Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) and that same nagging extends to the ghost who "protects" the Haunted Tank. The General materializes to his descendant and insists the Jeb should stay clear of Carola and, further, should drop Carson off on the side of the road and leave him be. Jeb (the younger) explains that they can't shirk their duty and the General disappears in a funky vapor. Later, the General appears before Carson and tries to talk sense into him as well, but to no avail. Just then, a sniper cuts down Carson and the crew assumes he's dead, so they roll into Carola to blow the hell out of some Nazi bastards. Carson shows up in the nick of time to save Jeb from eating German shrapnel and Carson's comrades are saved. The General makes another appearance to confirm to the younger Stuart that Carson is the descendant of "The Man Who Killed Jeb Stuart."

"The Man Who Killed Jeb Stuart"

There's a jumble of confusing war action to start off this very-average war tale and Glanzman's art is... well, Glanzman's art, but one aspect of the script interested me and that's the increased "screen time" of our favorite Civil War General. There's quite a bit of interaction with Dead Jeb, but writer John David Warner never explains why Carson is not startled by the appearance of a ghost on a horse. It's almost as though Carson's been waiting for this day. Does his descendant appear to him as well? Unfortunately, Warner doesn't explore these avenues and the whole mess ends up very puzzling. Warner is also responsible for the back-up, "Sword of Blood!," a sequel to "Swords at Dawn" (from GIC #159). I really liked the earlier chapter and this one, about Samurai Zenkiyata (the quickest blade in the East), and his campaign to avenge the murder of his master, Mukaido, is equally involving. Warner keeps the action moving and throws in a couple of interesting twists but I just cannot get on the Ric Estrada train. His art is very cartoony and the subject matter requires something a little more... maybe, Severin-ish.

"Sword of Blood!"

Jack: Another example of an issue where the writing is better than the art, G.I. Combat 171 is hobbled by more sub-par work by Sam Glanzman and Ric Estrada. Twenty-one year old John David Warner brings some fresh ideas to what has become a stale comic book. The increased involvement of the ghost in the first story is welcome, as is the small history lesson. The second story reflects the kung fu craze that was in full swing at the time.

**************************************************************************

CIRCULATION, WE GOT CIRCULATION!

Here's how our favorite war titles did in 1973 (Weird War Tales was still too young to qualify and we won't see sales figures for that title until 1975). We're suckers for lots of trivial data, so we've included the sales reports for the three previous years as well. After a growth spurt in 1972, sales of DC war titles are down across the board (in the case of G.I. Combat, drastically so), but then so were sales of just about all comics titles.

                                                        1973         1972         1971              1970         
G.I. Combat                                    161,702    170,557    167,841         178,363     
Our Army at War                            163,221    165,021    161,881         171,510     
Our Fighting Forces                       147,968    156,524    164,142         139,770     
Star Spangled War Stories              144,292    154,716    145,869         136,204

Amazing Spider-Man                     273,204     288,379    307,550        322,195
Batman                                           200,574     185,283    244,488        293,897
Superman                                       240,558     252,317    325,618        329,925

Next Week...
This is what happens when you
read too many comic books every week!