Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 179: December 1976--The Final Battle!

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

Kubert

G.I. Combat 197

"Battle Ark"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Sam Glanzman

"No Grave for a Spy"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Peter: Jeb receives a garbled message from command, something about a lamb at Lamaux, then the ghostly General gives Jeb an even more cryptic message about saving the lamb from the tiger. As the poor commander is digesting all these semi-messages, the tank approaches a small boy standing in the snow, holding a lamb, asking for a ride to Lamaux. An epiphany hits Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) like a bag of stale French pastries! The tank picks up the boy and rolls on. Very soon, they run across a young girl standing in the snow, holding what appears to be a blanketed child, asking for a ride to Lamaux. The "Battle Ark" stops, picks up the girl, and rolls on.

"Battle Ark"

Reaching Lamaux, they discover that the town is in ruins and guarded by a German Tiger. More light bulbs appear over Jeb's penciled skull. While our favorite tank commander is pondering their significance, the Tiger opens fire, but our boys are too smart and, through a little trickery, they send the Tiger to tank heaven. The pretty young girl unwraps her bundle, revealing a stained glass lamb for the church window. Another mission accomplished for the Haunted Taxi.

"No Grave for a Spy"

Sad that that would be my last impression of Bob Kanigher's mighty Haunted Tank and its crew but, of course, any originality, suspense, or character development was thrown by the wayside years before. The Sam Glanzman run has been particularly brutal but, going over my notes, the series as a whole never showed much growth outside of the core principle: a ghost that haunts a tank. That General has been disposable 90% of the time anyway (the only example to the contrary I can think of, off the top of my head, would be the "Alaric" arc in #161-162, where the General took part in the battle), so most of these scripts could be straight-ahead war stories. We covered 108 Haunted Tank stories and the series would continue until G.I. Combat was discontinued in March 1987 (288 issues!). The "OSS" back-up, "No Grave for a Spy," is about an undercover agent searching for Rommel's fuel cache in the blazing desert. It's an exciting little thriller with decent art by Estrada. The "OSS" series would, likewise, continue for years in the title.

Jack: As usual, the best thing about this issue of G.I. Combat is Joe Kubert's cover. The Haunted Tank story is just a retread of what we've read dozens of times before, with Sam Glanzman art that barely seems professional. This was the worst continuing series we had to suffer through. I didn't think the backup story was exciting and I won't miss Ric Estrada's art, though it's better than Glanzman's. The coming attractions for issue 200 say there will be a crossover with Sgt. Rock and the Losers. I'll have to imagine how that went!

Kubert

Our Army at War 299

"Three Soldiers"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"Death Salute"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: "Three Soldiers" have just joined Easy Co., and their nicknames are Rabbit, Heavy, and Stevedore. Rabbit is tall, thin, and nervous, while Heavy is short, fat, and apprehensive. Only the muscular Stevedore seems ready for action. Easy Co. is shelled and the three new men are buried alive in rubble; when they are dug out, only Stevedore seems unshaken.

Bulldozer helps Rabbit while Jackie Johnson helps Heavy. A surprise attack by a German machine gun nest in some woods causes Rock to take the lead and fight back, but who is behind him supplying much-needed cover fire? It's Rabbit, who suddenly found his courage when he saw Rock in danger. Similar heroics issue from Heavy when Rock is injured during a battle at a bridge over the Rhone. Finally, it's Stevedore's turn, but he freezes up during a fight with a Nazi tank and Rock saves him, explaining after the smoke clears that each man reacts to trauma differently, and Stevedore's reaction to being buried alive took time to manifest itself.

"Three Soldiers"

As our last Sgt. Rock story, "Three Soldiers" is a pretty good one. In it, Kanigher demonstrates that he knows how to set up a situation and play it out as expected. I was hoping that he wouldn't go down the obvious path of having Stevedore be the one who wasn't able to fight when the chips were down but, at this stage in Big Bob's extremely long career of writing comics, I guess surprises may have been behind him. Still, it's a tale well told and the character of Rock, along with his regular supporting cast, continues to make this series better than anything we're seeing from the Haunted Tank.

A young man whose father was killed in a WWI air battle grows up dreaming of avenging his Pop, so when he becomes a fighter pilot in WWII and visits an outdoor museum of WWI planes, he has a strange experience. When he climbs into a Spad and takes flight, is it a dream? When a Fokker Triplane confronts him and he battles it, is he imagining things? When his gun jams and he faces certain death, what the heck is going on? In the end, he seems to be flying alone in the sky, still alive, with no sign of the enemy ace. Yet his recurring nightmare will now end.

Stories about WWI air battles have often been the highlight of our journey through the DC War Comics, but "Death Salute" is not one of them, mainly due to the overly cartoony art of Ric Estrada. Kanigher's Gallery of War stories have been up and down, sometimes providing much-needed adult relief from the more childish lead stories in the comics, but Estrada is no George Evans and his depictions of WWI planes are not impressive.

"Death Salute"

Peter: Our last Rock to ponder on this voyage is, sadly, a predictable one. The minute you meet two scared chickens and a pompous bully, you know who's going to come out on top, in Kanigher's world, by the end of the story. Yeah, it's as textbook as Kanigher ever got, but it still has a bit of charm to it and Frank Redondo edges more and more toward a Heath influence rather than Kubert. To be totally honest, I couldn't make heads or tails of "Death Salute." So, the kid loses his nightmare because the ace who slew his father in battle gives him a pass in his dream? Okay. An odd "Gallery of War," then.

Our Army at War changed its title to Sgt. Rock with #302 and had a long and healthy life, outlasting all the other war titles. It was finally put to rest with #422 in July 1988 (the final issue was penciled by Joe Kubert and inked by his son Adam!). Jack and I dissected 207 Rock stories, if my tally is correct. Rock continues to be a major player in the DC Universe, resurfacing now and then in some mini-series (Kubert's The Prophecy from 2006) or guest appearance. Robert Kanigher died in 2002; though I poked and prodded Big Bob all during our journey, I stand in awe at the body of work he produced. Thousands and thousands of scripts for characters such as Wonder Woman and the Flash and, of course, for the war line. You might say he was the Stan Lee of War Comics.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 170

"A Bullet for the General"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans

"Marines Are Born Not Made"
Story by Murray Boltinoff
Art by E.R. Cruz

Jack: The Chinese Army is spending too much time chasing a murderous, looting warlord named General Lin, so they don't have enough manpower to go after the Japanese Army. The Losers are assigned the task of finding and executing General Lin! Ona wants to help, but she is told that it's no place for a girl and she must stay behind.

The Losers are flown into China, where they meet up with Captain Yang, a secret agent from General Lin's staff, who will help them locate the general. Moving through the snowy landscape on horseback, the Losers witness the atrocity of men, women, and children who rebelled against General Lin and were murdered on the spot. When the Losers finally reach the general's camp, they are shocked to discover that he is a woman and the sister of Captain Yang! None of the Losers can bring themselves to execute a girl, but when Lin tries to escape, "A Bullet for the General" is conveniently provided by the fearless and merciless Ona, who stowed away on the plane and who has no qualms about shooting and killing a female.

"A Bullet for the General"

Our last Losers story is probably the best thing we'll read this month, mainly because of George Evans's dynamic art. Kanigher's script includes sexism (Ona is left behind and the men can't shoot the female general), racism (the usual nonsense about Japs and chop suey), and just plain stupidity (if they had just tied up General Lin, they could have brought her in with no problem). Still, it's a fun story and a good sendoff for a series that reached some real highs under Severin and some real lows under Kirby.

In Boot Camp, Sarge is frustrated by a new recruit who can't seem to learn to shoot and always misses the target. Proclaiming that "Marines are Born Not Made," Sarge tells the man he'll never succeed. When they ship out, Sarge is disconcerted to see that the man has been assigned to his battalion, but when they hit the beach at Saipan, the same man saves Sarge's life in an unexpected way: he thinks Sarge is an enemy soldier and takes a shot at him, but his aim is so poor that he mistakenly hits a real enemy soldier who was sneaking up behind Sarge!

E.R. Cruz's art elevates this four-page quickie above the disposable level into an amusing story where Sarge learns a lesson.

"Marines are Born Not Made"

Peter: The second that Ona is put in her place as a weak woman, you know who's going to ride to the Losers' rescue. But the dame's explanation of how she came to be in the right place at the right time doesn't float for me. Just another silly coincidence in this series, which we leave now after having lived through 48 installments, both very good (the Severin run) and very bad (take a bow, King Kirby). As with the Haunted Tank, I'm not sure this series ever lived up to its potential but then, at times, it was surely better than the Gunner and Sarge strip that preceded it. Speaking of Sarge, I mistakenly believed that "Marines Are Born Not Made" was our first glance at the origin of the Gunner and Sarge team but, alas, that was not to be. OFF will see only 11 more issues (all performed by the same Kanigher-Evans team) before feeling the ax in October 1978. In hindsight, I think the most interesting use of the Losers as a team was by Darwyn Cooke in The New Frontier, an "alternative history of the DC Universe," wherein the team is sent to the War That Time Forgot island on a top-secret mission. In Cooke's vision, the entire squad is wiped out by dinosaurs.

Jack Sparling & Vince Colletta

Weird War Tales 49

"The Face of the Enemy"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"A Rite to Die!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ricardo Villamonte

"The Day After Doomsday!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Steve Ditko & Vince Colletta

"Mark of the Conqueror"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan & Bill Draut

Peter: In a remote German village, a small platoon of soldiers get the word that the war is over. They round up surrendering Nazis but the town's burgermeister refuses to surrender and insists the Germans will fight until they're dead. At that moment, a grenade is hurled at the soldiers and the captain is wounded. One of the G.I.s, Moore, a soldier who has never killed, takes chase, hoping the assailant will give up peacefully. Alas, the German fires on Moore and the G.I. is forced to kill him. Upon inspection, Moore finds that the Nazi is a young boy. Not only have we seen the plot of "The Face of the Enemy" umpteen times (especially in the Sgt. Rock strip), but we also must question what's so weird about a young Nazi? Sick, I'll admit, but not weird or supernatural.

"The Face of the Enemy"

In "A Rite to Die!" a murderous Nazi seeks shelter in a church, only to find it harbors priests of the black arts. Well, we should be happy they weren't vampires, right? A young hippie hears a rock band playing on "The Day After Doomsday!" How can that be, since he's the last man left on Earth? Well, it turns out the rock band is a trio of guitar-strumming mutants giving off radioactivity and the hippie dies from the exposure. No, seriously. Do you see the smile creeping across my face as I realize this is the last Day After Doomsday I ever have to read?  In a distant future (or on another planet), a dictator wipes out all rebels in hopes he can hand his rule to his son one day. "Mark of the Conqueror" is mind-numbingly dumb. It's never clear whether this is our future or not, but Oleck was obviously riffing on the Planet of the Apes films here, as this world is ruled by gorillas. There's a twist at the end but it's a cheat, as most of the information is withheld from us until the moment of the "shock."

An awful issue to complete our look at Weird War Tales, but then if I survey my notes, I can tell you that of the 139 stories published in WWT that I reviewed, only 39 received a 2.5-3.5 rating (none received the full four stars) so it was, sadly, a very average issue. WWT would see another 75 issues published, with the final number appearing in June 1983. The title continued its anthology format until #93, when a series known as the Creature Commandos ran sporadically through to the final issue. Now a bit of a cult oddity, the CC was a G.I.-style outfit made up of a werewolf, a vampire, a Frankenstein-like monster, a Gorgon, and the human Lt. Shrieve. Though I'm bound to regret it, I can see returning someday to cover the feature, possibly for the new print bare bones.

Jack: And that ends our mission! The last issue of Weird War Tales we read is suitably awful, from the predictable end to "The Face of the Enemy" all the way to the predictable end to "Mark of the Conqueror." Duranona's art in the first story is decent, but Ditko's work on the two-pager is a letdown. It's a toss-up as to whether this comic or the Haunted Tank series was worse at this point. I'd have to hand the title to the Haunted Tank, since it's just so bad, issue after issue, while a fairly good story sneaks into WWT every now and then.

THE BEST OF 1976

PETER

Best Script: Robert Kanigher, "The Execution" (Blitzkrieg 3)

Best Art: Gerry Talaoc, "The Henschel Gambit" (Star Spangled War Stories 197)

Best All-Around Story: "The Execution"

Worst Script: "The Gunner is a Gorilla" (G.I. Combat 189)

Worst Art: Literally anything by Sam Glanzman

Worst All-Around Story: "The Gunner is a Gorilla"

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "The Execution" 

  2 "Target for Tonight--Me" (G.I. Combat 192)

  3 "The Henschel Gambit" (Star Spangled War Stories 197)

  4 "Shooting Star" (Star Spangled War Stories 200)

  5 "The Enemy" (Blitzkrieg 1)

JACK 

Best Script: "The Henschel Gambit" by David Michelinie

Best Art: "The Line" by Frank Redondo and Joe Kubert (Our Army at War 289)

Best All-Around Story: "The Line" by Robert Kanigher, Frank Redondo, and Joe Kubert

Worst Script: "The War That Time Forgot" by Robert Kanigher (G.I. Combat 195)

Worst Art: "The Gunner is a Gorilla" by Sam Glanzman

Worst All-Around Story: "The Blitzkrieg Brain!" (G.I. Combat 194)

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "The Line"

  2 "The Rowboat Fleet" (Our Fighting Forces 165)

  3 "The Henschel Gambit"

  4 "Death Ride" (Star Spangled War Stories 200)

  5 "The Cure" (Star Spangled War Stories 202)

THE TEN BEST DC WAR STORIES 1959-1976

Peter: You might say, how the heck could you pull ten stories out of the more than 1500 we dissected over the last seven years (over 700 issues reviewed--you try that!) but, by golly, we did it! What I took away from this long journey is that the highs were really high but the lows were pretty low. There was only a small percentage of the DC war output that was egregiously awful, so the revelations of Kubert, Heath, and Talaoc are what I will remember.

Jack: What struck me in looking back over 17 years of DC War Comics was the precipitous decline in quality as the '70s wore on. Losing Kubert as a regular contributor to the inside of the books was a devastating blow; losing Heath also hurt. Replacing them with the likes of Sam Glanzman just didn't cut it. The consistently high level of quality in the '60s was impressive. Sure, there were a lot of bad stories, but there were a lot of good ones too and more than a few great ones. The late '60s were probably the most creative period, in my opinion.

PETER

Favorite All-Time Cover (Peter)

  1 "Killer of the Skies" (Showcase 57, August 1965)

  2 "Death Whispers... Death Screams" (Star Spangled 139, July 1968)

  3 "The Only Survivor" (Our Fighting Forces 87, October 1964)

  4 "Enemy Ace" (Our Army at War 151, February 1965) 

  5 "Battle Window" (G.I. Combat 102, November 1963)

  6 "The Slayers and the Slain" (Star Spangled 138, May 1968)

  7 "Burma Sky" (Our Fighting Forces 146, January 1974)

  8 "Danger Sniper" (G.I. Combat 89, September 1961)

  9 "Vengeance is a Harpy" (Star Spangled 142, January 1969)

10 "Head Count" (Our Army at War 233, June 1971)

Best Writer: Robert Kanigher
Best Artist: Russ Heath

JACK

Favorite All-Time Cover (Jack)

  1 "End of Easy!" (Our Army at War 101, December 1960)
  2 "Easy's Had It" (Our Army at War 103, February 1961)

  3 "Dogtag Hero" (Our Fighting Forces 67, April 1962)

  4 "Sergeants Aren't Born--!" (Showcase 45, August 1963)

  5 "Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!" (The Brave and the Bold 52, March 1964)

  6 "What's the Color of Your Blood?" (Our Army at War 160, November 1965)

  7 "A Penny for Jackie Johnson" (Our Army at War 179, April 1967)

  8 "Death Whispers--Death Screams"

  9 "Vengeance is a Harpy!"

 10 "3 Graves to Home!" (Star Spangled War Stories 150, May 1970)

Best Writer: Robert Kanigher
Best Artist: Joe Kubert

Next Week...
Corben Magic
and the Bruce Jones era begins!

And in Two Weeks...
After a Seven-Year Hiatus
Jack and Peter revisit the Dark Knight!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 178: November 1976

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

Kubert

Our Army at War 298

"Return to Chartres"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"Not Granted!"
Story & Art by Sam Glanzman

Jack: Easy Co. survives a beach landing on the French coast and an immediate climb up a sheer rock face, despite being under fire by Nazis. Resting at the top of the cliff, a new redheaded kid in Rock's company pulls out pictures of French landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Chartres Cathedral, and remarks that his father fought in WWI and now he wants to see the places he heard about from his Dad.

Easy Co. clears a Nazi ambush from some hedgerows and marches toward Paris, but when they are re-routed to the southwest, the new soldier is disappointed until they see the spires of Chartres Cathedral in the rainy mist. A Nazi tank appears out of nowhere and ambushes Easy Co.; the tank is defeated but the young soldier is killed saving Rock from a shell. Rock carries his dead body into the cathedral, where the newly-emerged sun shines through the stained-glass windows the soldier had so wanted to see.

"Return to Chartres"

I was surprisingly moved by "Return to Chartres," in which Kanigher uses his old standby trope of the new recruit who gets killed to create a story that, in the end, creates some real pathos. Frank Redondo's art has never been better on this strip, and the last page is especially good, with Rock carrying the young man through the rain and ending up inside the beautiful church.

Ships and planes battle fiercely at Okinawa during WWII. On board an American ship, a seaman wonders what tomorrow will bring. When his ship is sent to Okinawa, he learns only too well that the one thing for which he wishes most is tomorrow!

Sam Glanzman manages to wrest a poignant ending out of yet another dull, four-page story; it's not clear whether the ship involved is the U.S.S. Stevens, but the sentiment is universal. There are some particularly bad panels where the opposing forces are represented by giant snakes fighting each other in a confined space.

"Not Granted!"

Peter: Well, I knew the "green kid who wins Rock's heart and then gets killed" story was coming up sooner or later. Here it is, complete with maudlin finale. I had to wonder what made the kid sense there was going to be a shell dropped right where Rock was standing but then I remembered Rock had that eerie sixth sense earlier in the story when he fired into that hedge full of Nazis. Never mind, these G.I.s just know there's something up. Sam Glanzman reminds us once again, with "Not Granted!" that he couldn't draw worth a darn but, now and then, he could churn out a poignant thriller.

Kubert

G.I. Combat 196

"Dead Man Patrol"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Operation Slaughterhouse"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Fred Carrillo

Peter: With no rest since their super-secret mission to Iwo Jima (via the island that time forgot--seen last issue), the crew of the Jeb Stuart are tasked with protecting the fuel dump that Patton's tank corps is racing to even as we speak. First off, they're involved in a horrendous battle wherein the entire Blue Patrol tank squad is destroyed. With no time to bury the dead, Jeb has the men lash the corpses to the tanks and they roll off. Of course, the Ratzis are running low on fuel, so they'd like to get their strudel-contaminated mitts on that fuel as well. Hoping the dead G.I.s will fool the enemy into thinking the good guys outnumber the bad, Jeb gets the Haunted Tank to the fuel site just as Panzer leader Ernst Baumer (he of the nasty eye patch) arrives. That means only the Haunted Tank Mach IV stands between Baumer and his complete domination over General Patton. Sensing that Patton won't make it up the hill in time, Jeb has the boys roll the fuel drums down the hill to the General. Refueled, Patton reigns fire down upon the enemy.

"Dead Men Patrol"

Another month, another exhilarating adventure starring the most overworked tank crew in the army. The plot device of using the dead as subterfuge is a grim but effective one and almost, just almost, saves "Dead Man Patrol" from being creaky and boring. The continuing Zelig-esque portrayal of the Haunted Tank and its crew is laughable. Somehow, at some point in this series, you just know it'll be revealed ("the true secret unleashed at last!") that Jeb and Rick and Gus and Slim were in that underground bunker with Adolf. Oh, and I've been meaning to ask: why does Big Bob all of a sudden, after all these years, decide 1976 was the time to have the Germans speak in their own dialect and run translation captions at the bottom of each panel? An example runs below.

A frogman must rely on a friendly dolphin to help him place a high explosive on a German battleship hiding in a Norway fjord. "Operation Slaughterhouse," this issue's "OSS" episode, seems to indicate a trend in Big Bob's writing formula, alternating between dark and fluffy. "Slaughterhouse" isn't bad, Flipper notwithstanding; it's reminiscent of the 1950s' DC war strips Bob Haney was pumping out for the likes of Mort Drucker and Russ Heath.

Danke*
("Dead Man Patrol")

Jack: Seeing the Haunted Tank fly the Confederate Battle Flag certainly has different reverberations in 2020 than it did in 1976! I don't know why Jeb bothered to lash the dead bodies to the tanks to try to fool the Germans; the Nazi commander wasn't fooled for a second. At least Kanigher and Glanzman have some slight success this time around distinguishing one member of the Haunted Tank from another, though not for a moment did I think Rick was in danger of dying. The backup also reminded me of the backups from days of yore, and it's nice to see a frogman tale--we haven't had one of those in quite some time.

Sparling & Colletta

Star Spangled War Stories 202

"The Cure"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Peter: The Unknown Soldier's latest mission is a doozy: Allied and Enemy alike are dying at the front from a vicious new strain of Typhus and the only serum to counteract the virus was in a plane that crashed behind enemy lines. The Soldier must impersonate a Nazi soldier to infiltrate the German hospital where the serum has likely landed. But do the Germans actually have the vial that holds "The Cure?"

Our last look at the Unknown Soldier on this long journey is in a well-told and (as usual) amazingly-penciled tale with several satisfying twists and turns. I like that the Soldier displays human qualities that remind us he's no superhero; he's a bit arrogant and egotistical when dealing with a doctor who questions why one lone soldier is heading into this important retrieval mission rather than a whole squadron.

That was the chief magic David Michelinie and Gerry Talaoc brought to the Unknown Soldier during their all-too-brief run on the title (the following issue would be the team's finale), taking a character that was going, literally, nowhere, and elevating the title into the "essential" ranks. For the most part, the plotting was tight, the dialogue crisp and real, and the revelations along the way seemed to mold the person behind the makeup.

As noted, this was the final Michelinie/Talaoc issue, with Joe Orlando handing over the duties to Bob Haney and Dick Ayers (with Talaoc inking) with #204. Star Spangled War Stories ended existence with #204 and was re-titled The Unknown Soldier. But for a handful of fill-in issues, the Haney/Ayers/Talaoc run lasted until the final issue, #268, in October 1982.

Jack: A fitting conclusion to our review of a great series, "The Cure" is a full-length story that has all of the strengths we've come to appreciate about these stories. The doctor is named "Keno Rosa," which is surely a nod to the then-popular fan artist (Keno) Don Rosa, who later became a pro artist on the Disney Duck series. There's a nice bit where the Unknown Soldier throws a scalpel at a skeleton and hits it in the eye socket; this is followed up later on when US throws a poker and appears to hit a Nazi soldier in the eye, though the result is hidden in shadow. US later breaks a Nazi soldier's neck with a crutch. This ended up being the best series of the '70s and I'll miss it.

Next Week...
Is The Dark Age over?

And in two weeks...
After seven years
the curtain closes!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 177: October 1976

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

Kubert

Our Army at War 297

"Percentages"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"The Wild Piper"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: A famous general visits the front lines and lays out his plan to destroy the enemy stronghold atop Monte Inferno in what he calls Operation Eagle's Nest. He blithely rattles off the "Percentages" of casualties he expects the army to suffer and, soon enough, the deaths begin to mount as Rock, Easy Co., and a line of tanks cross a river and are dive-bombed by enemy planes. The next day, more soldiers die as Rock and Co. approach their objective. Sgt. Rock keeps collecting the dog tags of dead soldiers until one of his men discovers a tunnel that leads into Monte Inferno. Inside, the U.S. soldiers find a hidden ammo dump and destroy it with some well-thrown grenades. When Rock again meets the general, he asks how the senior officer can reconcile all of the soldiers' deaths with the result of having met his objective.

The problem with a story like "Percentages" is that, each time we are introduced to a new character, we know he's going to die. Oddly enough, the Easy Co. regulars seem nowhere to be found. Instead, we get:

• a nameless lieutenant in a tank who is killed just as he is about to bite into his wife's apple pie;
• a lanky soldier named Stretch who is killed by an incoming shell;
• two brothers named Frankie and Johnny who die together right after Rock says he'll send one of them home;
• a Floridian soldier named Tampa who is killed in the destruction of the hidden ammo dump.

"Percentages"

The upshot of all of this carnage is that these soldiers do just become "Percentages," men we've not gotten to know who are set up just to be knocked over like human bowling pins.

"The Wild Piper"

As a boy, Scottish lad Jaimie McTavish is told by his Pa that he must practice those bagpipes so that some day he can lead men into battle like all of his ancestors. Jaimie practices as he ages but the darn things make such a racket that other soldiers run for cover when he plays. During WWII, Jaimie finds himself riding in a bomber jet when a fierce air battle erupts. It's touch and go for the good guys, but we know they'll make it, since there's "The Wild Piper," sitting in the back of the plane, playing those bagpipes and piping his men back home.

Did we ever doubt that those bagpipes would be pulled out at the end of the story? Ric Estrada's work on air battles and planes surely did not make George Evans lose any sleep, and the story meanders along for six pages before we get to see Jaimie with his pipes in an anti-climactic final panel. Kanigher sure loved his fish out of water stories, didn't he? The whole point of this one is to figure out how to get the bagpipes going in an air battle.

Peter: "Percentages" is a weary message-story that pounds its message into us over and over. The constant reminder of the General (Patton?) and his stick-pin board are tiring. Still nothing but kudos from me on Redondo's art; if we can't have Heath or Kubert, let's keep this guy on the Rock. "The Wild Piper" wasn't one of Big Bob's best "Gallery of War"s either, but that may be due to my fondness for his darker fables. This one's definitely on the lighter side.

Kubert

Blitzkrieg 5

"The Raid"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Lee Elias

"The Devil Waits"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: Ludwig, Hugo, and Franz, our favorite trio of Nazis, relax on a road in Occupied France when word comes down that Allied paratroopers are attacking headquarters! Trucks of soldiers head for HQ but are attacked by elderly French soldiers left over from WWI. Hugo and Ludwig brutally machine-gun the old men, ignoring Franz's criticism of their actions.

The trio survive an attack by American fighter planes and march on toward HQ past the corpses of fellow soldiers. As they near their destination, they see American paratroopers being blown off course and into the woods and give chase. The Nazis wipe out the Americans with a combination of machine gun fire and flamethrowers, but when they come to a bridge held by Allied soldiers, the Nazi trio are ordered to dive underneath it and set mines to blow it up. This mission is a success and, when the Nazis reach the town where HQ is located, they methodically shoot and kill every American soldier they see. Satisfied at their work and certain any invasion of France is doomed to failure, they rest on their laurels and remark on the date: June 6, 1944. Little do they know what is taking place on the beaches of Normandy.

"The Raid"

I will miss Hugo, Franz, and Ludwig, now that Blitzkrieg has been canceled! "The Raid" doesn't have much of the sensitive portrait of the enemy that marks Kanigher's best work in earlier issues of this series, but it's still refreshing to see the war from the enemy's point of view. I especially like the art by Lee Elias, who (in spots) reminds me of what Frank Robbins could've been had he not been so outlandish with some of his poses.

It's 318 B.C., and when Vertix, the Goth chieftain, is killed in battle, his son, Maric, is given his father's sword and told that, if he can spend a night in the forest, he will be qualified to lead his people. Darkness falls and he fights off a pack of wolves, falling into a hole that leads to a subterranean chamber. Beckoned by a muscular woman in a fur tunic (I kid you not), he follows her and finds a tribe of hungry prehistoric men who look upon him as their next meal. Maric fights the men off and escapes back across a stone bridge that he knocks down, leading the prehistoric men to fall to their doom. Successfully returning from the forest, Maric is hailed as the new chieftain of the Goths.

"The Devil Waits"

I don't know why this story is called "The Devil Waits," but I can say for certain that Ric Estrada is one of the few comic artists who can draw a scantily-clad female and make her look like a male wrestler rather than Vampirella. The whole story is kind of silly and I wonder why Bob Kanigher felt compelled to tell a story of pre-Christian era Goths.

Peter: Blitzkrieg ends its five-issue run with its weakest package. Like last issue's "The Souvenir," "The Raid" feels like something we've seen several times before. The back-up, "The Devil Waits," doesn't even fall into the structure of the title; this is not a story told from the perspective of the enemy. It's just weak sword-and-sorcery. In the letters page, reader Bob Robinson criticizes Bob Kanigher for claiming this title would make the enemy seem "human" and missing the mark. While I think the title overall is a strong one, I do see Robinson's point. Take "The Tourists" from last issue, for example, or Ludwig from "The Raid." These are monsters, seemingly devoid of soul or compassion. Still, I give Big Bob high praise for attempting to present something different to the boys and girls of 1976; evidently, the fans wanted more Haunted Taxi stories instead.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 169

"Welcome Home--And Die!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans

"Sign in the Sky"
Story by Murray Boltinoff
Art. by E.R. Cruz

Jack: The Losers parachute into Germany with Professor Koenig and his daughter Ursula, avoiding Nazis on the way to returning the duo to Berlin. Captain Storm pilots a boat through enemy fire, allowing the other Losers and their charges to leap into the Elbe River and escape. Climbing out of the river and onto dry land, the Losers, the professor, and Ursula find an abandoned hay truck and head for Berlin.

Johnny Cloud drives the truck right through a Nazi roadblock while Gunner and Sarge jump off of the back and disappear. Cloud thinks back to when the Losers were assigned to this mission; the reason the professor and Ursula must return to Berlin is because a blueprint for a deadly missile is hidden in his house. If the Nazis get hold of it, devastation will follow across the globe! Cloud, the professor, and Ursula reach the professor's house, only to find it leveled. They search through the rubble and find the blueprint, but suddenly Nazis appear and shoot, killing the professor and wounding Cloud.

That is some really red skin!
("Welcome Home--And Die!")

Luckily, the other three Losers show up just in time and gun down the Nazis. Cloud commandeers a Nazi plane and the Losers take to the sky with Ursula, where they hook up with Allied jets and are on their way to safety.

"Welcome Home--And Die!" is twelve pages of almost non-stop action, yet it all seems a bit cliched. For some reason, the colorist decided to make Johnny Cloud redder than ever, which is jarring. I like the way Kanigher uses the skills of Captain Storm and Johnny Cloud to help with the escape; Storm pilots a boat and Cloud pilots a plane. Gunner and Sarge do what they do best--shoot Nazis! George Evans can always be counted on for art that is adequate, if nothing special, at this point in his career, and the characters in his stories always seem to end up in a plane!

Johnny Cloud and his squadron are flying back to base when enemy bombers make a sudden appearance! Cloud escapes an attacking plane, only to find himself alone, his squadron nowhere to be found. Observing damage on the ground far below, the Navajo Ace seeks the enemy bomber but finds himself under attack by a second Nazi plane. Cloud flies into the sun and manages to destroy the plane that was following him, then uses a "Sign in the Sky" to track and shoot down the first bomber.

"Sign in the Sky"

It may only be four pages long, but this short backup story features the finest art so far this month. Johnny Cloud is as red in this story as he was in the Losers tale, but Cruz's art is so smooth it doesn't matter. The plot is quick and consists of a couple of aerial tricks; enjoyable but light.

Peter: But for the welcome twist of liebchen Ursula being the real brains of the family, this Losers story was a loser. Dopey dialogue and manufactured excitement. And what happened to Ona? One issue and she's already MIA again. "Sign in the Sky" continues the trend of weak solo back-ups, but I keep forgetting to shout out loud my praise for the art of E.R. Cruz, who at least makes turning the pages bearable. I love how the colorist is still giving Johnny Cloud that red-skinned look even in 1976, when we knew better. Why not use this vignette series to let us know what Ona's been up to?

Kubert

G.I. Combat 195

"The War That Time Forgot"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Champagne for a Butcher"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Peter: The Haunted Tank is packed safely aboard a cargo plane, with Jeb, the crew, and a special guest star, Nurse Anna, heading for Iwo Jima with a super-secret weapon aboard: brand new lightweight tank parachutes, gizmos the Japanese would give anything to get hold of. Suddenly, two Zeroes fly out of the clouds, but their attack is fended off by a pterodactyl! What in the world? The cargo plane is destroyed, but the Haunted Tank manages to parachute to safety, landing in the dormant volcano of an uncharted island in the Pacific (hmm...). It's not long before the boys are attacked by dinosaur monsters from the prehistoric Stone Age. They blast the beasts to hell, but the crew is soon captured by a flock of cavemen who tie them up and bow before the tank as if it was a God. A well-timed T. Rex arrives and the cave guys realize they need help, so they let our boys go to do their duty.

"The War That Time Forgot"

After the T. Rex is blasted to atoms, Jeb and co. escape through a small cave and arrive back on the beach, just in time to be shot at by a Japanese battleship. "As if it expected us," murmurs Jeb, just as he puts two and two together and realizes that cute nurse Anna is really a Fraulein and has been radioing the Japs with her Dick Tracy wristwatch (which seems to have frequency even while in a prehistoric Stone Age). The Haunted Tank IV sinks the battleship and the ensuing Zero and Frau Anna is buried in the rubble. The boys are rescued by a destroyer that happens to be passing by and they all muse about how wonderful it is to have exited "The War That Time Forgot!"

"The War That Time Forgot"

For those of you who had asked, time and again, whatever happened to that crazy little island in the Pacific that managed to lure so many wayward seamen, Allied or otherwise, this dopey little saga's for you. It's harmless (and brainless), just like most of the previous journeys to the island, but it also smells of futility, as if Bob is waving the white flag and admitting he's low on petrol. The draw for the original WTTF strips was, obviously, the dinos. Though we often dragged Andru and Esposito through the mud for all their weaknesses, they could at least pencil and ink some pretty ferocious critters when they wanted to. You're not going to get that with Sam Glanzman and his doodles. I'm still not sure why the Army always went to such great expense to make sure either Rock, the Jeb crew, or the Losers were everywhere something was happening.

This issue's "OSS" concerns pretty agent Rolande, who helps blow the hell out of a train carrying Nazi Colonel Kunzler, aka "the Butcher," to his mountaintop pad. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry and the Colonel survives, so Rolande must execute her orders (and Kunzler) in a much more intimate fashion, by serving "Champagne for a Butcher." Another winner in this new series, Kanigher has hit on a great formula, one where the reader is never sure whether the central character will survive or even finish the mission successfully. And, don't look now, Jack, but Estrada's getting better.

Jack: Better is a relative term. In this case, he's certainly better than Glanzman! "The War That Time Forgot" will be hard to top for worst story of 1976, a year not destined to go down in history as one of the better ones for the DC War Comics. The pterodactyl is enormous (it grabs a plane in its claws) and the Haunted Tank is somehow able to fire at it while dropping through the sky attached to parachutes. Wouldn't the recoil send it spinning off? The dinos and cavemen in the volcano are ridiculous and, like you, I never thought I'd miss Andru and Esposito. Then, suddenly, we forget about the dinos and get a subplot with a female spy and a bang-bang battle with a ship and a plane! Just dreadful. The backup story is only slightly better, in my opinion.

García-López

Weird War Tales 48

"Ultimate Destiny"
Story by John Albano
Art by Ruben Sosa

"The Greeks Had a Word For It!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Bill Draut

"The Day After Doomsday!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Buddy Gernale

Peter: A Stuka crashes to the ground, but the pilot walks through the burning wreckage, seemingly unhurt. Elsewhere, an arrogant Nazi Colonel believes he has been put on Earth to eliminate the Allied forces; to achieve this goal he disobeys orders and advances into ground held by stronger Allied troops. Very soon, the Colonel's regiment is surrounded and they have no alternative but to surrender. But this Nazi believes in going down with the ship and orders his men to advance rather than retreat. Just as he's giving his order, a stranger appears and informs the Colonel he's a Stuka pilot who crashed but observed a weakness in the enemy lines: he convinces the Colonel they can escape through the hole. It's only after bombs fall and the Colonel's entire regiment is blown straight to hell that the pilot admits to the dying Colonel that he's actually the ghost of a Jew, who died in a concentration camp, now roaming the land for "great conquerors" to foil.

"Ultimate Destiny"

"The Greeks Had a Word for It!"

What a screwy story "Ultimate Destiny" is. Our ghostly "hand of God" appears for a handful of panels in the prologue and then is forgotten until the final few pages. The reveal is a lazy one but the story was enjoyable anyway. Ruben Sosa has an unusual style, akin to Howard Chaykin as if inked by Yandoc. What's left after this jumbo-sized opener is two short-shorts, neither of which has much to discuss. In "The Greeks Had a Word For It!," the Italian commandant of a POW camp falls in love with a veiled woman and discovers too late... she's a Gorgon! Just as lame is another "The Day After Doomsday!" about a boy scout out looking for a pet, not realizing the animals have mutated and even the smallest of critters can be carnivorous. Tell me there was a goal here with these two-page doomsday vignettes.

Jack: I don't think Weird War Tales is ever very good, but I enjoyed "Ultimate Destiny." The art was only so-so but the story was satisfying from start to finish, with a decent plot and a weird element that works. "The Greeks Had a Word for It!" is silly, but Draut doesn't draw a bad Medusa. "The Day After Doomsday!" is as bad as the other entries in the series.

Next Week...
More S&S magic from
Billy Graham!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 176: September 1976

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

Kubert

Our Army at War 296

"Combat Soldier"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"The Eternal Survivor"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Lee Elias

Jack: Sgt. Rock is accompanying a wounded member of Easy Co. to a medic station when a sniper pops up out of what appears to be a ruined Nazi tank and opens fire. Rock leaps on the tank and is engaged in hand-to-hand combat when he receives unexpected assistance from Pvt. Angelo Morelli, a replacement soldier who has just arrived to join Easy Co.

Like Rock, Morelli has no interest in a promotion. The C.O. tells Rock that Easy Co. needs to take Slaughter Hill, but first Rock has to lead his men through the woods, where Morelli again helps out as he and Rock dispatch another Nazi tank. Reaching the edge of a river, Rock and Morelli start to swim across and Rock explains that Slaughter Hill is on the river bed below the surface of the water; that's where the bodies of soldiers who tried to swim across lie in such numbers that they make a hill.

"Combat Soldier"

Nazi snipers open fire from the other bank and Rock and Morelli swim back to Easy Co. Rock has his men swim in pairs, one dragging a log and the other using the log to steady his rifle and shoot at the snipers across the river. The men make it across and Rock is found to have been wounded in the crossing; Morelli takes over and leads Easy Co. in a wholesale slaughter of the Nazis. Fortunately, Rock recovers and awakens to learn that Morelli agreed to accept a battlefield commission, since he had to lead the men when Rock was injured.

"Combat Soldier" is about as good as we're likely to get in the Sgt. Rock series at this point. The Frank Redondo art is good, but doesn't approach the quality we grew used to from Kubert or Heath, and the Kanigher script is good, but all of it seems vaguely like we've read it before. Still, a pretty good Sgt. Rock story is worth something.

In a thick fog in the South Pacific, an American Destroyer and a Japanese Destroyer fire on each other at point blank range and both vessels sink. One Japanese soldier and one American soldier survive and both men swim for the nearest island, unaware of each other's existence until they confront each other on the beach. The Japanese soldier has a knife and quickly overpowers and kills the American soldier, but soon, the sea rises and engulfs the island, drowning the Japanese soldier.

"The Eternal Survivor"

The sea is "The Eternal Survivor" of the title, and this five-pager doesn't amount to much. I was pleasantly surprised by Lee Elias's art, since I think I recall not being impressed by his work in some other DC Comics we've read, but the only thing notable about this story is that the American soldier loses. The ending seems pointless.

Peter: This is the second Rock in a row I've really liked (which is saying something, since this era of Rock was pretty darn weak). Frank Redondo was easing into his role as the new Joe Kubert on this strip; his characters are well-drawn and differentiated and the battle scenes are dynamic and exciting. A good trend. I also liked "The Eternal Survivor," despite its familiar hook. Artist Lee Elias was having something of a second-coming in funny books at about this time. Good for him and good for us.

Evans

G.I. Combat 194

"The Blitzkrieg Brain!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Dead Man's Walk"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Peter: During a fierce battle, the Haunted Tank is destroyed but the boys make it out uncooked. Not so lucky was the enemy tank commander, who's rescued from the tank by the Jeb boys, suffering from massive burns. Just then, a platoon of Germans roll up and take the boys prisoner, carting them off to a POW camp loaded with dead G.I.s. Turns out the cooked tank commander was the famous Colonel Hugo von Holtzer, war strategist and all-around genius guy. The top brass wants the Nazi scientists to rebuild him... to make him better... faster... stronger.

"The Blitzkrieg Brain!"

Meanwhile, back at the camp, our distraught heroes manage to kill their guards and make a break for it, stumbling upon a brand-new Sherman, whose crew had been ambushed and killed. They commandeer the tin can (this would be HT Mach IV, for those still keeping track) and head back to the line, but they are brought up short by the blast of yet another Nazi tank. Amazingly, they destroy the vehicle, but its driver disembarks unscathed. It's von Holtzer, now half-machine, all-killer! Jeb flings himself into hand-to-hand combat with the robot and very quickly short-circuits it with a simple eye-poke. The boys climb back into their new tank, laugh about the fragility of Nazi super-weapons, and head off down the road, not noticing the new man of steel rising from his own ashes.

Obviously meant to cash in on the cyborg craze sweeping the nation (two years after The Six Million Dollar Man and Marvel's "Deathlok," and four years before DC launched its own Teen Titan Cyborg), von Holtzer is a paper-thin villain, trumpeted loudly on the cover and dispatched in a handful of panels. There's not one iota of suspense hiding within "The Blitzkrieg Brain!"; it's lightweight but it's not entertainment. I'm not even sure what the plan is with this character. Was the technology there and waiting for the right benefactor? Why spend what must have been millions to resuscitate a war genius and then simply send him out to crush... kill... destroy? Boy, these Nazis sure were dumb. The General briefly appears twice, first to warn of an impending attack and then to threaten Jeb that he's not coming back to act as bodyguard to a tank named after his sworn enemy. If I were Jeb (the commander), I'd tell Jeb (the General) to go pound sand. The spook changes his mind, though, before the adventure ends. No reason is given. He just does it. The final panel threatens a rematch but that won't happen until G.I. Combat #198, one month after we close the curtain on this show. You're on your own if you want to know who wins that one.

"Dead Man's Walk"

The back-up, the third in Big Bob's "OSS" series (penned under his super-secret code name of Bart Regan), is a clever bit of alternate history concerning an OSS agent who plays dead and gives up documents purporting to show where the Allies will land on D-Day. "Dead Man's Walk" isn't quite as grim or powerful as "Target for Tonight--Me" (from #192) but is certainly stronger than last issue's misfire, "The Naked Code."

Jack: Is "The Blitzkrieg Brain!" the worst story of 1976? It'll be hard to beat. One annoying thing that runs through both stories in this terrible issue is an overabundance of German dialogue that is "helpfully" translated in a caption at the bottom of each panel. What's the point? To fill up space by saying everything twice--once in German and once in English? The Haunted Tank story features tasteless panels of the tank crew loading corpses on a truck at a concentration camp, and the bit where the ghostly general gets in a huff about the Sherman tank is unintentionally hilarious. "Dead Man's Walk" is only bearable in comparison to the story that precedes it.

Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 201

"The Back-Alley War"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Peter: A small Nazi sub surfaces just outside of New York and, luckily, is spotted by the Army. As they paddle ashore, five Germans are arrested and sent to base for questioning. Unfortunately, it's soon discovered, there were actually six Germans... and one has escaped! It's up to the Unknown Soldier to track down the errant Ratzi who has, doubtlessly, made his way into the city by now. To attract attention, the Soldier disguises himself as Fredrik Nagel, a well-known fascist sympathizer jailed for "seditious activities." US attracts the attention and wins the confidence of a group of Nazis hiding in New York and spearheaded by Major Joachim Deutsch, the missing German.

Very soon, the German plan becomes apparent: Deutsch will dump a toxin into the city's drinking water and kill the population. With a little help from a see-sawing G.I. who can't decide which side he wants to fight on, our bandaged hero foils the insidious plot and saves New York from more nasty bacteria than they are used to drinking. I like the extra room Michelinie and Talaoc are given to work with in "The Back-Alley War," but this is a middling plot and some of the elements make no sense. The big ferinstance would be when the Soldier is beating Deutsch to death at the climax and a handful of G.I.s mistake him for a dirty Kraut, their leader pipes up that our disguised super-spy is "...one of us. I recognize him from pictures at the Intelligence briefing this morning." Sorry, I call foul on that one. If this is such a top-secret suicide mission, why would pics of the Soldier's identity be handed out? That's the number one lesson they teach you in Super-Spy School: Trust no one!

Jack: I too was disappointed with this "book-length" Unknown Soldier story and expected better from the crack team of Michelinie and Talaoc. I do think the portrayal of a German-American soldier who is treated unfairly due to his heritage is unusually sensitive, though he does flip-flop a bit from understandable frustration to complete treason to confusion at being duped. The character isn't fully developed but at least he's interesting, and he is part of a trend at seeing the other point of view that we've observed in the post-Vietnam era.

Next Week...
Wonderful Wood!