The Lost 'Novelization' of The Omega Man Discovered!

by John Scoleri

Mort Kunstler's The Omega Man/I Am Legend cover painting

This is not appearing as another "In Search of..." entry on bare•bones, since before it arrived in my mailbox I had no idea that it even existed. And I should start off by clarifying that no, you didn't somehow miss it—a novelization of the John William Corrington and Joyce H. Corrington screenplay to The Omega Man was never published.

In August of 1971, coinciding with the release of The Omega Man, Berkley-Medallion released Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend in a movie tie-in edition featuring both titles and a nice painting by Mort Kunstler (reproduced above, from mortkunstler.com). This particular edition would go on to be reprinted at least five times. Those familiar with both the novel and the film know that a reader coming to the book by way of the film will be very surprised just how different they are. But the same was not true for moviegoers who happened to pick up the latest issue of Screen Stories magazine in October of 1971.

I recently came across an auction listing for Screen Stories magazine noting that The Omega Man was covered in this particular issue. I assumed it most likely contained a PR puff piece on the film, but I decided to add a copy to my I Am Legend Archive anyway. As you can see, there's nothing on the cover to suggest that The Omega Man is even featured inside.

When I received it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it contained an adaptation of the film story (along with similar story adaptations of See No Evil, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Camille). While I wasn't aware of the fact when I ordered it, Screen Stories (which had been published since the late 1920s—originally as Screen Romances) regularly contained complete story adaptations of first-run films.

The adaptation of The Omega Man is illustrated with ten stills from the film, as seen in the shots below (I've included the full versions of the stills for six of the included images).

 

 

The adaptation was written by Jean Francis Webb, who had published several articles and stories in pulp magazines, and authored a number of gothic novels.

 

Webb's adaptation provides a reasonable, albeit abridged, retelling of the film story. Of particular interest is the inclusion of a scene that didn't make the final cut. After Richie shows improvement from Neville's blood transfusion, Lisa goes to visit the gravesite where she and her brother had buried their parents. In a nearby cemetery crypt, she finds a 'turned' woman weeping over her stillborn child. The scene was shot, yet ultimately cut from the film, leaving an orphaned end credit for Anna Aries (Invasion of the Bee Girls), who portrayed the "Woman in Cemetery Crypt."

The inclusion of that scene, along with dialog lifted directly from the screenplay that does not appear in the film, confirms that Webb was actually working from a copy of the Corrington's script.

While there wasn't an official novelization of The Omega Man published to coincide with the release of the film, this particular issue of Screen Stories magazine offers up the next best thing. At the very least, it's an interesting curiosity that has been hiding (at least from this fan) for the past 47 years!

*   *   * 

I'm sure that die-hard fans of The Omega Man have already hit up eBay in search of the October 1971 issue of Screen Stories, but for the rest of you, I've included the adaptation in its entirety below. Enjoy!

The Hitchcock Project-Bernard C. Schoenfeld Part Eight: The Jokester [4.3]

by Jack Seabrook

"The Jokester" was the first appearance on Alfred Hitchcock Presents of a story by the prolific writer Robert Arthur (1909-1969), who had co-written the radio series, The Mysterious Traveler, from 1943 to 1952 and who had won Edgar Awards for writing radio drama in 1950 (Murder By Experts) and 1953 (The Mysterious Traveler.). Arthur edited a digest called The Mysterious Traveler that ran for five issues in 1951 and 1952, and the March 1952 issue featured his short story, "The Jokester," which ran under the pen name of Anthony Morton because Arthur also had another short story in that issue, "Sixty Grand Missing," which was a reprint.

"The Jokester" was first published here

Arthur's connection with Hitchcock had begun at least as early as 1951, when Hitchcock served as an "expert" on Murder By Experts. Arthur had been the "ghost editor" of Hitchcock's collection, Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV, which was published in 1957, and someone must have changed his or her mind soon after that because "The Jokester" aired as the third episode of the fourth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Sunday, October 19, 1958.

Arthur's short story begins as reporters play cards one night at Police Headquarters. One of them, Dave Bradley, decides to play a joke on old Pop Henderson, the night attendant at the morgue. The reporters go downstairs to the morgue and ask Pop to show them one of the corpses, suggesting that it might be that of a missing New York banker. They distract the old man and, after he thinks they've left, Bradley scares him by pretending to be a corpse that is still alive. The other reporters feel bad about playing a joke on the old man and go home. Pop tells Bradley that the desk sergeant warned him that if he falls for any more jokes he will have to retire.

Albert Salmi as Bradley

Bradley heads for a bar, where he decides to play another joke and gives a man a hot foot. Unfortunately, the man is a boxer, who punches Bradley, causing the reporter to fall and crack his neck on the brass rail. Thinking him dead, the bartender and the boxer dump his body in an alley. Bradley awakens in the morgue, slowly recovering from paralysis, but when he tells Pop Henderson that he is still alive, the old man says that he is not falling for any more jokes and locks him in the same compartment where he had earlier lain.

Similar to Louis Pollock's 1947 story "Breakdown" in that both deal with a man paralyzed and thought to be dead who ends up in a morgue, Arthur's story ends on a much more downbeat note, as the bully seems to get his just desserts. A sentence early in the tale is important: the compartments in the morgue where the corpses are kept are described in this way: "They were refrigerated, with the temperature below freezing . . ." By locking the semi-conscious, partially paralyzed Dave Bradley in a compartment where the temperature is frigid, Pop Henderson ensures that the reporter will freeze to death long before his body is taken out for an autopsy the next day. Does the old man understand the consequences of his actions? It is hard to say. He does know that Henderson is alive, since they speak to each other, but he fears that he will lose his job if he is seen to be the subject of another prank. In the artificial world of a mystery short story, Bradley the bully seems to deserve what he gets, but in reality it requires some suspension of disbelief to think that the kindly old morgue attendant would commit what amounts to murder.

Rosco Ates as Pop Henderson

Bradley's extreme physical reaction to being punched and striking his neck is explained as he lies on the morgue slab, remembering a high-school football injury that left him in bed for a month, nearly immobile. The new injury is worse, he thinks, because he hit his neck harder and "heard it crack" when he fell. Bernard C. Schoenfeld, in adapting Arthur's short story for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, made sure that the viewer had some advance warning of Bradley's propensity to injury by adding an incident in an early scene where another reporter tries to horse around with Bradley and Bradley tells him that he has a very sensitive vertebra in his neck from a high-school football injury.

Jay Jostyn and James Coburn
as Morgan and Andrews

The teleplay for "The Jokester" is carefully structured, with parallel scenes at the beginning, middle, and end showing Pop Henderson in the morgue. While the story begins with the reporters' poker game, the show begins, in true Hitchcock fashion, with an establishing shot showing the exterior of the New York Police Department. There is then a dissolve to the morgue, where Pop Henderson is shown entering and checking a body on a slab. He hears a thud on the ceiling above and there is a cut to the poker game, where it is revealed that the thud was made by a typewriter falling to the floor. These reporters are more interested in the game than in the tool of their trade; in a few quick shots, Schoenfeld has established the location of the events, the main characters, and their professions.

During the game, Bradley draws the joker card twice, and Pop Henderson comes upstairs to speak to the reporters, one of whom has just written a story for the paper about the old man. Pop explains why he needs to keep his job (he has to pay his sick wife's doctor bills) but Bradley is callous and the kind reporter leaves before the three journalists who remain head downstairs to participate in Bradley's prank. Bradley tries to give Pop a hot foot but the old man awakens too soon. They all walk down to the corpse compartments and Schoenfeld gives the viewer a direct visual clue to the situation when Pop opens one of the doors and ice cold smoke pours out when he pulls out a drawer containing a body.

Art Batanides as the sergeant

Bradley is shown to be even more cruel than he is in the short story, directly insulting Pop and coming across like a physically imposing bully. He also drinks heavily, swigging from a flask as he telephones his newspaper. The first part of the show ends with a shot that is similar to one of the show's first shots, as Pop walks out of the morgue alone. Part two opens as Bradley enters the bar in a scene that Schoenfeld has expanded and changed from the source. The reporter is quite drunk, having been to three other bars already, and continues his misbehavior by presenting the bartender with a rubber dollar bill and by putting pepper-flavored liquid in the glass of a woman sitting next to him. The woman and her sailor boyfriend replace the boxer of Arthur's story and the sailor punches Bradley out of a sense of chivalry. Mike and Millie, the sailor and his girlfriend, put Bradley's supposedly dead body in the back seat of their car in an alley behind the bar and drive off with it.

Charles Watts
as the captain

The show's final scene is also expanded. The police captain enters the morgue and tells Bradley's fellow reporters that he is ordering Pop to resign, but they make him reconsider this decision by threatening to write an unflattering story about him. Orderlies wheel in Bradley's body and soon he is left alone in the morgue with Pop. After the old man locks the reporter away in his cabinet, he walks off through the morgue, the final shot similar to the ones near the start of the show and at the end of the first half.

"The Jokester" works very well due to perfect casting, a well-structured script, great lighting and camerawork, appropriate music (except one bad cue right near the end), and solid direction. The result is an excellent short film where the scenes in the morgue and in the bar feature high-contrast lighting that creates a strong noir atmosphere. Directing this episode was Arthur Hiller (1923-2016), whose long and successful career began on TV in 1954 and lasted until 2006. In addition to being behind the camera for three episodes of Thriller, he directed 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Post Mortem."

Baynes Barron as the bartender

Top billing goes to Albert Salmi (1928-1990) as Bradley. Born in Brooklyn, Salmi trained at the Actors Studio and appeared on Broadway. He was a busy TV actor from 1954 to 1989 and also appeared in films, starting in 1958. Genre roles included appearances on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery and he was on the Hitchcock show three times, including "The Dangerous People." A biography of Salmi called Spotlights and Shadows was published in 2009.

Rosco Ates (1895-1962) plays Pop Henderson; he started out as a comedian in vaudeville and his film career began early, in 1929. He was in 15 westerns from 1946 to 1948 as sidekick Soapy Jones, and his TV career began in 1951. He was in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the Hiller-directed "Post Mortem."

Claire Carlton as Millie

Playing Andrews, one of the reporters who participates in the prank, is James Coburn (1928-2002), and even in this small role he seems destined for stardom. Born in Nebraska, his screen career stretched from 1957 to 2002 and he was in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He was also in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Among his many great film roles was one in The Magnificent Seven (1960), but it was the spy spoof Our Man Flint (1966) that made him a star.

The other two reporters are Morgan, played by Jay Jostyn, and Dave, played by Jim Kirkwood Jr. Jay Jostyn (1905-1977) starred as Mr. District Attorney on radio and his screen career lasted from 1951 to 1971. Jim Kirkwood Jr. (1924-1989) was born to parents who were both actors, and he started acting at age 14. He was a comedian on early TV (1948 to 1951) and acted in film and on TV from 1950 to 1965, but it was as a writer that he later gained fame; a novelist and a playwright, he won a Tony in 1976 for co-writing the book for A Chorus Line. A biography called Ponies and Rainbows was published in 2011.

Jim Kirkwood Jr. as Dave

Representing the men in blue are Art Batanides as the sergeant and Charles Watts as the captain. Art Batanides (1923-2000) is a familiar face from classic TV who appeared in countless episodes from 1951 to 1985, including roles on The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek. He was in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Charles Watts (1912-1966) was on screen from 1950 to 1965 and was seen in five episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The West Warlock Time Capsule."

Finally, in the bar scene, Baynes Barron plays the bartender, Claire Carlton plays Millie, and Richard Benedict plays Mike. Baynes Barron (1917-1982) was onscreen from 1946 to 1979 and appeared in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; he was also a bartender in "Listen, Listen . . . . .!" Claire Carlton (1913-1979) was on Broadway in the '30s and '40s and on screen from 1933 to 1969. She was on Thriller and she was seen in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "And So Died Riabouchinska." Richard Benedict (1920-1984) had a career as a screen actor from 1944 to 1984, including roles in Ace in the Hole (1951) and Ocean's Eleven (1960). He was also a busy TV director from 1962 to 1982.

Richard Benedict as Mike

Robert Arthur continued to work with Hitchcock, penning a teleplay for the TV show and having two more of his stories adapted, including "The Cadaver," which also dealt with a practical joke gone wrong. He ghost-edited many short story anthologies for Hitchcock and wrote a number of books in the young adult series, The Three Investigators. For more information about him, visit this website.

Thanks to Peter Enfantino for providing a copy of Arthur's original story!

Sources:

The FictionMags Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

“The Jokester.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 3, CBS, 19 Oct. 1958.

Morton, Anthony. “The Jokester.” The Mysterious Traveler, Mar. 1952, pp. 72–79.

Stephensen-Payne, Phil. Galactic Central, philsp.com/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: And the Desert Shall Blossom, starring William Demarest!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 143: November 1973

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

Luis Dominguez

Weird War Tales 19

"The Platoon that Wouldn't Die!"
Story by Arnold Drake
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Peter: The War Department can't figure out why the Nazis go to the trouble of sending a special forces unit to rob a mass grave. It all becomes crystal clear when they realize the German bodies they're stealing have been photographed as corpses in several other places. What's up with that? Are the Nazis employing some kind of supernatural force to keep their armies at full capacity? Harry "The Actor" Nielsen is taken from Leavenworth, where he's serving a twenty-year term (for what, we're never told), and brought before Colonel Hagen, who offers "The Actor" a full pardon if he'll put on the make-up and infiltrate the Blue Bolt team, commanded by Major Bruekner, one of the resurrected corpses. Harry disguises himself as Blue Bolt Corporal Schlosser, stages an escape from an Allied POW camp, and wins back the trust of his Nazi comrades.

"The Actor" first discovers that the Nazis are using Caribbean witch doctors to raise their dead, but then further stumbles onto the truth behind the miracle resurrections. The "dead" are actually look-alike robots designed to give the Nazi boys the confidence that "Germans don't die," and the voodoo ruse is so that the Allied Forces will be convinced Germany can raise the dead. Harry shuts the project down with plenty of fire power and then heads back to the States a free man. A whole issue devoted to this claptrap? On the letters page, Joe Orlando lets his readers know that book-length stories will appear two or three times a year but only "when the basic story-line is strong enough to sustain our readers' interest . . ." Well, Joe, I'm here to tell you "The Platoon That Wouldn't Die!" failed miserably. It's got all the standard Arnold Drake traits, including incredible coincidences, plot points that go sideways (why, oh why, do the Nazis have to expend so much energy to try to convince us there's a squadron of zombies on the loose?), bizarre choices (the war department hires a convicted felon to crack the Blue Bolts instead of summoning the Unknown Soldier?) and cringe-worthy, purple-prose dialogue ("Only a lucky shot can stop these things--and it looks like I've run out of luck!"). I don't object to full-length stories, except when they're as bad and as unreadable as "The Platoon . . ."

Jack: I am very surprised at you, Mr. Grumpy DC Comic Fan! This story is a gonzo classic! It starts off with Nazis on motorcycles robbing a graveyard, which is a great way to begin any story, in my opinion. Yes, I admit it gets a bit confusing in the middle, but when we see the Haitian witch doctor bringing back dead Nazis as zombies we're off to the races! But wait, they're not really zombies--they're robots! If they're robots, why do they walk around with their hands in the air like zombies? It's all tons of fun and I enjoyed the heck out of it and am happy for a full-length story for a change.

Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 175

"A Slow Burn . . . From Both Ends!"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling

"Hello Dolly Gray!"
Story by J. David Warner
Art by Ric Estrada

Yvette (a/k/a "Brussel's Sprout," see last issue) has lived through pain, on the Nazi stretch rack deep in the bowels of an Antwerp castle, that would have killed one hundred men, but enough is enough, and she tells the Commandant everything he wants to hear. Meanwhile, explosives are being laid below and above the seedy dungeon, with the Unknown Soldier preparing to blow the hell out of a German armament and Belgian resistance fighters in the catacombs about to do the same. The resistance leader has decided Yvette must become a sacrifice for the movement but Yvette's fiancé, Jan, has other ideas.

"A Slow Burn . . ."

As the leader sets the explosives for ten minutes and hightails it, Jan heads up to the torture chamber to rescue Yvette, only to find her approximately three feet taller than she was the last time saw her. He unties her from the rack and carries her to safety but, on the way, Yvette tells Jan that the Unknown Soldier is upstairs and the resistance explosives must be disarmed or the mission might fail. Jan picks that moment to tell Yvette he knows nothing about explosives. Unbeknownst to the love birds, the Unknown Soldier and his men are about to hightail it as well, but the oncoming sea of Nazi scum tips our hero off that, somehow, "Operation Scuttle" is no longer a classified secret. Yvette and Jan follow the easy-to-read disarming instructions on the outside of each bomb while the Unknown Soldier mows down a whole boatload of Ratzis and then blows the hell out of the castle and the German arms. Yvette dies from her injuries and somewhere in Berlin, Dichter Krantz speaks ill of the Unknown Soldier and promises that, very soon, Germany's secret weapon will blow the bandages right off his arch-enemy.

We finally learn where US has been!

Wall-to-wall action and sleazy Nazi exploitation (granted, not exactly as sleazy as Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, but still on the edge for a kid's funny book) keep the pages turning and (oh lord, I can't believe I'm going to say this) Jack Sparling's sketchy art is just perfect for the theme. I'd never noticed before but Sparling's and Frank Robbins's art are quite a bit similar (read: awful), but for the fact that Sparling's characters have wrists that don't bend at funny angles. No, it's not the glory days of the Kubert scripted/drawn Unknown Soldier but at least "A Slow Burn . . . At Both Ends" provides entertainment and keeps your attention the same way the shudder pulps used to. I've got no problem with that. There's an uncharacteristically dark climax and also a brief "Holy Cow" moment when Jan is on his way to rescue Yvette and overhears the Nazis talking about how his girl spilled her guts (almost literally). Jan's thoughts betray the love he feels for the gorgeous Frau: "Yvette . . . talked? Told those dogs what even we don't know . . .? If--if she did . . . I'll kill her with my own hands!" And how about that last panel tease? I can't wait to see what lurid drug-fueled experiment Krantz will unleash on the Soldier!

The five-page "Hello Dolly Gray!" takes place in 1899 South Africa and focuses on when women began fighting alongside their British men. It's an interesting piece but it's a tad dry and Ric Estrada's art is not getting any better. It still looks like Archie Andrews Goes to War.

"Hello Dolly Gray!"

Jack: We must have read different comic books this time around, because the one I read was terrible! Here's some purple prose from the Robbins script: "Any goose-stepper sticks his schnozz up heah gets hisself a silent gesundheit!" If "heah" means this character is from the South, why is he using Yiddish slang like "schnozz"? I started to wonder where the Unknown Soldier was in this story until he finally yanked off his mask and revealed himself to this puzzled reader. I thought it was hard to figure out what was going on throughout the action. As for the backup story in the Boer War, Estrada's art won't win any awards but it's a notch above Sparling's, though the plot goes nowhere.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 145

"A Flag for Losers!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"A Feast of Caterpillars"
Story by John David Warner
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: An Afrika Korps column of two Nazi tanks and numerous men on foot approaches Fort Fini in the North African desert, determined to take the fort and drink the precious water from its well. Inside Fort Fini are the Losers and a French major. Gunner shimmies up a flagpole to repair the French tricolor but finds it may be "A Flag for Losers!" when an enemy plane suddenly attacks.

"A Flag for Losers!"

The Losers shoot down the plane and go to the well for water, only to discover it has run dry. Major Fouchet tells the Losers that his brother, who is with the Vichy French, is the man guiding the Nazi column toward the fort, and the battle begins, as Nazi tanks bombard Fort Fini's walls and the Losers return fire with small arms. Nazis on foot approach the walls with TNT but the Losers kill them and use the TNT to destroy the onrushing tanks. In the end, the Fouchet brothers square off and kill each other, leaving the Losers to abandon the empty fort and head across the desert on foot.

John Severin has not shown any real deterioration in his art since he was at EC in the early to mid-'50s, unlike George Evans, whose EC work was so strong but whose work at DC in the '70s is disappointing. This latest chapter in the ongoing Losers story is fun, despite some Kanigher Kliches, mainly due to Severin's excellent work.

"A Feast of Caterpillars"

In the year 1282, the great Mongol warrior Kublai Khan was rampaging through what would later be known as North Vietnam. General Tran Hung Dao uses caterpillars and honey to fool Khan's troops into retreat, and when Khan does attack with a diminished force the locals are able to defeat him.

"A Feast of Caterpillars" is a surprisingly delightful little tale, with art by Ric Estrada that fits the story. Warner's history lesson is unusual and entertaining and shines a light on a little known aspect of Vietnam and its history.

Peter: Another solid "Losers" chapter. It's almost like one of those all-star war blockbusters Hollywood cranked out in the 1960s, full of action, pathos, and macho dialogue (love the scene with Gunner and Sarge drinking from empty canteens atop the fort wall). Severin's art is exciting and very realistic. The biggest compliment I can think to pay Big Bob and Jovial John is that these latest "Losers" strips make me forget Gunner and Sarge were once a punch line to a very bad joke.

Kubert

Our Army at War 262

"The Return!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Where . . . Where Have All the Heroes Gone?"
Story and Art by Sam Glanzman

Jack: Sgt. Rock finally reunites with Easy Co. but "The Return!" comes with an unexpected twist: Rock was listed as MIA and now Sgt. Decker is the new topkick. Rock tags along with his old unit and reacts quickly to a couple of Nazi threats, but when Decker decides to use an old farmhouse for shelter it's the new sergeant who approaches it and gets shot to pieces by Nazis. As he dies, he tells Rock that he had been the only survivor of his old outfit and wanted to prove himself to his new men.

I've never been as big a fan of Russ Heath as Peter is, but I have to admit his work on "The Return!" blew me away and I thought it was the best story of the month. People are getting blown to bits left and right and Heath does not shy away from depicting bodies flying. The panel reproduced here, where Decker is being shot to pieces, is brutal, and Kanigher's script eschews the old TNT references he relied on for so many years to tell an affecting tale of a man trying his best to live up to his legendary predecessor. "The Return!" is a sharp bit of sequential storytelling.

"The Return!"

"Where . . . Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" is just the opposite--there's no story at all, just Sam Glanzman drawing four pages of dead soldiers lying in various poses. One panel shows men hanging and is disturbing, but what's the point of this story? War is Hell? We know that. How about a decent story?

"Where" did the story go?

Peter: Never thought I'd see the day when Our Army at War was the title I least looked forward to reading each post. Oh, no mistake, the art is still the best money can buy but the plots seem to be stacked on a carousel and Big Bob pulls one off and puts it right back when he's done with it . . . because he's never done with it. The other titles may be lacking in the visuals department but their continuing stories get better and better each issue. I'm a little confused about Rock's reunion with Easy since he reunited with them last issue. Maybe Big Bob had lost that sticky note? Sam Glanzman's latest USS Stevens entry features Sam's best art to date, but is the point being made that men on both sides die in war?

Severin

G.I. Combat 166

"Enemy from Yesterday!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Two Roads to Destiny"
Story and Art by George Evans

Peter: Well, the boys have figured out how to get the Jeb Stuart back on terra firma but just before the tide goes completely out, the crew is fired on by crazed Nazi commander Reinhardt and his band of scum Ratzis. Our heroes are taken prisoner and, after going through the usual "name, rank, and serial number," Reinhardt pays particular attention to Gus Gray, explaining that Gus beat him out at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Claiming he was sidelined by a charley horse, the goofy German demands that Gus give him another chance at beating him in a race but the disgraced Olympic medalist vetoes that idea.

And co-starring
David Bowie as Reinhardt!

The commander then orders Gus into the Haunted Tank (which Commander Jeb rightfully claims is a violation of the Geneva Convention--you know, the rules that the Nazis have followed since day one?) and takes him for a little ride into a nearby village. Forcing Gus, at gunpoint, to stand outside the turret, the Nazi starts blasting the Greek village to hell. The villagers see only an American tank and a black soldier and immediately change sides in the war. As the tank is about to squash a helpless child, Gus cries "Uncle"; he'll race the Commander for the gold. To be continued . . .

Well, "Enemy From Yesterday!" is quite the comedown from the fabulous "Alaric" epic a few issues ago but it does fill in a few gaps in Gus Gray's back story. We learn that Gus took the pay-off from the sports equipment company (who knew there were endorsement opportunities in 1936!?) to pay for the care of his dying sister, Amy. The young girl died soon after, which made the Olympics scandal that much harder to handle. I gotta say (yet again) that Sam Glanzman's art is really really really hard to look at. Our first look at Reinhardt might convince us the guy is twelve years old; then he's all teeth. Glanzman has his supporters but I'm not sure how anyone could look at this and find anything resembling art.

"Enemy from Yesterday!"

"That ther' polecat shore cain get ornery, eh, Festus?"

Unfortunately, the bad art day continues in George Evans's "Two Roads to Destiny," which proves that, without a plane in the story, George is just another average artist at this point in his career. The script, about a pair of cousins who keep together all during the Civil War until one has to go off and man a Hunley (a very early submarine), is chock-filled with southern drawl and nigh on unreadable, fer Pappy's sake. Evans does get across the claustrophobia of being in one of these easily-sinkable tin cans but, otherwise, it's a slow slog.

Jack: Seeing Sam Glanzman's art makes me wonder if I should have stuck with my attempts at drawing comics as a boy. I don't think my efforts could've been much worse than this! Goodwin's story tries to be relevant and it's not bad, but the wretched art really takes away from any enjoyment here. The Southern dialect in the Evans story is distracting and he's not the artist he was 20 years before at EC, but the story is okay and there are flashes of the old George here and there.

Kubert
(from Our Fighting Forces 40, 12/58)

G.I. War Tales 4

"Four-Legged Tank!"
Story by Ed Herron
Art by Russ Heath
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #36, August 1955)

"Soldiers of the High Wire"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Bernie Krigstein
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #10, May 1953)

"Medal for a Marine!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Mort Drucker
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #78, February 1959)

"Four-Legged Tank!"

Jack: Fighting in France in WWII, Private Mike Wilson laments the disappearance of horses in the cavalry and their replacement by tanks. This all changes when he attacks Nazis holed up in a farmhouse and is surprised by a friendly horse left to wander when the farmer left the premises. Mike mounts the horse and launches a one-man attack on the Nazis, discovering to his delight that a horse is sometimes better than a tank!

"Four-Legged Tank!" is nothing special, but we always enjoy a little touch of early '50s Heath art.

"Soldiers of the High Wire"

While the rest of the G.I.s spend their time fighting North Korean troops, Don and Steve are "Soldiers of the High Wire," repairing telephone lines so everyone can communicate. War correspondent Lionel Danby asks them to drive around in a jeep he has rigged up with a tape recorder to record the sounds of war for the folks back home. Steve and Don survive an attack by a MiG fighter but forget to turn on the recorder, then they are ambushed and their jeep and recorder are destroyed. Marines save the day and the correspondent records the whole thing through the phone lines from his safe spot back at base, but when Steve and Don return he tells them no one would believe what happened and destroys the tape.

Synchronicity again for those of us reading DC War comics and EC Comics, as Bernie Krigstein makes a surprise appearance as the artist in this reprint from 1953! For a six-page filler, it's not bad; Krigstein is not one of my favorite artists but he does a decent job and it's a fun tale.

On TNT Island, Marines wait in formation for a medal to arrive so it can be awarded to one among them. Another soldier is given the medal to deliver but has to fight off an attacking boat, a plane, and a soldier to get the "Medal for a Marine!" safely to its destination. When he gets there, he gets a medal, too!

Boy, Mort Drucker sure could draw war stories. This is a very predictable eight-pager but Drucker makes it so gritty, exciting, and believable that I enjoyed every panel.

"Medal for a Marine!"

I'm sorry this is the last issue of G.I. War Tales because these have been some great reprints!

"Four-Legged Tank!"

Peter: Well, we know that 90% of the time, these reprints provide great art but little in the way of brain food in the script department. Nothing here to change that fact but there are little tidbits in each story to entertain. I love the almost telepathic bond between man and horse in "Four-Legged Tank!" and can someone tell me how exactly you stay on the horse while firing a machine gun and leaping over hedges? I like how Big Bob lets the action stray from the main point in "Soldiers of the High Wire"; the two G.I.s on a mission to record the perfect battle almost seem like an afterthought while Kanigher was crafting a tale centering around a telephone pole. The narrative goes in a much more interesting direction. The climax saves "Medal for a Marine!" from being just another "G.I. grunt fights against insurmountable odds and stands tall in the end" snoozer; far from being maudlin, I thought the final panel was a lump-in-the-throater. If you've just got to have a magazine filled with 1950s DC war reprints, you could do worse than this package.

Next Week . . .
This Ain't the End of EC . . .
But You Can See It From Here!