EC Comics! It's An Entertaining Comic! Issue 72

The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
72: January 1956
+ The Best of 1955

Wood

Incredible Science Fiction 33
"Big Moment" ★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Wally Wood

"Kaleidoscope" ★★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jack Davis

"One Way Hero" ★★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Bernie Krigstein

"Judgment Day!"
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
(Reprinted from Weird Fantasy #18, April 1953)

"An Eye for an Eye" ★★1/2
Story by Jack Oleck?
Art by Angelo Torres

The incredible shrinking men.

A meteor shower mutates all animal life on Earth and leaves men cowering before giant lizards, cats, ant-eaters, fish, and other previously innocuous forms of life. Man becomes the hunted. Generations later, Andrew leads a group of men back to a fabled city named N'Ork where, legend has it, civilization stored all of its weapons after making war illegal. Though the group incurs heavy losses, Andrew finally reaches the pot at the end of the rainbow, only to have his hopes dashed. Evidently, the one detail left out of all the stories of the apocalypse is the fact that it was man who was mutated. Weapons of this size are useless to tiny men. I had a feeling this was the climax we were heading for (the mushrooms on page one were the tip-off), but I kinda wish Jack had gotten us there a little quicker. The reveal is made in a rare 2/3 of a page panel, all the better to show us the really big guns.

"Kaleidoscope"

Venus has conquered Earth but they haven't bent our will. Now, Earthlings work as slaves under Venusian guard, but Andy Davis has a plan. He's found a rocket ship parked in a remote field and he enlists the aid of several friends in an attempt to get the rocket usable again. Andy's plan is to have his friend, Larson, work his magic and create an impenetrable shield around the ship, all the better to blast the Venusian scum to hell! It takes years (and the lives of all of Andy's friends) but, finally, the ship is ready for battle and Andy does his race proud by destroying all the Venusian war ships and making Earth habitable again. Just as Andy is enjoying his moment of victory, his wife calls to him and scolds him for playing in the old hunk-of-junk rocket ship and reminds him that if the guards see him, he'll be in big trouble. I liked "Kaleidoscope" (the title alludes to the gizmo that Andy stares into on board the ship) quite a bit, mostly due to its lead character and its downbeat (while at the same time upbeat) climax. It's hard to pull off a reveal like that without making it maudlin but Oleck succeeds nicely.

"One Way Hero"

In a Martian bar, Mart Sawyer recognizes his little brother, Johnny, but Johnny doesn't recognize him. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Johnny is a "One Way Hero," a spaceman who lost his nerve and was dumped on Mars, never to return to Earth. The shame has caused Johnny to lose a bit of his memory and most of his self-respect, but Mart reminds him that there are plenty of great jobs and hot women on Mars (and a McDonald's coming next month) and there's no shame in becoming one of the new colonists. Mart tells his brother goodbye, he'll have to be leaving, and heads back to the rocket port, where he loads spaceships and performs other jobs. He, like his brother, is a "One Way Hero." Though the ending is way too predictable, "One Way Hero" has the same charm as "Kaleidoscope," in that it introduces kind-hearted and well-meaning protagonists crushed by turns of fate and yet still going on the best they can. Particularly grueling is the scene where we witness Johnny's meltdown on board the rocket ship.

For our very last helping of EC science-fiction, we have an oddity. Originally pulled due to complaints from the (don't get me started) CCA, "An Eye for an Eye" was replaced with a reprinting of the equally-controversial "Judgment Day!" "Eye" sat mouldering in Bill Gaines's vault until it finally saw print in the Horror Comics of the 1950s collection in 1971. When it came time for ISF #33 to be reprinted by Gemstone in 1995, a "Judgment" was made and "An Eye for an Eye" was reprinted instead. Why the CCA would object to something that's as harmless as an Osmonds back-stage pass, I have no idea, but no one ever accused the Comics Code of being rational. Angelo Torres, doing his best Frazetta/Williamson/Krenkel impersonation, illustrates the story of a post-apocalyptic world where mutants run in tribes and one "normal" man and his mate search for a safe place to make their home. The woman is killed by a band of giant Praying Mantises and the man is left to fend on his own. He finds what he considers safe ground but is killed by a tribe of gill-men. As he lays dying in the mud, we see he has a third eye in the back of his neck.

Though, by now, I've had just about enough of the "post-apocalyptic" landscape and its mutant warriors (and will continue to be extremely tired of them when DC uses the trope, ad nauseam, a decade later), "An Eye for an Eye" has some great art and a legitimately surprising final panel. The last couple months of their existence, EC began running a scattershot column in some of their zines called "The Entertainment Box," a mostly-disposable "review" feature that gossiped about new movies and records (one of the columns extolled the virtues of Frank Sinatra's latest LPs!). The column that appeared in ISF #33 made public The Complete EC Checklist by Fred Von Bernewitz, a "pamphlet" that compiled information on story titles and artists from the various EC books. A lousy quarter would buy you the Checklist plus a yearly supplement! Von Bernewitz would publish several small-print runs of the Checklist and then go deluxe with Tales of Terror in 2000. Where has fandom gone? -Peter

Jack-I'll tell you where fandom has gone--right here on the blogs! These are the fanzines of today, just free of charge and delivered immediately. I was looking forward to the last issue of Incredible Science Fiction but I was utterly disappointed. "Big Moment" is a very weak tale with art by Wally Wood that looks rushed. "Kaleidoscope" also looks like a rush job by Jack Davis and I thought it had almost no story at all. "One Way Hero" is just plain dull, but at least Krigstein's art usually looks kind of sloppy and hurried, so it's not a surprise. "An Eye for an Eye" has the best art in the issue but the story is as disappointing as the rest. This issue just seems tired to me, like it was time to be done with the EC experiment.

Craig

MD 5

"Complete Cure" ★
Story Uncredited
Art by Reed Crandall

"Child's Play" ★
Story Uncredited
Art by Joe Orlando

"Emergency" ★★1/2
Story Uncredited
Art by Graham Ingels

"The Right Diagnosis" ★1/2
Story Uncredited
Art by George Evans

"Complete Cure"

Philip Stuart is involved in nasty accident and both his legs are crushed. Though his wife, Anne, is hesitant, she finally consents to a double amputation. Once he awakens, Phil becomes moody and self-pitying, believing himself to be half a man and worthless, but his surgeon, Dr. Fields, refuses to give up on his patient. Phil begins rehab with his prosthetic legs but it's a slow go and his self-confidence reaches an all-time low. One night, Fields calls Phil and asks him to meet him down at his gym, where he introduces Phil to one of his colleagues, Dr. Parks. Phil is polite but sees no reasoning behind the meeting until Parks drops his drawers and... yep, shows off his prosthetic legs. "Normandy, on D-Day," says Parks, and suddenly the light bulb comes on over Phil's eyes. He swears he'll become a doctor and save lives just as Fields saved his.

From simpering wimp to doctor-in-training in one page

Oh brother. Not only is "Complete Cure" tedious, but it's boring and steals the riff from a story published just last issue ("So Others May Walk"). We can only sit and gape in wonder at how stupid Phil acts for six pages, whining and carrying on, ignoring the fact that he's got a babe wife who doesn't mind that he stays home all day and watches Ozzie and Harriet and cooks really bad, but then has a complete turnabout when he sees a doctor with artificial legs! I'm not asking for masterpieces but is it too much to ask for Carl or Jack (or whoever wrote this) to stray from the same formula they were using on City Hospital? And, I have to say, these poor doctors that populate the pages of MD don't seem to be paid very well since they're always wearing the same suits, day in and day out. Gone are the headers at the top of the splash announcing what each story's malady will be. I assume that's to keep the suspense (!).

"Child's Play"

Little Jimmy is going deaf and all the kids think he's stuck up, so Mom feels if he gets the hearing aid his doctor prescribes it just means the other kids will get even nastier to her baby. Dr. Kenyon insists and, eventually, Jimmy's Dad talks Mom into knuckling under and putting the kid under the knife. Jimmy's operation goes swimmingly but Ma is paranoid the neighborhood bullies will spread rumors that Jimmy is pretentious and a freak, so she shuts him in the house for days on end, only leaving him long enough to shop at Macy's every day and have the occasional tea with the girls. One day, Mom comes home to find the house empty. She drops her bags and races out, finding Jimmy at the kids' club house. All the kids are trying out his hearing aid, remarking that Jimmy might still be a pretentious freak, but he sure has a cool toy hooked up to his ear.

Revenge of the Nerds, circa 1956

Sure, once again, an MD story sucks the life from its reader. "Child's Play" is sentimental and as syrupy as that stack of pancakes you're finishing, but it's the visuals that command comment this time out. This could be the worst art ever to appear in an EC comic. I thought, by story's end, we would discover that Jimmy wasn't deaf but, actually, an alien child. Characters are posed in the strangest fashion (Dr. Kenyon is speaking to the family but appears to be looking off at God knows what), Orlando's choice of photo reference is suspect at the very least (Jimmy's Pop looks as though he wants to make love to Mom rather than use the belt on Jimmy), and the whole enchilada has a bland, lifeless look to it. The final panel, of Jimmy and two of his bullying buddies, looks like Joe Orlando stumbled onto Photoshop thirty years before it was invented!

"And the coffee machine isn't giving change..."

We've got one heck of an "Emergency" here! A vicious storm has knocked the power out at a remote hospital but super doctors, Gresham and Halleck, remind their nurses and staff that, seventy-five years before, medicine was performed in the dark. Through a modern miracle of humanity, every single patient is rescued (even the "Contagion" ward patient who lives on a ventilator and must have her lungs worked by hand) and the next morning finds the two exhausted physicians asleep on the waiting room couch. I couldn't help but be swept along by the pinball-like events of "Emergency," with each hallway turn bringing some worse medical mishap to Drs. G+H ("What? The X-Ray machine is down?"). The script is involving (something missing from the previous stories this issue) and humorous at times. Once the sun comes out, the rescue workers finally break through washed-out roads and downed power lines to face an exhausted Dr. G. "How's everything?," asks their leader. Gresham, with cigarette hanging from his mouth, answers "Fine... now! Just fine!" You can take that several ways but I like to think the retort is delivered with spit and sarcasm.

"The Right Diagnosis"

George Gordon has a pain in the stomach but he's become something of a pain in the ass to his doc. As George's family physician for years, Dr. Jerris is only all too familiar with George's hypochondria, so when his patient shows up at the office demanding an appendectomy, Jerris brushes George off and tells him "The Right Diagnosis" is that he's merely depressed. George storms out of the office, promising he'll get that operation if he has to do it himself. Days later, worried that the numbskull will visit a doctor who's not as careful as he, Jerris visits George's home, only to be told that George has checked into an unknown hospital. The doc spends hours on the phone, finally identifying the hospital, and then heads over, where he finds George on a high ledge, despondent after having been given the same diagnosis. Jerris talks George off the ledge and the two have a laugh over how things escalated.

Since when?

Just once. Just once I'd like to see a downer of an ending from an MD story. I know sometimes, in real life, there are unhappy endings to medical treatments but you'd never know it from this title, which ends its insignificant run after only five issues and twenty stories. "The Right Diagnosis" reads as though it's a cross-over between MD and Psychoanalysis (oh lord, the thought of that!) in that Dr. Jerris has to deal with a nut job rather than real medicine. We all know that it was the CCA that killed the New Direction titles (Gaines was sick and tired of buckling to their every demand) but I wonder how long MD, Psychoanalysis, and Extra (the weakest of the new titles) would have lasted had EC merely gone along with the constraints and continued to pump out this weak crap post-January 1956. -Peter

Jack: Maybe my mood at the time I read them has something to do with how much or how little I enjoy these comics, but I thought this one was very good. Reed Crandall demonstrates in "Complete Cure" that he can do anything and is still producing terrific art; the story itself is fairly interesting. I don't like Joe Orlando's EC work much, either, but "Child's Play" got to me and I thought the moment when the boy could finally hear was moving. I also liked the happy ending and thought the good writing made the art bearable. The doctor in "Emergency" is the kind of doctor I want, and the story was thrilling from start to finish, with very nice art by Ghastly. Evans's work on "The Right Diagnosis" seemed rushed, but there was a brief moment of excitement out on the ledge at the end. I thought this last issue of MD was much more enjoyable than the last issue of Incredible Science Fiction.

Davis

Panic 12

"Charlie Chinless"★★
Story by Jack Mendelsohn
Art by Bill Elder

"House Hunting!"★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Davis

"The Heartaches of Joliet's Groans!"★★
Story by Nick Meglin and Al Feldstein
Art by Bill Elder

"'S a Tragic Air Command"★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood

Famous detective "Charlie Chinless" investigates the death of a sideshow midget who fell off of a sideshow giant at the circus. Charlie unmasks the dog-faced girl (who is really a spaniel) and the beautiful singer (who is really Number One Son) before the fortune teller reveals--with his dying breath--that the killer is the strong man. No, wait! It's the circus manager! A lion eats him.

"House Hunting!"

Ignore the racist "comedy" and chalk it up to the era; the opening story in the last issue of Panic is about as funny as every other story we've read so far by Jack Mendelsohn, and that means not at all.

John Q. Public and family have a hilarious time "House Hunting!" All sorts of mishaps befall them, and when they finally find the perfect house they realize they already own it. Like Will Elder in the first story, Jack Davis does a competent job, but reading stories like this is just a matter of turning pages and hoping the end will come soon.

Pretty Joliet lives with her sister Eva and their Pop. For some reason, these gorgeous gals can't seem to land husbands, and therein lies the tale of "The Heartaches of Joliet's Groans!" After a series of unsuccessful romances, Eva escapes into the comic strip below and finds love.

"The Heartaches..."

Will Elder could draw just about anything and beautiful girls are no exception. However, when the subject being parodied is as obscure as this one, it's hard to work up any laughs.

Gee, aren't those new wide-screen movies something? For instance, "'S a Tragic Air Command," where Melvin "Ditch" Digger, a baseball player, returns to the Air Force and finds that the planes have gotten a whole lot bigger and faster than they were in WWII. After a thrilling bombing run, he's reunited with his wife. The end.

Like Will Elder and Jack Davis, Wally Wood gives this story his all but the material is so weak that it's just an exercise in patience. That pretty much sums up most of the twelve-issue run of Panic, a comic that should be left on the dust heap of history.-Jack

"Charlie Chinless"

Peter: Yes, "Charlie Chinless" is mindless gunk (like the rest of the contents of Panic over the years) but it's sprinkled with some undeniably funny Chinless proverbs/one-liners guaranteed to raise a smile or two ("When there is beautiful tie between father and son... is usually worn by son!"), but we're far-removed from the laugh-out-loud parodies in MAD. After a respite from laughter (I think I slept through the absolutely horrid "House Hunting!"), my snickering continued again, all through "The Heartaches of Joliet's Groans!," a strip I was prepared to hate and found immensely entertaining. Meglin and Feldstein borrow a can't-miss gimmick from Harvey, the "fourth-wall breaker," when Eva uses an axe to chop her way into the lower newspaper strip. The one-liners are a hoot as well. What is going on here? I'm actually enjoying an issue of Panic! Then "'S a Tragic Air Command" brings me back to Earth. After an amusing prologue, explaining different techniques of film projecting, we're stuck with yet another unfunny film parody. The good news is "The Heartaches..." but the better news is that Panic #12 is the final issue!

THE BEST OF 1955

Peter

  1 "Master Race" (Impact #1)
  2 "In the Bag" (Shock SuspenStories #18)
  3 "Kismet" (Piracy #2)
  4 "The Know-Nothing" (Valor #4)
  5 "Rip-Up's Believe It Or Don't" (MAD #23)
  6 "The Skipper" (Piracy #6)
  7 "The New C.O." (Aces High #1)
  8 "Mickey Rodent" (MAD #19)
  9 "Chivalry" (Aces High #2)
10 "The Champion" (Valor #2)


Jack

  1 "Blind Alleys" (Tales from the Crypt 46)
  2 "Adaptability" (Weird Science-Fantasy 27)
  3 "Poopeye!" (Mad 21)
  4 "Just Her Speed" (Crime SuspenStories 27)
  5 "Master Race"
  6 "Gopo Gossum!" (Mad 23)
  7  "Dateline: New York City" (Extra 2)
  8 "The Champion"
  9 "The Rules" (Aces High 3)
10 "Debt of Honor" (Valor 3)

What's more insane...
Killing Da Vinci
or assigning art chores to Frank Robbins?
The boys will answer that question next week!

And in three weeks...
We'll put a capper on our coverage of the EC line
with a three-part look at the Pictos, 
Best of All Time, and lots of surprises!

The Hitchcock Project-Bernard C. Schoenfeld Part Nine: And the Desert Shall Blossom [4.11]

by Jack Seabrook

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."--Isaiah 35:1 (King James Version)

The prophet Isaiah wrote this passage in the eighth century B.C. when the nation of Judah was under siege by the Assyrian army; the verse refers to the time when the Lord will deliver his people from their enemies. On a smaller scale is Loren D. Good's short story, "And the Desert Shall Blossom" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March 1958), in which two old men who live in a cabin they built on the edge of the desert find a way to resist the efforts of well-meaning townsfolk to bring them in from the wilderness in order to make their final years safer and more comfortable.

William Demarest as Tom

Ben Wilson and Tom Tye are proud of their cabin and do not intend to leave. Ben remarks that they must stay until their sagging rosebush blooms at least once. A dust cloud signals that a car is approaching but it breaks down a hundred yards from the men's front door. A stranger in a striped suit asks if they have a car, which they do not, and asks if they have food, which they are glad to share. He tells Ben and Tom that he needs to get to Reno and, when they tell him that he will have to walk, he pulls a gun and threatens them, hitting Tom across the cheek with the weapon. Ben bandages Tom, who quietly takes a gun from Ben's waistband; Ben flattens and Tom shoots the stranger.

Rosco Ates as Ben

Three weeks later, Sheriff Thompson visits and the two old men tell him that the stranger walked off toward Reno. It seems he was a criminal named Tom Carmody, who was wanted for murder. Ben and Tom refuse to go with the sheriff, who thinks they should move into town to have an easier life in their old age. After the sheriff leaves, the men admire their garden, where the "rosebush now stood straight and strong, healthily green and beautiful in the clear desert air." Though it is not stated explicitly, the implication is that the rosebush sits atop Carmody's grave, where his decomposing body provides live-giving nutrients.

Author Loren D. Good (1916-1993) was born and raised on the West Coast and worked as a cowpuncher and a railroad man before serving in the Army during WWII. After the war, he had a career in newspapers, public relations, and freelance writing. He wrote a children's novel set in Mexico called Panchito (1955) but I have been unable to find any published short stories that he wrote other than "And the Desert Shall Blossom."

Ben Johnson as Jeff, the sheriff

Bernard C. Schoenfeld adapted Good's short story for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents of the same title that aired on CBS on Sunday, December 21, 1958, and the short film is a delight! Schoenfeld takes a brief tale and improves it by paying close attention to story structure and motivation. The TV play unfolds in three scenes and the writer makes key changes that strengthen the dramatic effect of the tale.

In the first scene, the sheriff rides up to the men's shack and tells them that the town council wants them to move into an old folk's home in town. Ben and Tom have been homesteading in the desert since 1892, digging for gold in a nearby mine. The sheriff tells them that to qualify as homesteaders, they must grow something on the land that they occupy. They show him their rose bush, which looks barely alive, and Tom promises that they will pick a bouquet of roses in a month. After the sheriff leaves, they agree that "What we need is a miracle." This first scene adds the sheriff as antagonist and clearly sets a goal that the duo must reach by the end of the show.

Mike Kellin as the stranger

In scene two, the criminal arrives, wearing a fancy suit and speaking with a New York accent that sets him apart from the country way of speaking used by Ben and Tom. Events unfold as they do in the story and a confrontation that at first seems to suggest that the old prospectors are as vulnerable as the sheriff says ends up demonstrating that they are more resourceful than they might first appear.

The third and final scene finds the sheriff returning with his deputy, both looking for the criminal. Ben and Tom return from the mine with their mule and we learn that three weeks have passed. Ben reminds the sheriff of their deal and they show him the rose bush, which now bursts with blooming roses. The sheriff agrees that "It's a miracle" and leaves. The last shot makes clear what has happened as the camera pulls back to show that the rose bush is thriving right in the middle of a mound that resembles a grave.

Wesley Lau as the deputy

The changes to the story that Schoenfeld made for the teleplay are small but significant. By bookending the show with visits from the sheriff, he is able to set up a preposterous claim and then demonstrate by purely visual means just how the resourceful old men made it come true. Self-sufficient even in a harsh climate, Ben and Tom resist the encroachment of the modern world, which comes both in the form of law (the sheriff) and crime (the stranger), and bend outside forces to satisfy their needs. It's best not to try to analyze the ending too much and ask how a body could decompose quickly enough to serve as fertilizer or where the old men got the water to make their rose bush thrive; instead, one must sit back and enjoy the work of a talented cast and crew that takes a slight short story and elevates it to a highly entertaining half-hour of television.

"And the Desert Shall Blossom" is directed by Arthur Hiller (1923-2016), who also directed "The Jokester," the last Schoenfeld script to air before this one. Hiller worked as a director on TV from 1954 to 1974 and in film from 1957 to 2006 and was behind the camera for 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The cast of this episode is especially good and the superb performances of the two leads make it very enjoyable. Starring as Tom is William Demarest (1892-1983), who served in the U.S. Army in WWI and then acted in vaudeville and on Broadway. His film career lasted from 1927 to 1976 and included appearances in eight films directed by Preston Sturges; he was on TV from 1957 to 1978 and is best remembered for playing Uncle Charley on My Three Sons from 1965 to 1972. This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock show. A website devoted to him is here.

The final shot reveals all!

Rosco Ates (1895-1962) plays Ben, gentle and friendly in contrast to Demarest's gruff Tom. Ates was a vaudeville comedian who later worked as an Air Force trainer in WWII; he was on screen from 1929 to 1961 and appeared in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Jokester."

Giving his usual solid performance as the sheriff is Ben Johnson (1918-1996), whose biography is titled The Nicest Fellow. A stuntman turned actor, he was on screen from 1939 to 1996, often in westerns. He won an Academy Award for his role in The Last Picture Show (1971) and only appeared in this one episode of the Hitchcock show.

The story was first
published here

Mike Kellin (1922-1983) plays the stranger from New York; he served in the Navy in WWII and then attended the Yale School of Drama. He was busy on Broadway and appeared on screen from 1950 to 1983. In addition to this episode, he was in one episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Finally, in a small role as the sheriff's deputy is Wesley Lau (1921-1984), who served in the Army Air Corps in WWII and then went to the Actors Studio. He was on screen from 1951 to 1981 and appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including "Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Fenimore."

The short story has never been reprinted as far as I can tell, and thanks are due to Peter Enfantino for providing a copy. The TV show is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here. It is a real treat. Read more about it on the GenreSnaps website here.

Sources:

“And the Desert Shall Blossom.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 11, CBS, 21 Dec. 1958.

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

Galactic Central, philsp.com/.

Good, Loren D. “And the Desert Shall Blossom.” Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Mar. 1958, pp. 81-87.

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

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

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

In two weeks: "Out There--Darkness" starring Bette Davis!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 144: December 1973 + The Best of 1973

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

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 20

"Death Watch"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Don Perlin

"Operation: Voodoo!"
Story by Arnold Drake
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"Death is a Green Man"
Story by Arnold Drake
Art by Alfredo Alcala

Peter: Private Price keeps dreaming of death but, when the Germans march in and blast the building he and his fellow G.I.s are staying in, Price sees a way out. He hides in the hills and watches as the rest of his platoon is slaughtered and then comes back down to discover he hadn't escaped the bombing after all. His dead body lies in the burnt-out building. I wonder how many times Jack Oleck used this same Owl Creek Bridge-style "shock" ending over the course of his decades-long career. To be fair, everyone used it, but that doesn't make "Death Watch" any easier to read. Neither does wading through Don Perlin's icky pencils.

"Death Watch"

Even artwork from the great Alfredo Alcala (no one did voodoo stories like Alcala) can't save the dull, boring "Operation: Voodoo!," a tale of black magic in 18th-century Haiti. There's no real life in the words, just a sense of filling up pages. And Arnold must have thought, "If at first you don't succeed . . ." by handing yet another script over to Alfredo for embellishing. Again, Alcala comes out aces, but the script for "Death is a Green Man" is a mishmash that doesn't make much sense. Fighter pilot Captain Danners has a near-death experience and gets an unwanted gift for his trouble. His friends, one by one, appear to him in green-face (as if they look "three days dead") and each one dies during a mission. Brushing his teeth one night, Danners glances into the mirror to see a green face. Knowing he's marked for death on a mission, he visits the doctor, calls in sick, and waits to see what happens to his comrades. All the planes come back safely but Danners has a seizure on the tarmac, and his doctor diagnoses penicillin shock. Why was Danners gifted the foresight? Who knows? No explanation is given, as if we're just supposed to take it for granted this is a weird war they're fighting in and anything can happen. There's a funny panel of Danners checking the roster and seeing that half the names belong to the DC bullpen at the time. Reading these latest Weird War Tales, I've got the sinking feeling every possible angle had been used up by 1973.

"Death is a Green Man"

Jack: "Death is a Green Man" is a direct swipe from "The Purple Testament," a first-season episode of The Twilight Zone. Despite the good pedigree and impressive art by Alcala, the story falls flat. I found "Operation: Voodoo!" to be muddled and confusing and even Alcala's work looks listless. "Death Watch" is a Bierce swipe, as Peter points out, with below-average art by one of our favorite 70s' whipping boys, Don Perlin.

Ken Barr

Star Spangled War Stories 176

"Target . . . the Unknown Soldier"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling

"Charge!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Frank Thorne

Peter: The Unknown Soldier bids his resistance friend, Cornelius, adieu and then walks away, only to see a missile slam into his friend's flat, killing Cornelius and lighting a fire of vengeance under the scarred bottom of the Soldier. Knowing the Soldier is somewhere in Antwerp, the Nazis continue their massive bombing and hope the pest will be destroyed. Meanwhile, back in Germany, Colonel Krantz finally reveals his secret weapon, and it's a doozy! Captain Werner von Sturm was once the "New Red Baron," the "ace of aces," the crème de la crème but, after a particularly nasty plane crash, he's a bandaged and scarred revenge-crazed superman (hmmmmmm . . .), and Krantz wants it that way. The Colonel's idea is to lure the Soldier to Germany, kill him, and replace our hero with the psycho, von Sturm.

"Target . . . the Unknown Soldier"

Meanwhile, back in Antwerp, a very important person has fallen into the hands of the Unknown Soldier. Pieter de Groote was once a leading Dutch "solid fuels physicist" until he got fed up with the Nazis interrupting his experiments and fled to Belgium. The Soldier's idea, one that the upper command immediately green lights, is to slip behind enemy lines in the guise of de Groote and find and destroy the munitions plant responsible for supplying the Germans with their bombs. All goes well until the Soldier is captured and loaded onto a train bound for a concentration camp. It's there that he realizes, after overhearing other prisoners talk badly of de Groote, that he's been hornswoggled! The Germans are waiting for him.

Check your brain at the door, please, and accompany me on a wild (if poorly visualized) ride through the craziness and laziness known as "Target . . . the Unknown Soldier." Well, it's laziness if you consider that creating a Nazi parallel of the Unknown Soldier is one of the oldest tricks in the superhero/funny book business, but the strip has such a tongue-in-cheek vibe to it (which is why I can excuse the awful art of Sparling), that I'm willing to give Frank Robbins a little more rope.

Of course, I've read Robbins's stuff before, which makes me wonder if ol' Frank is capable of whipping up something that isn't as it appears. This could end up as just another poorly-written arc but, for now, I'm enjoying the heck out of all the loony twists. How could the Soldier make contact with de Groote before the brass (he actually brings the scientist to his commander)? Did the Nazis know where to find US? Does the Soldier have a sign hanging above his Airbnb that reads "All important defectors check in here first!?" Robbins's double and triple twists in the climax are genius; just keep us guessing, please! Archie Goodwin contributes a Civil War tale concerning a gung ho "lootenant" who has a knack for getting his boys "kilt." Since we are to assume that Nazis don't speak English, can we also assume that the Southerners have a drawl and avoid all the "heah"s and "cain't"s? I find it immensely harder to concentrate on the story if my little brain is having to translate a foreign language all the while.

Jack and I is pert near tahd of tryin' ta
figger out this here talk, I must 'fess.

Jack: I thought "Charge!" was a very good short tale of a little-known battle, with fine art by Frank Thorne and a good script that gets the point across without being too heavy-handed or preachy. As for "Target . . . the Unknown Soldier," creating a Nazi counterpart of the Unknown Soldier is a good idea and the end, where the Nazis reveal that the Unknown Soldier has a tell that allows them to pick him out in a crowd, is a good start to a new continuing story. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Kubert

Our Army at War 263

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

"Winter Soldier!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: Though Easy Co. has had no rest for 48 hours and could skip a dangerous mission, they choose to probe Cemetery Hill rather than let Rock lead "a bunch of green apples" toward certain death. The route to the hill is fraught with peril but Rock and his men manage to dispatch a Panzerwagen as it crosses a bridge and a sunken tank turret buried on the approach to their target. This last bit of destruction alerts the Nazis guarding the hill, and they capture Easy Co. and march them as prisoners to Stalag 22, a nearby temporary P.O.W. camp that, to them, is "The Cage!!"

Major Krause puts Rock in charge of his fellow prisoners and, 44 hours later, when four inmates escape, the Allied soldiers are marched outside at night and Rock is told to select four men to be executed and several others to act as their firing squad. He picks four men to die and they hurl insults at him when he picks Easy Co. vets to be the firing squad. Machine gunners in a tower are ready to execute everyone if they disobey orders, but at the last moment Rock orders his men to fire at the gunners in the tower rather than at their fellow prisoners. Mayhem breaks out and Rock finishes the job by killing Major Krause himself. Set free, the prisoners thank Rock, and all of the Allied troops head off into the falling snow, away from the camp.

"The Cage!!"

Kanigher and Heath continue to present more realistic and violent stories in Our Army at War, even as some of the other DC War Comics suffer from weak scripts and below-average art. This is not Heath's best work, as some of the soldier's faces made me wonder if he had less capable help, but the action sequences are strong, as usual. It's nice to have a story that is wrapped up in a single issue, something we haven't seen much of lately, but I hope another extended saga gets going soon.

John Constable arrives at Mt. Vernon in 1781 to paint Washington's portrait but feels unworthy to capture the legendary man's likeness on canvas. A maid tells him a story of a "Winter Soldier!" who tried to desert the troops one freezing night at Valley Forge. Washington sentenced the young man to die by firing squad but took him aside to explain how his brave act of facing death with dignity would inspire his fellow soldiers to stick with the troops in that difficult winter. The young soldier is executed and Washington is haunted by his memory. Constable asks the maid how she knows the details of the story and she reveals that she is the young soldier's mother.

"Winter Soldier!"

This is a hard lesson well told by Kanigher, and Estrada does his best with his limited skill to match the tone of the story with serious illustrations. I'll admit that I was hoping Washington would find a way to pardon the young man, but I understand that the execution had to go forward. These backup stories are gritty, as Peter has noted; I just wish they'd use a better artist.

Peter: Unfortunately, "The Cage!!" doesn't change my opinion that this title, the foundation of the DC war line, is stuck in a rut. How many times we have to see the same half-dozen super-men take on a tank or a Zero with nothing more than their wits and good luck? The escape from the POW camp is indicative of what I'm talking about; are these the war's stupidest Nazis? As usual, there are still a few twists and shocks to keep the pages turning (the shadowy figure of the hanged men in a background), and Heath is, as always, the best man for the job, but why do I feel Big Bob was holding back the stronger stuff for his "Gallery of War" series? Was he being pressured to keep Rock more "middle of the road," and avoid anything too disturbing? Speaking of "Gallery of War," Big Bob's latest, "Winter Soldier!," has a jolt at the climax (the fact that Washington goes through with the execution) but the final reveal is a bit confusing. I'm assuming the woman is one of Washington's maids but it's not very clear; after the first read-through, I was convinced it was Martha Washington who was narrating the story and the President had ordered his own son's death, but that can't be the case. I'll leave it for the bookworm, Jack, to decipher the secret.

Jack: No doubt about it--she's a maid!

Kubert

G.I. Combat 167

"The Finish Line!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Just Another Mission"
Story by Steve Mitchell
Art by Ken Barr

Peter: Hauptmann Dieter Reinhardt has always wanted a rematch with the man who beat him in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The obsession has haunted him so much that he's carried a duffel bag full of athletic gear (for two!) just in case this great big war landed Gus Gray in front of his Tiger. Sure enough, last issue, Gus was reintroduced to the man he beat and that man wants to prove that his Charley horse was the only thing to keep him from the Gold. Gus is forced into the race but he takes advantage of the preoccupation of Reinhardt's men to allow the boys of the Jeb Stuart to escape. The crew rolls into a Greek village, where they are hidden by resistance fighters. When Reinhardt and his Ratzis come calling, the boys and their new allies use deception to gain the upper hand. Gus gives chase to a fleeing Reinhardt, who falls over a cliff and is hanged by his Olympic medal.

"The Finish Line!"

One of the dreariest, and certainly one of the ugliest, Haunted Tank stories I've ever read. This entire saga could have been told in one issue but Archie felt the need to pad it over two. This is the 79th Haunted Tank story (with over one hundred more to follow) and, unless someone stumbles across a new angle involving a patchwork tank guided by a ghost, this is going to be a long, long journey through mediocrity. Glanzman reaches an all-time low with "The Finish Line!," with some panels looking as though they were abandoned halfway through completion and lots of sketchy, static figures running to and fro but not looking very human. Truly wretched stuff.

Much better is the co-feature, Steve Mitchell's "Just Another Mission," in which a leftenant in the British Army in the early days of WWII accepts an easy-peasy mission, only to find his Colonel had faulty intel. Sharp dialogue and fabulous Ken Barr illustrations make this one a keeper.

"Just Another Mission"

Jack: With some of the worst pro art I've ever seen, "The Finish Line!" is a contender for worst story of the year. The final irony is terribly heavy-handed and the story is awful from start to finish. It's so bad, it makes the Unknown Soldier look good! "Just Another Mission" is certainly an improvement, though nothing special. Ken Barr's art has a Severin vibe to it here and he provides some pretty wild, big panels depicting battle. The story may be set in WWII, but the attitude is pure Vietnam-era.

Heath

Four ★★★★ Battle Tales 5

"Soldier's Luck!"
Story by Dave Wood
Art by Bernie Krigstein
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #11, June 1953)

"No Sunset for a Jet!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #78, January 1959)

"The Three Frogmen"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Mort Drucker
(Reprinted from G.I. Combat #72, May 1959)

Jack: Fighting on the front lines in Korea, Willie is razzed by the other men in his unit when his Mom sends him a woolen scarf, but they change their tune after the scarf saves him and the rest of the guys by providing a dose of "Soldier's Luck!" during a series of enemy attacks!

"Soldier's Luck!"

The last issue of Four ★★★★ Battle Tales gets off to a good start with a quick little story set during the Korean War; somehow, Krigstein's art seems more finished in the DC stories we've seen lately in reprint than it sometimes did at EC.

The sun may set on most fighting men, but there's "No Sunset for a Jet!"as it battles all comers in the sky and on the ground. Russ Heath does what he can with this one but it's essentially a series of opportunities to repeat the title phrase or something similar to it as a lone fighter pilot overcomes incredible odds to survive.

"The Three Frogmen" are told of a mission that is too hard for even them, so each man sets out to prove the commanding officer wrong by tacking a very difficult task. They return to boast of their success only to learn that they have been tricked by a C.O. who wanted to see what they would do if he told them there was an impossible mission to be conquered.

"No Sunset for a Jet!"

A little of the frogman story sub-genre goes a long way and DC certainly milked it for all it was worth, but any chance to see Mort Drucker draw a war story is a chance I welcome. It's too bad this reprint title ends here, because the art on the old stories surpasses anything new we're getting from Don Perlin, Jack Sparling, Ric Estrada, or Sam Glanzman.

Peter: All three of the stories featured in the final issue of Four Star Battle Tales are utterly predictable but also undeniably charming in their own way. I love Bernie's art in "Soldier's Luck!" but I also fell for the easygoing way of our hero, not caring that much for the hard time his comrades are giving him and just getting on with the business of war. I wondered why "No Sunset for a Jet!" wasn't titled "Shooting Star," since that's the phrase Bob Haney chose to run into the ground. Heath's art is exquisite. Haney scores with the humor in "The Three Frogmen," and Mort Drucker's ordinary-Joe art is easy on the eye.

"The Three Frogmen"

THE BEST OF 1973

PETE

Best Script: Robert Kanigher, "Pathfinder" (G.I. Combat #165)
Best Art: Alex Nino, "Old Samurai" (Weird War Tales #13)
Best All-Around Story: "Pathfinder"

Worst Script: Arnold Drake, "The Warrior and the Witch-Doctor" (Weird War Tales #12)
Worst Art: Sam Glanzman, "The Finish Line!" (G.I. Combat #167)
Worst All-Around Story: "The Finish Line!"

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "Pathfinder"
  2 "What's It Like?" (Our Army at War #255)
  3 "Mud and Sky" (G.I. Combat #158)
  4 "The Final Victor!" (G.I. Combat #162)
  5 "Castaway" (Our Army at War #257)

JACK 

Best Script: Robert Kanigher, "The Return!" (Our Army at War #262)
Best Art: Tony DeZuniga/Alfredo Alcala/Gerry Talaoc/Alex Nino, "October 30..." (Weird War Tales #11)
Best All-Around Story: "The Survivor!" (Our Army at War #258)

Worst Script: Robert Kanigher, "What Price War?" (G.I. Combat #158)
Worst Art: Sam Glanzman, "The Finish Line!"
Worst All-Around Story: "What Price War?"

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "Who is Haunting the Haunted Chateau?" (Weird War Tales #10)
  2 "The Town" (Our Army at War #254)
  3 "What's it Like?"
  4 "School for Sergeants!" (Our Army at War #256)
  5 "The Survivor!"

Next Week...
...with a whimper!