Category: Showcase Presents

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Showcase Presents The Losers volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Joe Kubert, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, John Severin, Ken Barr & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3437-9 (TPB)

Team-ups are a valuable and all-but-inescapable comics standby, and war stories have always thrived by calling together strange bedfellows – none more so than this splendid composite: another woefully neglected series in today’s graphic novels marketplace. The Losers were an elite unit of US soldiers formed by amalgamating three previous war series together. Gunner and Sarge (later supplemented by the “Fighting Devil Dog” Pooch) were Pacific-based Marines, debuting in All-American Men of War #67, (March 1959) and running for 50 issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959-August 1965). Captain Johnny Cloud was a native American fighter pilot who shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82 (December 1960). The “Navaho Ace” flew solo until issue #115 (1966), and entered a brief limbo until the final component of the Land/Air/Sea unit was filled by Captain Storm. He was a disabled PT Boat skipper who fought on despite losing a leg and gaining a wooden prosthesis in his own eponymous 18-issue series from 1964 to 1967.

All three series were created by comic book warlord Robert Kanigher and had pretty much passed their individual use-by dates when they were seconded as guest-stars in a Haunted Tank tale (G.I. Combat #138 October 1969), but these “Losers” found a new resonance together in the “relevant”, disillusioned, cynical Vietnam years. The rather nihilistic, doom-laden antihero group assumed the lead spot in Our Fighting Forces #123 beginning a lengthy run of blistering yarns written by Kanigher and illustrated by such giants as Ken Barr, Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, John Severin and Joe Kubert. With the tag-line “even when they win, they lose”, the team saw action all over the globe, winning critical acclaim and a far-too-small but passionate following. Although they official died during Crisis on Infinite Earths, their missions ran until OFF # 181 (October 1978) and this year marks their 55th Anniversary – or 65th for most of the individual stars.

This magnificent monochrome tome collects that introductory tale from the October 1969 G.I. Combat and the formative run of suicidal missions from Our Fighting Forces #123-150 (January /February 1970-August/September 1974). At that point comic book messiah Jack Kirby took over the series for a couple of years and made it, as always, uniquely his own. For that seminal set you must see Jack Kirby’s The Losers Omnibus (no, really, you must. That’s an order, Soljer…

Kanigher frequently used stories in established venues as a testing ground for new series ideas, and G.I. Combat #138 (October 1969) introduced one of his most successful. Illustrated by magnificent hyper-realist Russ Heath, ‘The Losers!’ saw the Armoured Cavalry heroes riding in The Haunted Tank encounter a sailor, two marines and grounded pilot Johnny Cloud: each individually and utterly demoralised after negligently losing all the men under their respective commands. Guilt-ridden and broken, the battered relics are re-inspired by tank commander Jeb Stuart who fans their sense of duty and desire for vengeance until the crushed survivors regain a measure of respect and fighting spirit by uniting in a combined suicide-mission to destroy a Nazi Radar tower…

By the end of 1969 Dirty Dozen knock-off Hunter’s Hellcats had outstayed their welcome in Our Fighting Forces and with #123 (January/February 1970) were evacuated in the epilogue ‘Exit Laughing’ which segued directly into ‘No Medals, No Graves’, illustrated by Scottish artist Ken Barr. His stunning work in paint and line had graced everything from Commando Picture Library covers, through Marvel, DC and Warren, to film, book and TV work and he continued the tale as Storm, Cloud, Gunner & Sarge sit in enforced, forgotten idleness until departing star Lieutenant Hunter recommends them for a dirty, dangerous job no sane military men would touch…

It appears Storm is a dead ringer for a British agent – even down to the wooden leg! – and the Brass need the washed-up sailor to impersonate their vital human resource. The only problem is that they want him to be captured, withstand Nazi torture for 48 hours and then break, delivering damaging disinformation about a vast commando raid that won’t be happening. The agent would do it himself but is actually dead…

And there was even work for his despondent companions as a disposable diversionary tactic added to corroborate the secrets Storm will hopefully betray after two agonising days…

Overcoming all expectation the “Born Losers” triumph and even get away intact, after which Ross Andru & Mike Esposito became the regular art team in #124 where ‘Losers Take All’ shows how even good luck is bad, after a mission to liberate the hostage king of a Nazi-subjugated nation sees them doing spectacular hard work before losing their prize to Johnny-come-lately regular soldiers…

In #125 ‘Daughters of Death’ sees the suicide squad initially fail to rescue a scientist’s children, only to blisteringly return and rectify their mistakes, However, by then the nervous tension has cracked the Professor’s mind, rendering him useless to the Allied cause. ‘A Lost Town’ opens with The Losers undergoing a Court Martial for desertion. Reviled for allowing the obliteration of a French village, they face execution until an old blind man and his two grandkids reveal what really happened in the hellish conflagration of Perdu, whilst in ‘Angels Over Hell’s Corner’, a brief encounter with a pretty WREN (Women’s Royal Navy Service) in Blitz-beleaguered Britain draws the unit into a star-crossed love story even death itself cannot thwart…

In a portmanteau tale disclosing more details of the events which created the squad, Our Fighting Forces #128 described the ‘7 11 War’ wherein a hot streak during a casual game of craps presages disastrous calamity for any unlucky bystander near to the Hard Luck Heroes, before ‘Ride the Nightmare’ sees Cloud endure horrifying visions and crack up on a mission to liberate a captive rocket scientist. Then the team again become a living diversion in #130’s ‘Nameless Target’. By getting lost and hitting the wrong target, The Losers gift the Allies with their greatest victory to date…

John Severin inked Andru in OFF #131, in preparation to taking over full art chores, as ‘Half a Man’ hints at darker, grittier tales to come when Storm’s disability and guilty demons begin to overwhelm him. Considering himself a jinx, the sea dog attempts to sacrifice himself on a mission to Norway but has not counted on his own brutal will to survive. Back in London, Gunner & Sarge are temporarily reunited with ‘Pooch: the Winner’ (OFF #132 by Kanigher & Severin), prompting a fond if perilous recollection of a distant Pacific exploit against the Japanese. However, fearing their luck was contagious, the soldiers sadly decide the beloved “Fighting Devil Dog” is better off without them…

Dispatched to India in #133’s ‘Heads or Tails’, The Losers must assassinate the “the Unholy Three”: Japanese Generals responsible for untold slaughter amongst British and native populations. In sweltering deadly jungles, they only succeed thanks to the determined persistence and sacrifice of a Sikh child hiding a terrible secret. Our Fighting Forces #134 has them brutally fighting from shelled house to hedgerow in Europe until Gunner cracks. When even his partners can’t get him to pick up a gun again it takes the example of indomitable wounded soldiers to show him who ‘The Real Losers’ are…

OFF #135 began a compelling extended epic radically shaking up the team after ‘Death Picks a Loser’. Following an ill-considered fortune telling incident in London, the squad ship out to Norway to organise a resistance cell, despite efforts to again sideline one-legged Storm. They rendezvous with Pastor Tornsen and his daughter Ona and begin by mining the entire village of Helgren, determined to deny the Nazis a stable base of operations. Even after the Pastor sacrifices himself to allow villagers and Americans time to escape, the plan stumbles when the explosives fail to detonate and Storm, convinced he’s a liability, detonates the ordnance by hand. Finding only his wooden leg in flattened rubble, The Losers are further stunned when vengeful orphan Ona volunteers to take the tragic sailor’s place in the squad of Doomed Men…

The ice-bound retreat from Helgren stalls in #136 when she offers herself as a ‘Decoy for Death’, leading German tanks into a lethal ambush, after which Cloud solos in the Pacific: inspiring natives to resist the Japanese as a resurrected ‘God of the Losers’…

Reunited in #138, the Bad Luck Brigade become ‘The Targets’ when sent to uncover the secret of a new Nazi naval weapon sinking Allied shipping. Once more using Ona as bait, they succeed in stunning fashion, but also pick up enigmatic intel regarding a crazy one-eyed, peg-legged marauder attacking both Enemy and Allied vessels off Norway…

Our Fighting Forces #139 introduced ‘The Pirate’, when a band of deadly reivers attack a convoy ship carrying The Losers and supplies to Norwegian resistance fighters. Barely escaping with their lives, the unit is then sent to steal a sample of top secret jet fuel but discover the Sea Devil has beaten them to it. Forced to bargain with the merciless mercenary for the prototype, they find themselves in financial and combat competition with an equally determined band of German troops who simply won’t take “nein” for an answer…

‘Lost… One Loser’ reveals Ona was with Storm at the end and is now plagued by survivor’s guilt nightmares. Almost convincing her comrades he still lives, the traumatised girl leads them on another Norway mission, again acting as a honey trap to get close to a German bigwig and secure incontrovertible proof Storm was dead when she picked up his battered, burned dog-tags…

Still troubled, Ona commandeers a plane and returns home to assassinate her Quisling uncle in #141’s ‘The Bad Penny’, only to be betrayed to the town’s German garrison and saved by the pirate who picks that moment to raid the occupied outpost. Even with other Losers in attendance, the Pirate’s rapacious rogues are ultimately triumphant but when the crippled corsair snatches Ona’s most treasured possession, that dingy dog-tag unlocks suppressed memories and Storm (this is comics: who else would it be?) remembers everything…

Answers to his impossible survival come briskly in OFF #142 as ‘½ a Man’ concentrates on the Captain’s struggle for reinstatement. Shipping out to the Far East on a commercial vessel, he’s followed by his concerned comrades whilst stumbling into an Arabian insurrection with three war-weary guardian angels discreetly dogging his heel…

Back with The Losers again in #143, Storm is soon involved in another continued saga as ‘Diamonds are for Never!’ finds the Fatalistic Five in Africa to stop an SS unit hijacking industrial diamonds for their failing war effort. However, even after liberating a captured mine, the team fail to get the gems when monkeys make off with the glittering prizes. Hot on their trail in ‘The Lost Mission’, the pursuers stumble onto a Nazi ambush of British soldiers and determine to take on their task – demolishing an impregnable riverside fortress…

Despite apparent success, the Squad are driven inland and are lost in the desert where they stumble into a French Foreign Legion outpost and join its last survivor in defending ‘A Flag for Losers’ from a merciless German horde and French traitors…

Still lost in the trackless wastes they survive ‘The Forever Walk!’ in #146, battling equally-parched Nazis for the last precious drops of water and losing one of their own to a terrifying sandstorm. ‘The Glory Road!’ then sees the sun-baked survivors encounter the last survivor of a German ambush, but British Major Cavendish is unable to differentiate between his early days as a star of patriotic films and grim reality. When a German patrol captures them all the mockery proves too much for the troubled martinet…

Again lost and without water, in #148 ‘The Last Charge’ sees The Losers save a desert princess and grant her warrior father the opportunity to fulfil a prophecy and die in glorious battle against the Nazi invaders, whilst #149 briefly reunites the squad with their long-missing former comrade before tragically separating again in ‘A Bullet for a Traitor!’

This fateful combat fury concludes with ‘Mark our Graves’ from #150 as The Losers link up with members of The Jewish Brigade (a special British Army unit) who all pay a steep price to uncover a secret Nazi supply dump. Although a superbly action-packed and deeply moving tale, it was an inauspicious end to the run and one which held no hint of the creative culture-shock that would explode onto the pages of the next instant issue when the God of American Comic Books blasted in to create a unique string of “Kirby Klassics”…

With covers by Joe Kubert, Frank Thorne and Neal Adams, this grimly efficient, superbly understated, beautifully rendered collection is a brilliant example of how war comics evolved in the 1970s, proving these stories still pack a TNT punch few other forms of entertainment can match. Surely by now there’s appetite for a revival and further volumes of this superb series?
© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents The House of Mystery volume 3


By Joe Orlando, Michael Fleischer, Maxine Fabe, Jack Oleck, John Albano, Sergio Aragonés, Steve Skeates, Mark Evanier, Robert Kanigher, George Kashdan, Doug Moench, Sheldon Mayer, E. Nelson Bridwell, John Jacobson, David Micheline, Gerard Conway, David Izzo, Dennis O’Neil, Marv Wolfman, John Broome, Paul Levitz, Bob Rozakis, Mark Hanerfeld, David Kasakove, Michael J. Pellowski, Martin Pasko, Bernie Wrightson, Michael William Kaluta, John Calnan, Murphy Anderson, Ruben Yandoc, Alex N. Niño, Romy Gamboa, Adolfo Buylla, Sonny Trinidad, Nestor Redondo, Rico Rival, Gerry Talaoc, Fred Carrillo, Tony DeZuñiga, Bernard Baily, Abe Ocampo, Alfredo Alcala, Frank Thorne, Frank “Quico” Redondo, Eufronio Reyes (E.R.) Cruz, Ralph Reese, Ramona Fradon, Frank Robbins, Bill Draut, Howard Purcell, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Mort Meskin, George Roussos, Frank Giacoia, Mike Sekowsky, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Joe Giella, Jack Sparling, Pat Broderick, Leonard Starr, Carmine Infantino, Bernard Sachs, Bill Ely, Jess M. Jodloman, Curt Swan & George Klein, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2183-6 (TPB)

American comicbooks started slowly until the creation of Superman unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre: superheroes. Implacably vested in the Second World War, they swept all before them until the troops came home whereupon older genres supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Although new kids kept up the buying, much of the previous generation also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychology of humanity, and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this. As well as Western, War and Crime comics, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another periodic revival of spiritualism and interest in the supernatural led to increasingly impressive, evocative and even shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (the Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Zatara, Dr. Fate and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: the unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948, although Adventures Into the Unknown was technically pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before launching a regular series in 1951, by which time Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and invented Romance comics with Young Romance #1, (September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery. When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules HoM and its sister title House of Secrets were dialled back into rationalistic, fantasy adventure vehicles. They even briefly became super-hero split-books (with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in HoM and Eclipso subletting with veteran mystic adventurer Mark Merlin – who latterly became Prince Ra-Man – in HoS).

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and as the 1960s waned the Silver Age superhero boom stalled and crashed, leading to surviving publishers agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in global interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer”. Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their Red Circle Thrillers…

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all issue #174, cover dated May-June 1968 presented a bold banner asking Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery? whilst reprinting a bunch of admittedly excellent short fantastic thrillers originally seen in House of Secrets from those heady days when it was okay to scare kids.

With covers by Michael William Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Luis Dominguez, George Evans, Nick Cardy, Bill Draut, Alfredo Alcala & Gerry Talaoc, this second compilation reprints in moody monochrome the contents of The House of Mystery #212 to 226. The contents span cover-dates March 1973 to August/September 1974 and begin with ‘Ever After’ by unknown scribe and illustrators John Calnan & Murphy Anderson, wherein a ruthless chancer picks the wrong recently bereaved heiress to marry. Michael Fleischer, Maxine Fabe & Alex N. Niño’s ‘Oh Mom! Oh Dad! You’ve Sent Me Away to Summer Camp… and I’m So Sad!’ reveals a strange logic to why the kid in a wheelchair is being picked on by his supposed chums before the issue ends with Jack Oleck & Ruben Yandoc sharing a grim ride with a guilty passenger heading ‘Halfway to Hell!’

John Albano & Niño’s ‘Back from the Realm of the Damned’ opens #213 as a greedy son murders his stepfather and learns an eternally damning lesson. Although fear was key, fun was always the goal and the tales were interspersed with blackly comedic gag pages. Here, Sergio Aragonés delivers a bunch of sidesplitters in a ‘Cain’s Game Room’ segment. The pages – alternated with Page 13 and ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ – provided painfully punny pranks (originally just by Aragonés but eventually supplemented by other cartoonists like John Albano, Lore Shoberg and John Costanza). The feature was popular enough to be spun off into bizarrely outrageous comic book Plop! – but that’s a subject for another day…

Here the terror is turned up after a married couple’s pleasant drive deposits them on ‘The Other Side!’ (Steve Skeates & Romy Gamboa), before Oleck & Adolfo Buylla reveal the fate of a modern day wizard who creates a slave ‘In His Own Image!’

HoM #214 leads with Oleck & Yandoc’s ‘Curse of the Werewolf’, as a trickster’s scheme founders when he picks the wrong target. Another visit with ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ courtesy of Aragonés, brings us to Mark Evanier, Robert Kanigher & Sonny Trinidad’s tale of a daredevil and a thief who know exactly when they’re going to die thanks to ‘The Death Clock!’ A double dose of ‘Cain’s Game Room’ leads to the tale of pet-hater and her just fate in Skeates & Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Shaggy Dog.’

In #215, Fleischer, Fabe & Rico Rival’s ‘The Man Who Wanted Power over Women’ details how a lonely homely guy consults the wrong witch in his desire to be loved, and George Kashdan & Talaoc see an arrogant sculptor swear ‘Your Corpse Shall I Carve!’ in his ruthless search for the perfect muse. A fresh Aragonés ‘Cain’s Game Room’ page refreshes the palate for some ‘Brain Food’ as Fabe & Fred Carrillo detail how the dumbest kid in school becomes a supergenius…

Albano & Tony DeZuñiga’s ‘Look into My Eyes… and Kill!’ opens #216 in the saga of a paroled convict with new powers and old grudges before an anonymous writer joins veteran chill-crafter Bernard Baily visiting the ‘Graveyard Shift’ of a mean cab driver getting paid off in kind. A double bill of ‘Cain’s Game Room’ & ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ takes us back to unhappy spouses as a weary wife makes herself a widow to run the family business herself: a very bad deal from Doug Moench & Abe Ocampo, as proven in ‘Special Sale: Canned Death ½ Off’…

HoM #217 has Sheldon Mayer & Nestor Redondo reveal the fate of an impressionable young thing who inherit a parcel of desert and learns ‘This Ghost Town is Haunted!’, and E. Nelson Bridwell & Talaoc ask carnival freaks/murders suspects ‘Hoodoo You Trust?’ before John Jacobson, Skeates & Alcala detail how wildlife in a swamp unite against encroaching humans in defence of their ‘Swamp God!’

Fleischer, Russel Carley & Talaoc open #218 with a small midwestern city and its avaricious murderous trash-handling subcontractor getting a well-deserved dose of ‘The Abominable Ivy!’ ‘Cain’s Game Room’ then ushers us into ‘An Ice Place to Visit!’ as Fleischer, Carley & Frank Thorne expose a contaminated cold store/ice-plant and what happens to the boss who hushed up the contagion’s source…

Bridwell & Bernie Wrightson launch #219 with pun-ishing intro ‘Welcome to The House of Mystery’, after which Fleischer & Alcala take us to Nazi-occupied Tunisia where the invaders systematically succumb to ‘The Curse of the Crocodile!’, whilst a ‘Pledge to Satan’ (Mayer & Nestor Redondo) sees a medieval witch-hunter romance and cheat the wrong woman…

Another ‘Welcome to The House of Mystery’ page – by Bridwell & Alcala – kicks off #220 followed by ‘They Hunt Butterflies, Don’t They?’ Fleischer & Alcala’s tale sees a greedy guide regret betraying his lepidopterist client before an Aragonés-curated visit to ‘Cain’s Game Room’ takes us to the end with exposure of ‘The Hunter!’ who stalks the infernal realms in a macabre safari by Albano & Niño…

Fleischer & Thorne reunite in #221 (January 1974) as killer clown ‘Pingo!’ fails to have the last laugh whilst – after a Cain’s Game Room’ interlude – Len Wein, Wrightson & Michael William Kaluta magnificently cap off the dread jollity with another motley yarn as ‘He Who Laughs Last…’ shows murdering conmen how close a family circus folk are…

Oleck & Frank (AKA Quico) Redondo open #222 with ‘Vengeance is Mine!’, as a resurrected vampire hunts the family of the man who staked him, making the greatest mistake of his renewed life. It’s counterbalanced by a surreal serial killer yarn as Fleischer & Alcala see justice done and foggy Victorian London relieved on ‘The Night of the Teddy Bear!’

Issue #223 (March and the last monthly issue for some time) launches with a whaling yarn by Wein & Eufronio Reyes Cruz. ‘Demon from the Deep!’ details the mutual hatred of a seaman and the kraken he hunts, and Oleck & Ralph Reese’s ‘Message From Beyond’ shows why fake spiritualists never prosper. Teamed with wonderful Ramona Fradon, Oleck then riffs on The Picture of Dorian Gray in ‘Upon Reflection’ with a tragic twist for today’s readers…

In an effort to combat rising costs The House of Mystery #224 (April/May 1974) began an experiment with format and page count. Reduced to a bi-monthly schedule but offering 100-pages (albeit many of them reprints) it started with a ‘Welcome to The House of Mystery’ by Joe Orlando, before David Micheline & Frank Robbins followed a criminal conspiracy and deadly killer in ‘Night Stalker in Sun City’. ‘Cain’s Game Room’ segued into the first reprint with a gothic chiller of forbidden knowledge. ‘The House of Endless Years’ by Gerard Conway & Bill Draut originated in House of Secrets #83 (1970).

All-new ‘The Deadman’s Lucky Scarf’ by David Izzo, Fleischer & Alcala is a weird western vignette of cheatin’ and bitin’, followed by ‘The Reluctant Sorcerer’: a Silver Age creature feature of wonderous transformations by Howard Purcell for HoS #49 (1961).

As superheroes retreated at the end of the sixties those that could retooled as horror titles. The Spectre became a narrator of anthological tales and from #9 (March/April 1969), Dennis O’Neil & Wrightson’s ‘Abraca-Doom!’ sees the Ghostly Guardian attempts to stop a greedy carnival conjurer signing a contract with the Devil. Close behind comes Marv Wolfman, Dick Dillin & Neal Adams’ ‘The One and Only, Fully Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%?’ from HoS #82 (November 1969): a darkly comedic tale of domestic bliss and how to get it…

Originating in HoM #120 (March 1962), ‘The Gift That Wiped Out Time’ – illustrated by Mort Meskin & George Roussos sees a thief encounter time-bending beasts before ‘Sheer Fear!’ (Mayer & Talaoc) finds a ruthless woman go too far in ferreting out a rival’s secrets…

An Aragonés ‘Cain’s Game Room’ precedes Kashdan & Niño’s ‘The Claws of Death!’ with a career soldier paying the ultimate price for telling the truth before a classic mystery hero gets another chance to shine.

The Phantom Stranger was one of the earliest transitional heroes of the Golden Age of comics, created at the very end of the first superhero boom as readers moved from costumed crimefighters to other genres. A trench-coated, mysterious know-it-all, with shadowed eyes and hat pulled down low, he would appear, debunk a legend or foil a supernatural-seeming plot, and then vanish again.

He was coolly ambiguous, never revealing whether he was man, mystic or personally paranormal; probably created by John Broome & Carmine Infantino, who produced the first story in Phantom Stranger #1 (August/September 1952) and most of the others. The 6-issue run also boasted contributions from Jack Miller, Manny Stallman and John Giunta. The last issue was cover-dated June/July, 1953, after which the character vanished until rebooted at the dusk of the Silver Age.

Broome & Frank Giacoia’s ‘Mystery in Miniature!’ hails from that last issue as the living enigma repels invaders from time, before Skeates & Mike Sekowsky develop a fourth-wall busting ‘Photo-Finish!’ for a blackmailer in advance of a closing ‘Cain’s Game Room’.

Cover-dated June/July, HoM #225’s ‘Welcome to The House of Mystery’ is by Paul Levitz & Wrightson, heralding Oleck & Alcala taking us to Paris in 1789 for a ghostly wizard/zombie yarn about ‘The Man Who Died Twice’. Bob Rozakis drafts a ‘Mystery Maze!’ (bring your own pencil!) and ‘Cain’s Game Room’ brings us to a treat from House of Secrets #4 (May/June 1957). The ‘Master of the Unknown’ seems destined to take the big cash prize on a TV quiz show… until the producer deduces his uncanny secret…

Fleischer & Frank Thorne again expose human depravity in ‘Fireman, Burn My Child!’: a timeless attack on medicine for profit and Aragonés’ ‘Room 13’ and ‘Cain’s Game Room’ set up a classic comics novelette.

Illustrated by Don Heck in The Sinister House of Secret Love #1 (October/November 1971) ‘The Curse of the McIntyres’ was the first of a series of book-length graphic epics in the manner of gothic romances like Jane Eyre, before transforming into a more traditional anthology package as Secrets of Sinister House with #5 (June/July 1972): reducing to the traditional 36-page format with the next issue. The format remained until its cancellation with #18 in June/July 1974.

The dark love stories were extra-long affairs like this 25-page period chiller ‘The Curse of the MacIntyres’ (possibly written by Mary Skrenes?) recounting how recently-bereaved Rachel lost her scientist father and fell under the guardianship of her cousin Blair. Moving to his remote Scottish castle she befriends Blair’s son Jamie but can’t warm to physically stunted cousin Alfie.

As days and weeks pass, she becomes increasingly disturbed by the odd household and the family’s obsessive interest in “mutations”…

‘See No Evil’ by Oleck & Niño depicts the fate of a death row inmate who sells his soul before the 1950s Man in Black pops back to expose the incredible secret of ‘The Hairy Shadows’ (by Broome, Anderson & Joe Giella from Phantom Stranger #4) whilst The Spectre #9 repeats a sinister ‘Shadow Show’ by Mark Hanerfeld & Jack Sparling.

David Kasakove, Kashdan & (ER) Cruz then finish up with a tale of two very different brothers in Halloween set shocker ‘This One’ll Scare You to Death!’…

Concluding this classic chiller compendium are the cracking contents of The House of Mystery #226 (August/September) with Levitz & Pat Broderick’s ‘Welcome to The House of Mystery’ escorting us into Oleck & Alcala’s ‘Garden of Evil’, as mismatched Mace and Myra find far more welcoming worlds – and mates – inside a painting…

After a pause in ‘Room 13’ Martin Pasko & Robbins reveal why – on a teenager’s wedding day – ‘Teddy Doesn’t Seem to Smile Anymore!’ A writer unknown & Leonard Starr meddle with ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’ as logic faces magic from HoM #12 (March 1953). Phantom Stranger #5 then offers ‘The Living Nightmare!’ (Broome Infantino & Bernard Sachs).

Oleck & Nestor Redondo detail a period tale of monster children and body-swapping in ‘Monster in the House’, and Wolfman & Wrightson return with prophetic vignette ‘Scared to Life’ from HoM #180, whilst from HoM #74 we visit ‘The School for Sorcerers’ (illustrated by Bill Ely). Michael J. Pellowski, Kanigher & Jess M. Jodloman, reveal ‘The Perfect Mate’ (for Balkan nobility!) in anticipation of a factual(ish) ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ by Levitz & Boderick and another vintage thriller. Limned by Curt Swan & George Klein from HoM #10, ‘The Wishes of Doom!’ treads in Monkey’s Paw territory whilst Ely’s ‘The Haunted Melody’ (HoM #58, January 1957) sees a street musician squander an incredible gift…

Levitz & Broderick provide plans and diagrams when asking ‘Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery?’ and one last Aragonés ‘Cain’s Game Room’ leads to final terror tale ‘Out of This World’ as Oleck & Talaoc reaffirm the link between Devil and Rock & Roll. Finally you can regain some sedate equilibrium with Rozakis word-search ‘Hidden in the House!’.

These fright-fables captivated the reading public and comics critics alike when they first appeared and it’s no exaggeration to posit that they probably saved the company during the dire downward sales spiral of the 1970s. Now their blend of sinister mirth and classical suspense situations can most usually be seen in such series as Goosebumps, and other kid-centred fare, but if you crave beautifully realised, largely splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly creepy cartooning, book into The House of Mystery…
© 1973-1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Jonah Hex volume 2


By Michael Fleisher, David Michelinie, John Albano, Jose-Luis García–López, Vicente Alcazar, Ernie Chan, Rich Buckler, Tony DeZuñiga, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4106-3 (TPB)

The Western is an oddly forgiving genre which can be pragmatically sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for nearly a century, best typified by Zane Grey stories and heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry – and the other stuff…

That sort of cowboy tale is grimy, gritty, excessively dark and nihilistic, and was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer before making their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone.

Jonah Hex is the very best of this latter sort.

DC (or National Periodicals as it then as) stocked up a stable (sorry!) of clean-cut gunslingers at the collapse of the superhero genre in 1949, creating such dashing – and highly readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage, Strong Bow and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps. All things end, however, and by the early sixties this sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties. The flurry of superheroes increasingly hogged the newsstands during the Silver Age starting as early as 1956, but by the end of the 1960s they were waning again, and thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second superhero retreat in twenty years…

A critical success, light-hearted Western Bat Lash never secured a solid following, but DC, keen to sustain a genre its dwindling readership could warm to, retrenched and revived an old title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

Cover-dated August/September 1970, All-Star Western (volume 2) #1 launched with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, transforming to an all-new anthology format with its second bi-monthly issue. The title featured many creative big guns, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, and Dick Giordano, working on such strips as Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and cult sleeper-hit El Diablo: combining shoot-’em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in unavoidable deference to the real hit genre-type that saved comics in those dark days… supernatural horror.

It wasn’t until the tenth issue and the introduction of a disfigured, irascible and shockingly lethal bounty hunter – created by writer John Albano & Tony DeZuñiga – that the company found its greatest and most enduring Western Warrior…

Jonah Hex is the very model of the modern anti-hero: a coarse, callous, proudly uneducated manhunter. Clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat with half his face lost to some hideous past injury, he is a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunts – and certainly a man to avoid …or so you’d think on first appearances…

The greatest gunfighter in the world was introduced in ‘Welcome to Paradise’: a powerful thriller with a subtle sting of sentimentality that anyone who has seen the classic western Shane could not fail to appreciate. From the first, Albano constantly hinted at tortured depths hidden behind Hex’s hellishly scarred visage and deadly proficiency…

The comic had been re-titled Weird Western Tales (aligning it with the company’s highly successful horror/mystery line) and subsequent tales of the gunman combined charm, bleak, black comedy and tragedy in equal amounts: a formula that rocketed Hex to the forefront of critical and popular acclaim.

From the very start, the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee could derive a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction at most of the stories. There was also a huge helping of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, when America as a whole lost its social and political innocence…

Even though Hex was a unique feature from the outset – thanks to the efforts of writers like Albano and Arnold Drake – the series didn’t truly hit its stride until Michael Fleisher (assisted at first by Russell Carley) became lead scripter.

This second superb monochrome tome of Jonah Hex’s grittily unsavoury yet extraordinarily appealing adventures combines his final appearances from Weird Western Tales #34-38 with #1-22 of his own spun-off solo title, collectively ranging from May 1976 to March 1979. As in so many cases, the material here is currently unavailable in modern colour editions, either on paper, or in digital formats, but we can always hope…

In all honesty: the stories may be printed in black-&-white, but here that’s mostly a benefit as the wealth of overseas illustrators employed were masters of line art and their efforts are actually better without the cheap colour used on comics back then.

The previous book revealed how back during the Civil War, whilst fighting for the South, Hex was framed for a massacre at Union prison camp Fort Charlotte. He subsequently became the sole target of a conspiracy led by an aggrieved Southern autocrat Quentin Turnbull. The schemer set a veritable battalion of Confederate veterans and survivors relentlessly on the trail of the man they all considered the worst traitor in the history of the South…

The dark dramas resume with Weird Western Tales #34 (cover-dated May/June 1976) as Michael Fleisher & George Moliterni’s ‘Death of a Bounty Hunter’ reveals the gunslinger being cheated of a bounty by lazy, ruthless rivals who see him as a meal ticket to success. Adding to his irritation, Hex is saddled with a dime novel writer who has paid a lot of money to dog his tracks for “research”. When both annoyances attempt to treacherously exploit Hex, he proves too much for them all…

Next, the wandering gunman fetches up in a law-abiding town with a nasty secret. Even a mercenary like Hex has some scruples, especially when municipal policy involves using a weekly execution of outlaws to boost city coffers. With sideshow attractions and tourist traps thriving, the bounty hunter protests vigorously when an old man he befriended is condemned to be the next cash-cow of a sheriff who is judge, jury and… ‘The Hangman!’ Moreover, Hex’s objections aren’t overruled by legal appeals or commercial considerations…

Fleisher, Bill Draut, Luis Dominguez & Oscar Novelle detail differences between cultures when an old opponent returns in WWT #36. Hired to broker a peace treaty between the Paiute Nation and Washington, Hex is forced to kill someone who doesn’t deserve to die after a cavalry scout’s atrocities almost triggers a bloodbath, leaving the only way to redeem honour through ‘Bigfoot’s Death Song!’…

Hex’s well-intentioned efforts to teach a young man to shoot costs him dearly when he learns he’s been fed a devious sob-story and unleashed a crazed killer in #37. Illustrated by Rich Buckler & Frank Springer, Fleisher’s compact, irony-drenched tale leads to a necessary and final course correction in ‘Requiem for a Gunfighter!’…

Against all odds and industry norms, Jonah Hex – and western comics – were an increasingly viable proposition for DC at this time. Thus, the bounty hunter closed his account in Weird Western Tales #38 – cover-dated January/February 1977 and on sale at the end of 1976. He was promoted to his own eponymous series while the anthology book began (from #39) the adventures of “white Indian”  Scalphunter.

Hex’s last WWT exploit was an epic, cynically salutary saga as Fleisher partnered with the magnificently gifted José Luis García–López, whose art would also grace the first issues of Hex’s new home, augmented and followed by many of the superb overseas draughtsmen who’d been hired to draw DC’s horror stories, but who found an equally comfortable fit producing the baroque yet naturalistic adventures of the grungy gunslinger…

‘Track of the Wolf… Claw of the Bear!’ finds Hex hired in the depths of winter to catch a white wolf that has killed a banker. When the beast and the mountain man who lives with it save Jonah from death, their growing friendship unravels a skein of embezzlement and murder, with Hex’s sheepherder clients provoking tragedy and justifiable vengeance…

Jonah Hex #1 launched with a March/April 1977 cover-date, wherein Fleisher & García–López concocted ‘Vengeance for a Fallen Gladiator!’ as the West’s greatest manhunter is hired to find a rich man’s son. The trail leads to a travelling show forcing boys to fight for the delectation of bloodthirsty townsfolk and an unhappy resolution for all involved…

Hex is then forced to infiltrate ‘The Lair of the Parrot’ at the orders of Federal fixer Ned Landon. Flamboyant Mexican bandit El Papagayo is the gunslinger’s supposed target, but after barely escaping with his life, Hex returns to America to discover he’s been framed for the Secret Serviceman’s murder…

Despite having a price on his head, ‘The Fugitive’ still finds time to thwart a vicious land grab for a blind rancher’s home in #3 before more strands of a complex plot are revealed in ‘The Day of the Chameleon!’ as an actor further impersonates Hex: heaping even greater crimes onto the bounty hunter’s ever-escalating-but-unjustified rap-sheet. The plot takes an even more byzantine twist when Hex is briefly sheltered by outcast widow Joanna Mosby, seemingly destroys his evil twin, restores his good name and reels in shock after his most relentless foe reveals who’s behind his current situation…

An expanded reprint of Hex’s debut from All-Star Western #10 follows as Albano, Fleisher, DeZuniga & García–López collectively revisit better days in #5’s ‘Welcome to Paradise’, with a new framing sequence detailing how Hex finds brief respite in Paradise Corners after which he’s caught by aging and honest marshal Toby Ruster: another dutiful innocent dragged down and doomed by association.

Despite having cleared his name, the many wanted posters issued mean Hex is still regarded by many as an outlaw. When a storm deposits ‘The Lawman’ and his captive in an isolated town, Hex almost bluffs his way out of trouble until his ornery nature and hatred of criminals ruins his refuge and triggers another frenzied exit in a convoluted yarn by Fleisher, Ernie Chan & Noly Panaligan…

With Hex still on the run, the same creative team uses the next two issues to finally reveal the manhunter’s origins, beginning in #7 as 13-year old Jonah is sold into slavery by his father. Raised a ‘Son of the Apache’, the white boy becomes a mighty young warrior adopted into the tribe with honour, but cannot escape the jealous schemes of his envious native brother Noh-Tante. How that poisonous rivalry ultimately led to Hex’s escape, rehabilitation and eventual disfigurement with ‘The Mark of the Demon’ adds even greater poignancy to his tragedy-struck saga and shows why the manhunter never quits…

Another diversion drags Hex back over the Mexican Border as he’s tricked into working for the government of President Porfirio Diaz. The gunman is required to escort the recovered golden hoard of the former Empress in ‘The Carlota Conspiracy!’ (illustrated by Chan & Danny Bulanadi), but the vast wealth inevitably draws in old enemy El Papagayo and plenty of brand new double-crossing skunks eager to make a killing…

García–López returns to limn concluding chapter ‘Violence at Veracruz’ in #10, and with bodies dropping everywhere Hex realises he’s been duped from the start and wearily cuts his losses..

Rich Buckler & Dick Giordano illustrate ‘The Holdout!’ as Joanna returns to redeem herself after Hex is maimed and can no longer hold his guns in a cruel tale of card cheats and vengeance, after which ‘The Search for ‘Gator Hawes’ sees the gunman captured by crazed swamp-dwellers obsessed with their rigged “rassling” games, whilst #13’s ‘The Railroad Blaster’ – by David Michelinie & Alcazar – finds the gunslinger hired to stop a saboteur attacking Union Pacific trains. Sadly, he quickly finds himself once again on the wrong side of a painful moral dilemma…

Michelinie then details the saga of ‘The Sin Killer!’ in #14 as Hex encounters old comrade Jedediah Kane: a first class killer who apparently found peace in The Lord and new passion as a travelling preacher. Unfortunately, due to his family being killed in a crossfire, Kane had merely redirected his efforts and now only killed bounty hunters…

Hiding in plain sight as a trick-shot artist, Hex survives ‘Sawdust and Slow Death’ after uncovering a circus’ true purpose as a wandering band of thieves. Framed for the murder of acrobatic rider Sally Colter, he faces the judgement of the freak show before pulling off his own show-stopping climax…

The extended outlaw saga moves to a conclusion as Fleisher rejoins Alcazar for #16’s ‘The Wyandott Verdict’ which opens with Hex being lynched by masked and hooded men. He is saved by pioneering criminologist Tobias Nostrum and his servant, much to the delight of one cautious observer. The Chameleon has dogged Hex for months, awaiting a moment of perfect revenge and takes his chance when the scientist’s new-fangled forensics lead to a trial that could exonerate the bounty hunter…

Warping the entire affair, the deranged actor almost succeeds in dooming Hex, but wasn’t expecting Quentin Turnbull to overplay his own hand in the conspiracy…

Restored and renewed, Hex refuses a commission to ride a hot air balloon in #17 but is still trapped on a ‘Voyage to Oblivion’ when the client won’t take “no” for an answer. His desperate escape lands him aboard a slave ship bound for Brazil and leading a revolt of the human cargo before alone and adrift he lands in a green hell…

Crafted by Fleisher, Val Mayerik & Bulanadi, #18 depicts ‘Amazon Treasure… Amazon Death!’ as the castaway saves a native boy from white rubber plantation owners. The civilised colonisers then try to trick Hex into exterminating the entire indigenous tribe. They aren’t the first to assume the crude, vulgar cowboy is as dumb as he sounds, and like all the rest, don’t live long enough to revise their opinions, once the Indios unleash the horrors of the jungles upon the treasure-hunting interlopers…

With Fleisher & Alcazar crafting the remainder of this volume, #19 introduces ‘The Duke of Zarkania!’ Freshly-returned to the US, Hex is hired by visiting European royalty one step ahead of an accession rival and must battle roving assassins. It’s not long before the manhunter suspects he’s working for the wrong noble and ultimately realises there is no good side in old world affairs…

The bounty hunter’s past rears up to bite him when he foils a stagecoach robbery and inadvertently saves the father who sold him into slavery. The reprobate is unrepentant and as depraved as ever, but still convinces Hex to hire on as guard for a theft-plagued coach company. However, when riding the ‘Phantom Stage to Willow Bend!’ the son yet again learns a life lesson in parenthood as Pa Hex fakes his own death and uses ‘The Buryin’!’ to cover a quarter million dollar robbery. Sadly, he can’t help cheating his own accomplices either, but saves his own skin by “revealing” that Jonah has the money now. Cue more horrific gunplay and even greater familial regret…

The sagebrush sagas are reined in with #22 as ‘Requiem for a Pack Rat!’ explores the repercussions of Hex’s job. When child killer Lobo hangs for his crimes, his brothers come looking for the bounty hunter who brought him in and – caught in the crossfire – an old prospector pal pays the price for knowing Jonah. Shot, broken-legged and left for dead, Hex has to survive the desert and rampaging savages and save a hostage mining family before at last reuniting Lobo with his sinister siblings…

These potent, timeless tales come with a stunning cover gallery from Luis Dominguez, Moliterni, Chan, García–López, Buckler, Frank Springer, Bernie Wrightson, Gray Morrow, Giordano, Jim Starlin and  Frank Giacoia: a powerful evocation of a lost era, different tastes and sensibilities that never change but can always surprise.

Jonah Hex is one of the most unique and original characters in cowboy comics: richly ironic, darkly comedic, rousing, chilling and cathartically satisfying. This is a Western for those who despise the form whilst being the perfect modern interpretation of grand storytelling tradition. No matter what your reading preference, this is a collection you don’t want to miss.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock volume 3


By Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, Russ Heath & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2771-5 (TPB)

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to the game-changing Blazing Combat, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining American war comics was at DC.

In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a generation, the home of Flash, Green Arrow and the Justice League of America was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting combat on a variety of fronts and from differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Homefront death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response DC’s (or rather National Periodical Publishing, as it then was) military-themed comicbooks became even more bold and innovative…

Sgt Rock and the “combat-happy Joes” of Easy Company are one of the great and enduring creations of the American comic book industry. The gritty meta-realism of Robert Kanigher’s ordinary guys in a constant welter of life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old.

So pervasive is this icon of comics combat that’s it’s hard to grasp that Rock is not an immortal industry prototype like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – with us since the earliest moments of the industry – but is in fact a late addition to and child of the Silver Age of Comics: debuting as just another Kanigher & Joe Kubert tale in war anthology G.I. Combat (#68, January 1959).

The archetypal and ideal sergeant was an anonymous boxer who wasn’t particularly skilled but simply refused to be beaten, absorbing any and all punishment dealt out to him. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted, that same Horatian quality attained mythic proportions as he held back an overwhelming Nazi attack by sheer grit and determination, remaining bloody but unbowed on a field littered with dead and broken men. The tale inspired an instant sequel or two before, in Our Army at War #83 (June 1959), the mythmaking truly began…

This third monumental military milestone collects in chronological publishing order and stark, stunning monochrome more of the groundbreaking classics which made Rock a comics legend. These grim and gritty, epically poetic war stories were taken from the still-anthological Our Army at War #149-180 (bracketing December 1964 to May 1967), a period when American comics were undergoing a spectacular renaissance in style, theme and quality even as the Vietnam war took over the nation’s consciousness and conscience.

They are also still criminally unavailable in modern colour and/or digital editions…

Scripted throughout by Writer/Editor Kanigher and illustrated primarily by Kubert, the terse episodes herein begin with ‘Surrender Ticket!’ as the German High Command randomly pick an American Company to endure unrelenting pressure until they crack, thereby proving Nazi superiority. They really should have picked again after selecting Easy Company…

In ‘Flytrap Hill!’, Rock is forced to request a retreat before instead leading his brutalised men to unlikely victory. They all found fresh inspiration through the example of a messenger who gave his life to reach them…

‘War Party!’ then sees the Sarge undertaking a trial organised by Little Sure Shot to become an “honorary Apache Indian”, with the always-advancing Germans inadvertently spoiling his chances at every turn.

OAAW #152 is a full-length yarn in which a shipment of green replacements find themselves frozen under fire, until Rock recounts the tales of Ziggy and Hopeless, who found courage with their final breaths in ‘Last Man – Last Shot!’ This narrative device of incorporating brief past-action episodes into a baptism of fire scenario played over and over again in Sgt. Rock but never got old.

‘Easy’s Last Stand!’ saw the stony serviceman battling alone in the mistaken belief he was the only one left alive, whilst ‘Boobytrap Mascot’ found Easy accompanying boy soldier Andre Lune in search of hidden artillery emplacements as the lad tried to live up to – and die for – the pressure of generations of warrior ancestors who gave their lives for France…

‘No Stripes for Me!’ found the non-com in the middle of a family feud as a valiant GI continually refuses well-earned battlefield promotions his father – the General – keeps foisting upon him, after which a bumbling medic deemed unfit for combat fatally proves his worth, saving Easy as ‘The Human Tank Trap!’

The shell-shocked last survivor of an eradicated relief company goes through hell at Rock’s side as the topkick strives to prove that ‘Nothin’s Ever Lost in War!’ before OAAW #158 introduces some insight into the pre-war world of civilian Frank Rock, as well as an antithesis and arch-enemy for Easy’s front man in ‘Iron Major – Rock Sergeant!’

With the American captured, tortured and used as bait in a blizzard by a steel-handed master strategist, it takes sheer guts and unflinching to save Easy from a deadly ambush…

Wounded in combat, hunted by a German kill-team and guided by the sister of a nurse he feels responsible for killing, Rock becomes ‘The Blind Gun!’ before recovering his sight and finding a measure of solace in groundbreaking epic ‘What’s the Colour of Your Blood?’

Here black G.I. – it’s a comic book making a point about a crucial point in modern US history: please ignore the appalling and sordid truth about US Army segregation during WWII – and former boxer Jackie Johnson is forced to bare-knuckle battle the racist Aryan prize-fighter he trounced in the years before the war.

Of course, if he raises his hands to defend himself in this impromptu rematch, Storm Trooper Uhlan‘s comrades will shoot Jackie’s Easy Co. buddies… until the right word from Rock changes all the odds…

An over-eager replacement almost dies to prove he’s not a coward like his court-martialled brother in ‘Dead End for a Dog Face!’ before ‘The Prince and the Sergeant!’ revives an old DC star for a truly bizarre team-up.

When superheroes were in decline during the 1950s, comicbook companies sought different types of action hero. In 1955 Kanigher devised traditional adventure comic The Brave and the Bold which featured historical strips and stalwarts such as Golden Gladiator, Robin Hood and Silent Knight. Already legendary, Joe Kubert drew the fantastic exploits of a dynamic Norseman dubbed the Viking Prince.

He appeared in nearly every issue, eventually monopolising Brave and the Bold entirely, until the resurgent superhero boom saw the comic retooled as a try-out title with the 25th issue. Before that, however, those fanciful Scandi-sagas were among some of the finest adventure comics of all time (and they’re still too long overdue for a definitive collection of their own).

In Our Army at War #162, Easy Company are sent to Norway on a proverbial suicide mission and subsequently separated under fire. Taking cover in a cave, Rock discovers a warrior frozen in ice moments before an explosion shatters the frigid tomb. Soon the revived Prince Jon is slicing his way through the modern “Huns”, determined to sell his life dearly.

Before his entombment, he had fallen in love with a Valkyrie and had to die gloriously in battle to reunite with her in Valhalla. Of course, offended Odin had stacked the odds and decreed no mortal weapon could now harm him…

Despite his best efforts, Jon and Rock kept winning and so the saga continued in the next issue as the doughty comrades complete the suicide mission with the Viking crying ‘Kill Me – Kill Me!’… until a seeming martial miracle occurred…

Our Army at War #164 was an 80-page Giant reprint issue (not included here) and #165 heralded the ‘Return of the Iron Major!’ with the Nazi Superman back from the dead and seeking revenge, only to find Rock kissing his former fiancée Contessa Helga von Hohenschlag-Lowenburg…

That results in another brutal death-duel after which ‘Half a Sergeant!’ saw the indomitable human force-of-nature suffer a crack-up, until an inconsolable loss on the battlefield shocks him back to normal, after which ‘Kill One – Save One!’extends the psycho-dramas as Rock shoots a sniper and discovers he’s killed a child. The guilt cripples him so completely he can’t raise a hand against the boy’s even younger comrade who takes the topkick prisoner…

An element of supernatural mystery flavoured ‘I Knew the Unknown Soldier!’ in Our Army at War #168, as Rock proudly recalls an enigmatic G.I. who repeatedly saved and inspired Easy to overcome impossible odds. This short yarn would be the genesis of future combat superstar The Unknown Soldier…

Again blinded in battle, Rock unwittingly treks across the African desert towards German lines with an American-educated ‘Nazi on My Back!’ in #169 but is back in Europe for ‘No One Comes Down Alive from – Buzzard Bait Hill!’: dealing with a shell-shocked veteran who had been reliving the war since the last time Germans invaded France.

War’s insanity was a recurring theme and in ‘The Sergeant Must Die!’ Easy had to steal a relic of huge symbolic importance from a mediaeval castle defended by a deranged Nazi who believed himself the reincarnation of legendary Hun Barbarosa. A perilous stalemate is only broken by vicious single combat; a situation echoed in ‘A Slug for a Sergeant!’ as Russ Heath slowly began to take over illuminating Rock’s sorties.

German Sgt. Schlum is every inch Rock’s equal and when the hostage American chooses to duel his counterpart rather than betray Easy into ambush, the outcome is anything but certain…

Our Army at War #173 was another reprint – also omitted here – and Kubert returned in #174 as ‘One Kill Too Many!’sees the Sarge suffer another breakdown and freezing under fire after reliving the moment he shot that child-sniper. His inaction leads to Easy’s medic being killed and the broken soldier gives up fighting to take his place… until the wounded men he treats show Rock where he truly belongs…

Heath was back in #175 to deliver the ‘T.N.T. Letter!’ from Rock’s stateside sweetheart Mary which leaves him broken and suicidal until he meets a battlefield gamin who restores his perspective, and Kubert limned the strange saga of Crusher Cole: a beefy replacement who wanted the sergeant’s job and kept crying ‘Give Me Your Stripes!’

Following another 80-Page Giant in #177, ‘Only One Medal for Easy’ (Heath, #178) returned to the series’ picaresque, portmanteau traditions as Rock is given one gong and a Pass to dispense to Easy’s most outstanding combatant. Of course, the medal is passed around the entire company as every time the enemy attacks, a different hero saves the day…

Kubert was back reprising that landmark tale of bigotry and tolerance in OAAW #179 as white supremacist Sharkey joins Easy and makes things tough for the unit’s only black soldier. Even Rock can’t change his attitudes but the trials of war and the patience of a truly noble man finally crush racist views of a soldier who wouldn’t give ‘A Penny for Jackie Johnson!’

Russ Heath ends this cataclysmic comics campaign with another stunning moral quandary as Rock captures a German officer and has to endure unbearable provocation as he escorts his prisoner to base: coming within an inch of breaking all the rules as the cunning monster brags ‘You Can’t Kill a General!’…

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as here – his work was imaginative, evocative, iconoclastic and heart-rending. He was a unique reporter and observer of the warrior’s way and the unchanging condition of the dedicated and so very human ordinary foot-slogging G.I. He was also a strident and early advocate of equality and integration.

With superb combat covers from Kubert fronting each episode, this battle-book is a visually vital compendium and a certain delight for any jaded comics fan looking for something more than flash and dazzle. A perfect example of true Shock and Awe; these are stories every comics fan and combat collector should see and one day we’ll have them in the full archival dress and trimmings they deserve…
© 1964-1967, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Showcase


By Many and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-364-1 (TPB)

If you’re a book reviewer, Christmas often comes incredibly early. We received lots and lots of lovely new tomes in the last week and I’ve still not caught up yet, so in the meantime, I’m fobbing you all off with a reworked recommendation I was saving for our actual Christmas promotion season. It’s still a wonderful read criminally in need of re-release and a digital edition, but readily available – for now…

The review is incredibly long. If you want to skip it and just buy the book – because it’s truly brilliant – then please do. I won’t mind and you won’t regret it at all…

In almost every conceivable way, DC’s original “try-out title” Showcase created and dictated the form of the Silver Age of American comic books and is responsible for the multi-billion-dollar industry and art form we all enjoy today.

For many of us old lags, the Silver Age is the ideal era and a still-calling Promised Land of fun and thrills. Varnished by nostalgia (because it’s the era when most of us caught this crazy childhood bug), the clean-cut, unsophisticated optimism of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced captivating heroes and compelling villains who were still far less terrifying than the Cold War baddies then troubling the grown-ups. The sheer talent and unbridled professionalism of the creators working in that too-briefly revitalised comics world resulted in triumph after triumph and even inspired competitors to step up and excel: all of which brightened our young lives and still glow today with quality and achievement.

The principle was a sound one and graphically depicted in the very first issue: the Editors at National/DC were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess fan reactions – for which read Sales…

Firmly ensconced in the age of genre thrillers and human adventurers, this magnificent, monolithic monochrome tome covers the first 21 issues from that historic series, spanning March/April 1956 to July/August 1959, and starts the ball rolling with the first and last appearances of Fireman Farrell in a proposed series dubbed Fire Fighters.

Following the aforementioned short ‘The Story Behind Showcase’ by Jack Schiff & Win Mortimer, the human-scaled dramas begin in ‘The School for Smoke-Eaters’ by Schiff and the superb John Prentice (Rip Kirby), introducing trainee fireman Mike Farrell during the last days of his training and desperate to simultaneously live up to and escape his father’s fabulous record as a legendary “smoke-eater”.

The remaining stories, both scripted by Arnold Drake, deal with the job’s daily dilemmas: firstly in ‘Fire under the Big Top’ wherein an unscrupulous showman ignored Farrell’s Fire Inspection findings with tragic consequences, and in‘Fourth Alarm’ mixing an industrial dispute over fireman’s pay, a crooked factory owner and a waterfront blaze captured on live TV in a blisteringly authentic tale of human heroism.

Showcase #2 featured Kings of the Wild: tales of animal valour imaginatively related in three tales scripted by Robert Kanigher – who had thrived after the demise of superheroes with a range of fantastical genre adventures covering western, war, espionage and straight adventure. Stunningly illustrated by Joe Kubert, ‘Rider of the Winds’ tells of a Native American lad’s relationship with his totem spirit Eagle; ‘Outcast Heroes’ (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) relates how an orphan boy’s loneliness ends after befriending a runaway mutt who eventually saves the town’s kids from a flood before ‘Runaway Bear’ – drawn by Russ Heath – uses broad comedy to describe how an escaped circus bruin battles all the horrors of the wilderness to get return to his comfortable, safe life under the Big Top.

Issue #3 debuted Kanigher & Heath’s The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a US Underwater Demolitions Team as they move from students to successful undersea warriors. Beginning with ‘The Making of a Frogman’ as the smallest diver – mocked and chided as a ‘Sardine’ by his fellows (especially ‘Shark’ and ‘Whale’) – perseveres and forges bonds until the trio are dumped into blazing Pacific action in ‘Flying Frogmen’, learning the worth of teamwork and sacrifice by destroying a Japanese Sub base in ‘Silent War’…

The feature returned as a semi-regular strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) amongst other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first but certainly not the last graduate of the try-out system. The next debut was to be the most successful but the cautious publishers took a long, long time to make it so…

No matter which way you look at it, the Silver Age officially arrived began with The Flash. It’s an unjust but true fact that being first is not enough; it also helps to be best and people have to notice. The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The industry had never really stopped trying to revive superheroes when Showcase #4 was released in late summer of 1956, with such precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955); Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955); Marvel’s Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and aforementioned Sentinel of Liberty (December 1953-October 1955) and even DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until the close of the 1960’s and almost the end of superheroes again!) still turning up in second-hand-stores and “Five-and-Dime” bargain bins. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was … well, everything!

Once DC’s powers-that-be decided to try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner and Golden-Age Flash scripter Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age, aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the previous incarnation.

The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in the exploding chemicals of his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry took his superhero identity from a comic book featuring his predecessor (scientist Jay Garrick, who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of “Hard Water”). Designing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent rapidly approaching his artistic and creative pinnacle), Barry Allen became the point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and the entire industry.

‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ (Kanigher) and ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier’ (written by the superb John Broome) are polished, coolly sophisticated stories introducing the comfortingly suburban superhero and establishing the broad parameters of his universe. Whether defeating bizarre criminal masterminds such as The Turtle or returning criminal exile Mazdan to his own century, the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power. Nonetheless the concept was so controversial that despite phenomenal sales, rather than his own series the Fastest Man Alive was given a Showcase encore almost a year later…

Showcase #5 featured the last comics concept in years that didn’t actually develop into an ongoing series, but that’s certainly due to changing fashions of the times and not the quality of the work. The three crime yarns comprising cops-&-robbers anthology Manhunters, begin with ‘The Greatest Villain of all Time’ by Jack Miller & Mort Meskin, revealing how Hollywood screenwriter-turned-police detective Lt. Fowler is dogged by a madman playing for real all the fantastic bad guys the mystery author had once created, whilst ‘The Two Faces of Mr. X’ (Miller, Curt Swan & Sy Barry) finds a male model drafted by the FBI to replace a prominent mob-boss. Unfortunately, it’s the day before the gangster is scheduled for face-changing plastic surgery…

‘The Human Eel’ (Miller & Bill Ely) then pits a cop unable to endure heights against an international high-tech rogue who thinks he hold all the winning cards…

The next try-out was on far firmer fashion grounds and was the first feature to win two issues in a row.

The Challengers of the Unknown were a bridging concept. As the superhero genre was ever so cautiously alpha-tested in 1956 here was a super-team – the first new group-entry of this still-to-be codified era – but with no uncanny abilities or masks, the most basic and utilitarian of costumes, and the most dubious of motives: Suicide by Mystery…

If you wanted to play editorially safe you could argue that were simply another para-military band of adventurers like the long running Blackhawks… but they weren’t.

A huge early hit – winning their own title before The Flash (March 1959) and just two months after Lois Lane (March 1958, although she had been a star in comics since 1938 and even had TV, radio and movie recognition on her side) – the Challs struck a chord resonating for more than a decade before they finally died… only to rise again and yet again. The idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success all but inevitable.

Jack Kirby was – and remains – the most important single influence in the history of American comics. There are quite rightly millions of words written about what the man has done and meant, and you should read those if you are at all interested in our medium. When the comic industry suffered a collapse in the mid 1950’s, Kirby briefly returned to DC, crafting genre mystery tales and revitalising the Green Arrow back-up strip whilst creating newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force. He also re-packaged for Showcase an original super-team concept that had been kicking around in his head since he and long-time collaborator Joe Simon had closed their innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics.

The Challengers of the Unknown were four extraordinary mortals; heroic adventurers and explorers brought together for a radio show who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call “adrenaline junkies”, they decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they would dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. They would risk their lives for Knowledge and, of course, Justice.

Showcase #6, dated January/February 1957 – which meant it came out in time for Christmas 1956 – introduced pilot Ace Morgan, wrestler Rocky Davis, acrobat Red Ryan and scholarly marine explorer “Prof” Haley in a no-nonsense romp by Kirby, scripter Dave Wood, inkers Marvin Stein and Jack’s wife Roz, before devoting the rest of the issue to a spectacular epic with the doom-chasers hired by duplicitous magician Morelian to open an ancient casque holding otherworldly secrets and powers in ‘The Secrets of the Sorcerer’s Box!’

This story roars along with all the tension and wonder of the B-movie thrillers it emulates, and Kirby’s awesome drawing resonates with power and dynamism as the heroes tackle ancient horrors such as ‘Dragon Seed!’, ‘The Freezing Sun!’ and ‘The Whirling Weaver!’

The fantasy magic continued in the sequel: a science fiction crisis caused when an alliance of Nazi technologies with American criminality unleashes a robotic monster. Scripted by Kirby, ‘Ultivac is Loose!’ (Showcase #7, March/April 1957) introduces quietly capable boffin Dr. June Robbins, who becomes the fifth Challenger at a time when most comic females had returned to a subsidiary status in that so-conservative era.

As her computers predict ‘A Challenger Must Die!’, the lads nevertheless continue to hunt a telepathic, sentient super-robot who inadvertently terrorises ‘The Fearful Millions’ but soon find their sympathies with the tragic artificial intelligence after ‘The Fateful Prediction!’ is fulfilled…

Showcase #8 (June 1957) again featured the Flash, leading with another Kanigher tale – ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’. This perplexing but pedestrian mystery sees Frank Giacoia debut as inker, but the real landmark is Broome’s thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’. With this yarn the author confirmed and consolidated the new phenomenon by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of outlandish super-villains. Unlike Golden Age stalwarts, new super-heroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Henceforth, Bad Guys would be as visually arresting and memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again as pre-eminent Flash Foe and Broome would go on to create every single member of Flash’s classic pantheon of super-villains.

Also included is filler reprint ‘The Race of Wheel and Keel’ by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & Harry Lazarus, from All-Star Comics #53 (June/July 1950): a true story of how in 1858 a shipping magnate and stagecoach tycoon competed to prove which method of transportation was fastest…

When Lois Lane – arguably the oldest supporting character/star in the Superman mythology if not DC universe – finally received her own shot at a solo title, it was very much on the terms of the times.

I must shamefacedly admit to a deep, nostalgic affection for her bright, breezy, fantastically fun adventures, but as a free-thinking, (nominally) adult liberal of the 21st century I’m astounded now at the jolly, patronising, patriarchally misogynistic attitudes underpinning so many of the stories.

Yes, I’m fully aware that the series was intended for young readers at a time when “dizzy dames” like Lucille Ball or Doris Day played to a popular American stereotype of Woman as jealous minx, silly goose, diffident wife and brood-hungry nester, but asking kids to seriously accept that intelligent, courageous, ambitious, ethical and highly capable females would drop everything they’d worked hard for to lie, cheat, inveigle, manipulate and entrap a man just so that they could cook pot-roast and change super-diapers is just plain crazy and tantamount to child abuse.

I’m just saying…

Showcase #9 (cover-dated July/August 1957) featured Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in three tales by Jerry Coleman, Ruben Moreira & Al Plastino; opening with seminal yarn ‘The Girl in Superman’s Past’ wherein Lois first meets red-headed hussy Lana Lang. The childhood sweetheart of Superboy seems to be a pushy conniving go-getter out to win Lois’ intended at all costs. Naturally Miss Lane invites Miss Lang to stay at her apartment and the grand rivalry is off and running…

‘The New Lois Lane’ aggravatingly saw Lois turn over a new leaf and stop attempting to uncover his secret identity just when Superman actually needs her to do so, and the premier concludes with concussion-induced day-dream ‘Mrs. Superman’ with Lois imagining a life of domestic super-bliss…

The next issue (September/October 1957) offered three more of the same, all illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, beginning with ‘The Jilting of Superman’ – scripted by Otto Binder – wherein the Man of Tomorrow almost falls for an ancient ploy as Lois pretends to marry another man to make the Kryptonian clod realise what she means to him…

‘The Sightless Lois Lane’ by Coleman reveals how a nuclear accident temporarily blinds the journalist, before her unexpected recovery almost exposes Clark Kent‘s secret when he callously changes to Superman in front of the blind girl. Binder delightfully closes the issue with ‘The Forbidden Box from Krypton’: a cache of devices dug up by a Smallville archaeologist originally packed by Jor-El to aid the infant superbaby on Earth. Of course, when Lois opens the chest all she sees is a way to become as powerful as the Man of Steel before becoming addicted to being a super-champion in her own right…

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane launched into her own title scant months later, clearly exactly what the readers wanted…

Showcase #11 (November/December 1957) saw the Challengers return to combat an alien invasion on ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’, with unique realist Bruno Premiani inking a taut doomsday chiller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats even today. Whilst searching for missing Antarctic explorers the Challs discover an under-ice base where double-brained aliens prepare to explosively alter the mass and gravity of Earth. Although intellectually superior, ‘The Tyrans’are no match for the indomitable human heroes and with their Plan A scotched, resort to brute force and ‘The Thing That Came out of the Sea’, even as Prof scuttles their aquatic ace in the hole with ‘One Minute to Doom’…

By the time of their final Showcase cases (#12, January/February 1958) they had already secured their own title. Here, though, ‘The Menace of the Ancient Vials’ is defused by the usual blend of daredevil heroics and ingenuity (with the wonderful inking of George Klein, not Wally Wood as credited here) as international spy and criminal Karnak steals a clutch of ancient chemical weapons which create giants and ‘The Fire Being!’, summon ‘The Demon from the Depths’and materialise ‘The Deadly Duplicates!’ before the pre-fantastic four put their enemy down.

Flash zipped back in Showcase #13 (March/April 1958) in a brace of tales pencilled by Infantino and inked by Joe Giella. Written by Kanigher, ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’ follows the Scarlet Speedster as he tackles atomic blackmail in Paris, foils kidnappers and rebuilds a pyramid in Egypt; dismantles an avalanche in Tibet and scuttles a pirate submarine in the Pacific, before Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements’ introduces outlandish chemical criminal Al Desmond who ravages Central City as Mr. Element until the Flash outwits him.

One last try-out issue – inked by Giacoia – cemented the Flash’s future: Showcase #14 (May/June 1958) opens with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’ as the Fastest Man Alive smashes dimensional barriers to rescue his girlfriend Iris West from uncanny cosmic colossi and stamp out an alien invasion plan, after which Al Desmond returns with an altered M.O. and new identity. Doctor Alchemy‘s discovery of the mystic Philosopher’s Stone makes him ‘The Man who Changed the Earth!’: a stunning yarn and worthy effort to bow out on, but it was still nearly a year until the first issue of The Flash finally hit the stands.

To reiterate: Showcase was a try-out comic designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially, a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown and Flash, so Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld now urged his two Showcase editors to create science fiction heroes to capitalise on the twin zeitgeists of the Space Race and the popular fascination with movie monsters and aliens. Jack Schiff came up with a “masked” crimefighter of the future – who featured in issues #15 and 16 – whilst Julie Schwartz concentrated on the now in the saga of a contemporary Earth explorer catapulted into the most uncharted territory yet imagined.

Showcase #15 (September/October 1958) commenced without fanfare – or origin – the ongoing adventures of Space Ranger – beginning in ‘The Great Plutonium Plot’ (plotted by Gardner Fox, scripted by pulp veteran Edmond Hamilton and illustrated by Bob Brown).

Their hero was in actuality Rick Starr, son of a wealthy interplanetary businessman who – thanks to incredible gadgets and the assistance of shape-shifting alien pal Cryll and capable Girl Friday Myra Mason – spent his free time battling evil and injustice. When Jarko the Jovian space pirate targets only ships carrying the trans-uranic element, Rick suspects a hidden motive. Donning his guise of the Space Ranger, he lays a cunning trap, exposing a hidden mastermind and a deadly ancient device endangering the entire solar system…

From his base in a hollow asteroid, Space Ranger ranges the universe and ‘The Robot Planet’ brings him and his team to Sirius after discovering a diabolical device designed to rip Sol’s planets out of their orbits. At the end of his voyage, Starr discovers a sublime civilisation reduced to cave-dwelling and a mighty computer intelligence intent on controlling the entire universe unless he can stop it…

Issue #16 opened with ‘The Secret of the Space Monster’ (plot by John Forte, scripted by Hamilton, illustrated by Brown) with Rick, Myra and Cryll investigating an impossible void creature and uncovering a band of alien revolutionaries testing novel super-weapons. ‘The Riddle of the Lost Race’ (Fox, Hamilton & Brown) then takes the team on a whistle-stop tour of the Solar system in pursuit of a vicious criminal and hidden treasures of a long-vanished civilisation.

A few months later Space Ranger was transported to science fiction anthology Tales of the Unexpected, beginning with issue #40 (August 1959) to hold the lead and cover spot for a 6-year run…

One of the most compelling and revered stars of those halcyon days was an ordinary Earthman who regularly travelled to another world for spectacular adventures, armed with nothing more than a ray-gun, a jetpack and his own ingenuity. His name was Adam Strange, and like so many of that era’s triumphs, he was the brainchild of Julius Schwartz and his close team of creative stars.

Showcase #17 (November/December 1958) proclaimed Adventures on Other Worlds, courtesy of Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs, telling of an archaeologist who, whilst fleeing from enraged natives in Peru, jumps a 25-foot chasm only to be hit by a stray teleport beam from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. Rematerialising on another planet filled with giant plants and monsters, he is rescued by a beautiful woman named Alanna who teaches him her language via a cunning contrivance. ‘Secret of the Eternal City!’ reveals Rann is a world recovering from atomic war, and the beam Adam intercepted was in fact a simple flare, one of many sent in an attempt to communicate with other races.

In the four years (Speed of Light, right? As You Know, Bob – Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light-years from Sol) the Zeta-Flare travelled through space, cosmic radiation converted it into a teleportation beam. Until the radiation drains from his body Strange is a most willing prisoner on a fantastic world of mystery, adventure and romance…

And an incredibly unlucky one apparently, as no sooner has Adam started acclimatising than an alien race The Eternalsinvades, seeking a mineral that grants them immortality. Strange’s courage and sharp wits enable him to defeat the invaders only to have the Zeta radiation finally fade, drawing him home before his adoring Alanna can administer a hero’s reward. Thus was established the principles of this beguiling series. Adam would intercept a Zeta-beam hoping for some time with his alien sweetheart, only to be confronted with a planet-menacing crisis.

The very next of these, ‘The Planet and the Pendulum’ sees him obtain the crimson-and-white spacesuit and weaponry that became his distinctive trademark in a tale of alien invaders attacking a lost colony of Rannians. They reside on planetary neighbour Anthorann – a fact that also introduces the major subplot of Rann’s still-warring city-states, all desperate to progress and all at different stages of recovery and development….

The next issue featured the self-explanatory ‘Invaders from the Atom Universe’ – with sub-atomic marauders displacing the native races until Adam unravels their nefarious plans – and ‘The Dozen Dooms of Adam Strange’, wherein our hero outfoxes the dictator of Dys who plans to invade Alanna’s home-city Rannagar.

With this last story, Sachs was replaced by Joe Giella as inker, although the former did ink Showcase #19’s stunning Gil Kane cover, (March/April 1959) which saw the unwieldy Adventures on Other Worlds title replaced with eponymous logo Adam Strange.

‘Challenge of the Star-Hunter’ and ‘Mystery of the Mental Menace’ are classic puzzle tales wherein the Earthman must outwit a shape-changing alien and an all-powerful energy-being. After so doing, Adam Strange took over the lead spot and cover of anthology comic Mystery in Space with the August issue.

Clearly on a creative high and riding a building wave, Showcase #20 (May/June 1959) introduced Rip Hunter… Time Master and his dauntless crew as ‘Prisoners of 100 Million BC’ (by Jack Miller & Ruben Moreira) in a novel-length introductory escapade seeing the daredevil physicist, his engineer friend Jeff Smith, girlfriend Bonnie Baxter and her little brother Corky travel to the Mesozoic era, unaware they are carrying two criminal stowaways.

Once there, the thugs hi-jack the Time Sphere, holding it hostage until the explorers help them stock up with rare and precious minerals. Reduced to the status of castaways, Rip and his team become ‘The Modern-Day Cavemen’, but when an erupting volcano provokes ‘The Great Beast Stampede’, our dauntless chrononauts finally turn the tables on their abductors…

Miller was always careful to use the best research available, but never afraid to blend historical fact with bold fantasy for Hunter’s escapades, and this volume concludes with an epic follow-up. Illustrated by Sekowsky & Joe Giella, ‘The Secret of the Lost Continent’ (Showcase #21, July/August, 1959,) has the Time Masters jump progressively further back in time in search of Atlantis. Starting with a dramatic meeting with Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, the explorers follow the trail back centuries to ‘The Forbidden Island’ of Aeaea in 700 BCE and uncover the secret of the witch Circe before finally reaching 14,000 BCE and ‘The Doomed Continent’ only to find the legendary pinnacle of early human achievement to be a colony of stranded extraterrestrial refugees…

Rip Hunter would appear twice more in Showcase before winning his own comic. The succeeding months would see the Silver Age truly kick into High Gear with classic launches coming thick and fast…

These stories from a uniquely influential comic book determined the course of the entire American strip culture and for that alone they should be cherished, but the fact they are still some of the most timeless, accessible and entertaining graphic adventures ever produced is a gift that should be celebrated by every fan and casual reader.

Buy this for yourself, get it for your friends and get a spare just because you can…
© 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents The Elongated Man


By Gardner Fox, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Irv Novick, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1042-2 (TPB)

Once upon a time, American comics editors believed readers would become jaded if characters were over-used or over-exposed and so to combat that potential danger – and for sundry other commercial and economic reasons – they developed back-up features in most of their titles. By the mid-1960s the policy was largely abandoned as resurgent superheroes sprang up everywhere and readers just couldn’t get enough…but there were still one or two memorable holdouts.

In late 1963 Julius Schwartz took editorial control of Batman and Detective Comics and finally found a place for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut as a walk-on in the April/May 1960 Flash.

The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny, a circus-performer who discovered an additive in soft drink Gingold which seemed to give certain people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, he refined the chemical until he had developed a serum which gave him the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree. Then Ralph had to decide how to use his new powers…

A quirky chap with his own small but passionate band of devotes, in recent years the perennial B-lister has become a fixture of the latest Flash TV series, but his many exploits are still largely uncollected in either print or digital formats. The only archival asset is this charming, witty and very pretty compilation which gathers his debut and guest appearances from Flash issues #112, 115, 119, 124, 130, 134, and 138 (spanning April/May 1960 to August 1963) and the Stretchable Sleuth’s entire scintillating run from Detective Comics #327-371 (May 1964-January 1968).

Designed as a modern take on the classic and immensely popular Golden Age champion Plastic Man, Dibny debuted in Flash #112’s ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ as a mysterious, masked yet attention-seeking elastic do-gooder, of whom the Scarlet Speedster was nonetheless highly suspicious, in a cunningly crafted crime caper by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella.

Dibny returned in #115 (September 1960, inked by Murphy Anderson) when aliens attempted to conquer the Earth and the Vizier of Velocity needed ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day.

In Flash #119 (March 1961), Flash rescued the vanished hero from ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’ which introduced the vivacious Sue Dibny (as a newlywed “Mrs Elongated Man”) in a stirring tale of sub-sea alien slavers by regular creative team Broome, Infantino & Giella.

The threat was again extraterrestrial with #124′s alien invasion thriller ‘Space-Boomerang Trap!’ (November 1961) which featured an uneasy alliance between the Scarlet Speedster, Elongated Man and sinister rogue Captain Boomerang who naturally couldn’t be trusted as far as you could throw him…

Ralph collaborated with Flash’s junior partner in #130 (August 1962) only just defeating the wily Weather Wizard when ‘Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man!’ but then sprang back into action with – and against – the senior partner in Flash #134 (February 1963). Seemingly allied with Captain Cold in ‘The Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero!’ Dibny excelled in a flamboyant thriller that almost ended his budding heroic career…

Gardner Fox scripted ‘The Pied Piper’s Double Doom!’ in Flash #138 (August 1963), a mesmerising team-up which saw both Elongated Man and the Monarch of Motion enslaved by the sinister Sultan of Sound, before ingenuity and justice ultimately prevailed.

When the back-up spot opened in Detective Comics (a position held by the Martian Manhunter since 1955 and only vacated because J’onn J’onzz had been promoted to lead position in House of Mystery) Schwartz had Ralph Dibny slightly reconfigured as a flamboyant, fame-hungry, brilliantly canny globe-trotting private eye solving mysteries for the sheer fun of it.

Aided by his equally smart but thoroughly grounded wife, the short tales were patterned on classic Thin Man filmic adventures of Nick and Norah Charles, blending clever, impossible crimes with slick sleuthing, garnished with the outré heroic permutations and frantic physical antics first perfected in Jack Cole’s Plastic Man.

These complex yet uncomplicated sorties, drenched in fanciful charm and sly dry wit, began in Detective #327 (May 1964) with ‘Ten Miles to Nowhere!’ (by Fox & Infantino, who inked himself for all the early episodes). Here Ralph, who publicly unmasked to become a (regrettably minor) celebrity, discovered that someone had been stealing his car every night and bringing it back as if nothing had happened. Of course, it had to be a clever criminal plot of some sort…

A month later he solves the ‘Curious Case of the Barn-door Bandit!’ and debuts his direly distressing trademark of manically twitching his expanded nose whenever he detects “the scent of mystery in the air” after which he heads for cowboy country to unravel the ‘Puzzle of the Purple Pony!’ and play cupid for a young couple hunting a gold mine in #329.

Ralph and Sue were on an extended honeymoon tour, making him the only costumed hero without a city to protect. When they reach California, Ralph is embroiled in a ‘Desert Double-Cross!’ when hostage-taking thieves raid the home of a wealthy recluse, after which Detective #331 offered a rare full-length story in ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men!’ (by Fox, Infantino & Joe Giella) as Batman, Robin and the Elongated Man unite against a super-scientific felon able to steal memories and reshape victims’ faces.

Returned to a solo support role in #332, the Ductile Detective discovers Sue has been replaced by an alien in ‘The Elongated Man’s Other-World Wife!’ (with Sid Greene joining as new permanent inker). Of course, nothing is as it seems…

‘The Robbery That Never Happened!’ occurred when a jewellery store customer suspiciously claims he had been given too much change, whilst ‘Battle of the Elongated Weapons!’ in #334 concentrates on a crook who adapts Ralph’s Gingold serum to affect objects, after which bombastic battle it was back to mystery-solving when EM is invited by Fairview City to round up a brazen bunch of uncatchable bandits in ‘Break Up of the Bottleneck Gang!’

While visiting Central City again, Ralph is lured to the Mirror Master‘s old lair and only barely survives ‘The House of “Flashy” Traps!’ before risking certain death in the ‘Case of the 20 Grand Pay-off!’ by replacing Sue with a look-alike – for the best possible reasons – but without her knowledge or permission…

Narrowly surviving his wife’s wrath by turning the American tour into a World cruise, Ralph then tackles the ‘Case of the Curious Compass!’ in Amsterdam, foiling a gang of diamond smugglers, before returning to America and ferreting out funny-money pushers in ‘The Counterfeit Crime-Buster!’

Globe-trotting creator John Broome returned to script ‘Mystery of the Millionaire Cowboy!’ in Detective #340 (June 1965) as Ralph and Sue stumble onto a seemingly haunted theatre and find crooks at the heart of the matter, whilst ‘The Elongated Man’s Change-of-Face!’ (Fox, Infantino & Greene) sees a desperate newsman publish fake exploits to draw the fame-fuelled hero into investigating a town under siege, and ‘The Bandits and the Baroness!’ (Broome) has the perpetually vacationing couple check in at a resort where every other guest is a Ralph Dibny, in a classy insurance scam story heavy with intrigue and tension.

A second full-length team-up with Batman filled Detective Comics #343 (September 1965, by Broome, Infantino & Giella), in ‘The Secret War of the Phantom General!’; a tense action-thriller pitting the hard-pressed heroes against a hidden army of gangsters and Nazi war criminals, determined to take over Gotham City.

Having broken Ralph’s biggest case, the happy couple head for the Continent and encounter ‘Peril in Paris!’ (Broome, Infantino & Greene) when Sue goes shopping as an ignorant monolingual American and returns a few hours later a fluent French-speaker…

‘Robberies in Reverse!’ (Fox) boasts a baffling situation as shopkeepers begin paying customers, leading Ralph to a severely skewed scientist’s accidental discovery, whilst #346’s ‘Peephole to the Future!’ (Broome) finds Elongated Man inexplicably developing the power of clairvoyance. It sadly clears up long before he can use it to tackle ‘The Man Who Hated Money!’ (Fox); a bandit who destroys every penny he steals.

‘My Wife, the Witch!’ was Greene’s last ink job for a nearly a year: a Fox thriller wherein Sue apparently gains magical powers whilst ‘The 13 O’clock Robbery!’, with Infantino again inking his own work, sees Ralph walk into a bizarre mystery and deadly booby-trapped mansion, before Hal Jordan‘s best friend seeks out the Stretchable Sleuth to solve the riddle of ‘Green Lantern’s Blackout!’ – an entrancing, action-packed team-up with a future Justice League colleague, after which ‘The Case of the Costume-made Crook!’ find Ralph ambushed by a felon using his old uniform as an implausible burglary tool.

Broome devised ‘The Counter of Monte Carlo!’ as the peripatetic Dibnys fall into a colossal espionage conspiracy at the casino and afterward become pawns of a fortune teller in ‘The Puzzling Prophecies of the Tea Leaves!’ (Fox), before Broome dazzles and delights one more time with ‘The Double-Dealing Jewel Thieves!’ wherein a museum owner finds that his imitation jewel exhibit is indeed filled with fakes…

As Fox assumed full scripting duties, Mystic Minx Zatanna guest-starred in #355’s ‘The Tantalising Troubles of the Tripod Thieves!’, as stolen magical artefacts lead Ralph into conflict with a band of violent thugs, whilst ‘Truth Behind the False Faces!’ sees Infantino bow out on a high note as Elongated Man helps a beat cop to his first big bust and solves the conundrum of a criminal wax museum.

Detective #357 (November 1966) featured ‘Tragedy of the Too-Lucky Thief!’ (by Fox, Murphy Anderson & Greene) as the Dibnys discover a gambler who hates to win but cannot lose, whilst Greene handled all the art on ‘The Faker-Takers of the Baker’s Dozen!’ wherein Sue’s latest artistic project leads to the theft of an ancient masterpiece.

Anderson soloed with Fox’s ‘Riddle of the Sleepytime Taxi!’, a compelling and glamorous tale of theft and espionage, and when Ralph and Sue hit Swinging England in Detective #360 (February 1967, Fox & Anderson) with ‘London Caper of the Rockers and Mods!’, they meet the reigning monarch and prevent warring kid-gangs from desecrating our most famous tourist traps, before heading home to ‘The Curious Clue of the Circus Crook!’ (Greene). Here Ralph visits his old Big-Top boss and stops a rash of robberies which had followed the show around the country.

Infantino found time in his increasingly busy schedule for a few more episodes, (both inked by Greene) beginning with ‘The Horse that Hunted Hoods’, a police steed with uncanny crime solving abilities, and continuing in a ‘Way-out Day in Wishbone City!’ wherein normally solid citizens – and even Sue – go temporarily insane and start a riot, after which unsung master Irv Novick stepped in to delineate the mystery of ‘The Ship That Sank Twice!’

‘The Crooks who Captured Themselves!’ (#365, by Greene) recounts how Ralph loses control of his powers before Broome & Infantino reunited one last time for ‘Robber Round-up in Kiddy City!’ as, for a change, Sue sniffs out a theme-park mystery for Ralph to solve.

Infantino finally bowed out with the superb ‘Enigma of the Elongated Evildoer!’ (written by Fox and inked by Greene) as the Debonair Detectives tackle a thief in a ski lodge who seems to possess all Ralph’s elastic abilities…

The Atom guest-starred in #368, helping battle clock-criminal Chronos in ‘The Treacherous Time-Trap!’ by Fox, Gil Kane, Greene, and iconoclastic newcomer Neal Adams illustrated the poignant puzzler ‘Legend of the Lover’s Lantern!’, after which Kane & Greene limned the intriguing all-action ‘Case of the Colorless Cash!’.

The end of the year signalled the end of an era as Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Greene finished off the Elongated Man’s expansive run with the delightfully dizzy lost-loot yarn ‘The Bellringer and the Baffling Bongs’ (#371, January 1968).

With the next issue Detective Comics became an all Bat-family title and Ralph and Sue Dibny temporarily faded from view until revived as bit players in Flash and finally recruited into the Justice League of America as semi-regulars. Their charismatic relationship and unique, genteel style have, sadly, not survived: casualties of changing comics tastes and the replacement of sophistication with angsty shouting and testosterone-fuelled sturm und drang…

Witty, bright, clever and genuinely exciting, these smart stories from a lost age are all beautiful to look at and a joy to read for any sharp kid and all joy-starved adults. This book is a shining tribute to the very best of DC’s Silver Age and a volume no fan of fun and adventure should be without. It should not, however, be the only place you can stretch out and enjoy such classic fare…
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Sea Devils volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, France E. Herron, Hank P. Chapman, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Gene Colan, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Jack Abel, Bruno Premiani, Sheldon Moldoff, Howard Purcell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3522-2

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy and outrageous imagination in his signature war comics, as well as for the wealth of horror stories, romance yarns, “straight” adventure, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Flash, Batman (plus other genres far too numerous to cover here) at which he also excelled.

He sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features “shop” at the beginning of the comicbook phenomenon where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for established features like Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel (who we all call “Shazam!” these days).

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote the Golden Age Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and many sexily memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and (Rose and) the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – which Kanigher also scripted at the time.

When mystery-men faded at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved easily into other genres such as spy-thrillers, westerns and war stories. In 1952 he became chief writer and editor of the company’s small combat line: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his packed portfolio when Quality Comics sold their dwindling line of titles to National/DC in 1956.

In 1955 Kanigher devised historical adventure anthology The Brave and the Bold and its stalwart early stars Silent Knight, Golden Gladiator and Viking Prince whilst still scripting Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog and a host of others.

In 1956, for Julius Schwartz he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny if formulaic action arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot, The Haunted Tank and The Losers, but he always kept an eye on contemporary trends too.

When supernatural comics took over the industry in the late 1960s, he was a mainstay at House of Mystery, House of Secrets and Phantom Stranger and in 1975 created gritty human interest/crime feature Lady Cop. Fifteen years earlier he had caught a similar wave (Oh, ha ha, hee hee…) by cashing in on the popularity of TV show Sea Hunt.

His entry into the sudden sub-genre deluge of scuba-diver comics featured the magical contemporary adventure formula of a heroic quartet (Smart Guy, Tough Guy, Young Guy and A Girl) who would indulge in all manner of (undersea) escapades from logical to implausible, topical to fantastical. He dubbed his team The Sea Devils…

These classy yarns still haven’t made it into modern full-colour editions but they are magnificent examples of comics storytelling and if you have to read these lost treasures in mere monochrome, at least that’s better than nothing…

Re-presenting the turbulent, terrific try-out stories from Showcase #27-29 (July/August to November/December 1960) and Sea Devils #1-16 – cover-dated September/October 1961-March/April 1964 – this mammoth black-&-white paperback tome blends bizarre fantasy, sinister spy stories, shocking science fiction and two-fisted aquatic action with larger-than-life yet strictly human heroes who carved their own unique niche in comics history…

In almost every conceivable way, “try-out title” Showcase created the Silver Age of American comicbooks and is responsible for the multi-million-dollar industry and nascent art form we all enjoy today. The comicbook was a printed periodical Petri dish designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown and many, many more.

The principle was a sound one which paid huge dividends. The Editors at National were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess fan – and most crucially sales – reactions.

Showcase #27 followed a particularly historic and fruitful run of successful non-superhero debuts which included Space Ranger, Adam Strange, and Rip Hunter…Time Master. At a time when costumed characters seemed to be ascendant but memories of genre implosions remained fresh, it seemed that the premier publication could do no wrong. Moreover, it wasn’t Kanigher and artist Russ Heath’s first dip in this particular pool.

Showcase #3 had launched war feature The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a US Underwater Demolitions Team in WWII as they perilously graduated from students to fully-fledged underwater warriors.

The feature, if not the actual characters, became a semi-regular strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) and other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first but certainly not the last graduate of the try-out system. Now, with tales of underwater action appearing in comics, books film and TV, the time was right for a civilian iteration to make some waves…

The drama here begins in ‘The Golden Monster’ (by Kanigher & Heath) as lonely skin-diver Dane Dorrance reminisces about his WWII frogman father – and the senior’s trusty buddies – before being saved from a sneaky shark by a mysterious golden-haired scuba-girl.

Judy Walton is an aspiring actress who, seeking to raise her Hollywood profile, has entered the same underwater treasure hunt Dane is engaged in, but as they join forces, they have no idea of the dangers awaiting them…

Locating the sunken galleon they’ve been hunting, both are trapped when seismic shifts and a gigantic octopus bury them inside the derelict. Happily, hulking third contestant Biff Bailey is on hand and his tremendous strength tips the scales and allows the trio to escape.

Now things take a typical Kanigher twist as the action switches from tense realistic drama to riotous fantasy with the explosive awakening of a colossal reptilian sea-monster who chases the divers until Judy’s little brother Nicky races in to distract the beast…

Temporarily safe, the relative strangers unite to destroy the thing – with the help of a handy floating mine left over from the war – before deciding to form a professional freelance diving team. They take their name from the proposed movie Judy wanted to audition for, becoming forever “The Sea Devils”…

In Showcase #28 Dane’s dad again offers his boy ‘The Prize Flippers’ he won for his war exploits, but Dane feels his entire team should be allowed to compete for them. Of course, each diver successively outdoes the rest, but in the end a spectacular stunt with a rampaging whale leaves the trophy in the hands of a most unlikely competitor…

A second story then sees the new team set up shop as “underwater trouble-shooters”, only to stumble into a mystery as pretty Mona Moray begs them to find her missing father. Professor Moray was lost when his rocket crashed into the ocean, but as the scuba stalwarts diligently search the crash site, they are ambushed by underwater aborigines and join the scientist in an uncanny ‘Undersea Prison’…

Only when their captors reveal themselves as invading aliens do the team finally pull together, escape the trap and bring the house down on the insidious aquatic horrors…

Showcase #29 also offered two briny tales, casting off with ‘The Last Dive of the Sea Devils’, wherein a recently-imprisoned dictator from Venus escapes to Earth and battles the astounded team to a standstill from his giant war-seahorse.

The blockbusting battle costs them their beloved vessel The Sea Witch before the crew make use of a handy leftover torpedo to end the interplanetary tyrant. Sea-born giants also abound in ‘Undersea Scavenger Hunt’, wherein the cash-strapped trouble-shooters compete in a flashy contest to win a new boat.

Incredible creatures and fantastic treasure traps are no real problem, but the actions of rival divers The Black Mantas almost cost our heroes their lives…

Everything worked out though, and nine months later Sea Devils #1 hit the stands with Kanigher & Heath leading the way. In ‘The Sea Devils vs. the Octopus Man’, our watery quartet are now stars of a monster movie, but when the lead beastie comes to lethal life and attacks them, all thoughts of fame and wealth sink without trace…

The second tale was scripted by the superbly inventive Bob Haney who riffed on Moby Dick‘s plot in a tale of how Vikings hunted a mythical orca with a magic harpoon before latter-day fanatical whaler Captain Shark mercilessly seeks out the ‘Secret of the Emerald Whale’ with the desperate Sea Devils dragged along for the ride…

Haney wrote both yarns in the next issue, beginning with ‘A Bottleful of Sea Devils’ as mad scientist Mr. Neptune uses a shrinking device to steal a US Navy weapon prototype. With the aquatic investigators hard on his flippered heels, the felon is soon caught whilst ‘Star of the Sea’ introduces brilliant performing seal Pappy who repeatedly saves the team before finding freedom and true love in the wild waters of the Atlantic…

Kanigher returned for #3’s ‘Underwater Crime Wave’ as the Devils clashed with a cunning modern Roman Emperor who derives incredible wealth from smuggling and traps the team in his undersea arena.

Judy then finds herself the only one immune to the allure of ‘The Ghost of the Deep’ as subsea siren Circe makes the boys her latest playthings and her human rival is compelled to pull out all the stops to save her friends…

Sea Devils # 4 led with ‘The Sea of Sorcery’ as the team investigate – but fail to debunk – incredible myths of a supposedly haunted region of ocean, after which Haney detailed how the squad travelled into the heart of South America to liberate a tribe of lost pre-Columbian Condor Indians from a tyrannical witch doctor whilst solving ‘The Secret of Volcano Lake!’

‘The Creature Who Stole the 7 Seas’ (Kanigher) opened issue #5, as a particularly dry period for the trouble-shooters ends after a crashing UFO disgorges a sea giant intent on transferring Earth’s oceans to his own arid world. Oddly for the times, here mutual cooperation and a smart counter-plan save the day for two panicked planets.

Veteran writer Hank P. Chapman joined the ever-expanding team with a smart yarn of submerged Mayan treasure and deadly traps to imperil the team as they solve the ‘Secret of the Plumed Serpent’, before Kanigher returned with a book-length thriller in #6 which sees the Devils seemingly ensorcelled by ancient parchments which depict them battling incredible menaces in centuries past.

Biff battles undersea knights for Queen Cleopatra, Judy saves Ulysses from the Sirens, Nicky rescues a teenaged mermaid from a monstrous fish-man and Dane clashes with ‘The Flame-Headed Watchman!’, but is wise enough to realise that the true threat comes from the mysterious stranger who has brought them such dire documents…

The switch to longer epics was a wise and productive move, followed up in #7 with ‘The Human Tidal Wave!’ as the heroes spectacularly battle an alien made of roaring water to stop a proposed invasion, whilst in #8 they strive to help a fish transformed into a grieving merman from the ‘Curse of Neptune’s Giant!’ This malignant horror’s mutative touch temporarily makes monsters of them all too, but in the end Sea Devil daring trumps eldritch cruelty…

More monster madness followed in #9’s ‘The Secret of the Coral Creature!’ as the team become paragliding US Naval medics to rescue an astronaut. That’s mere prelude to an oceanic atomic bomb test which blasts them to a sea beneath the sea which had imprisoned an ancient alien for eons of crushing solitude, and who had no intention of ever letting the air-breathers go…

A concatenation of crazy circumstances creates the manic madness of #10’s ‘4 Mysteries of the Sea!’ as godly King Neptune decrees that on this day every wild story of the sea will come true, just as the Sea Devils are competing in a “Deep Six Tall Tales” contest.

Soon the incredulous squad are battling pirates in an underwater ghost town, rescued from captivity by a giant octopus thanks to a friendly seal (Good old Pappy!), facing off against aliens of the Martian Canals Liars Club and saving Neptune himself from a depth-charge attack…

The hugely underrated Irv Novick took over as primary illustrator with #11, as the Sea Devils agree to test human underwater endurance limits in an ocean-floor habitat. Soon however, Dane is near breaking point, seeing a succession of monsters from the ‘Sea of Nightmares!’

Kanigher then relinquished the writing to fellow golden age alumnus France E. Herron who kicked off in rip-roaring form with a classy sci fi romp. Here Nicky’s growing feelings of inadequacy are quashed after he saves his comrades – and the world – from the ‘Threat of the Magnetic Menace!’

Always experimental and rightfully disrespectful of the fourth wall, editors Kanigher and George Kashdan turned issue #13 over to the fans for ‘The Secrets of 3 Sunken Ships’, as successive chapters of Herron’s script were illustrated by Joe Kubert, Gene Colan and Ross Andru & Mike Esposito for the audience to judge who was the best.

The artists all appear in the tale conducting interviews and “researching” our heroes as they tackle a reincarnated sea captain, travel to an ancient sea battle between Greece and Persia and meet the alien who kidnapped the crew of the Marie Celeste…

The gag continued in Sea Devils #14 as illustrator Novick came along for the ride as the amazing aquanauts try to end the catastrophic ‘War of the Underwater Giants’ This finds aging deities Neptune and Hercules battle for supremacy in Earth’s oceans.

Jack Abel was the artistic guest star in second story ‘Challenge of the Fish Champions!’, wherein our heroes enter a cash prize competition to buy scuba equipment for a junior diving club.

Unfortunately, crazy devious scientist Karpas also wants the loot and fields a team of his own technologically augmented minions. Before long, the human skin-divers are facing off against a sea lion, a manta ray, a squid and a merman. Nobody specified that contestants had to be human…

Novick got into the act again illustrating #15 as author Herron revealed Judy and Nicky’s relationship to the ‘Secret of the Sunken Sub!’ When inventor Professor Walton vanishes whilst testing his latest submersible, it’s only a matter of time before his children drag the rest of the Sea Devils to the bottom of every ocean to find him and his lost crew.

The uncanny trail takes them through shoals of monsters, astounding flora and into the lair of an incredible sea spider before the mission is successfully accomplished…

Things regained some semblance of narrative normality with the final issue in this compilation as Chapman contributed a brace of high adventure yarns beginning with ‘The Strange Reign of Queen Judy and King Biff’, superbly rendered by the wonderful Bruno Premiani & Sheldon Moldoff.

When a massive wave capsizes the Sea Witch, only Dane and Nicky seemingly survive, but the determined explorers persevere and eventually find their friends held as bewitched captives on the island of an immortal wizard. All they have to do is kidnap their ferociously resisting comrades, escape an army of angry guards and penetrate the island’s mystic defences a second time to restore everything to normal. No problem…

This eccentric and exciting voyage of discovery concludes with ‘Sentinel of the Golden Head’ – illustrated by the always impressive Howard Purcell & Moldoff – as the restored aquatic quartet stumble onto the lost island of Blisspotamia in time to witness a beautiful maiden trying to sacrifice herself to the sea gods.

By interfering, they incur the wrath of a legion of mythological horrors and have no choice but to defy the gods to free the terrified islanders from ignorance and tyranny…

These capacious black-&-white compendia are superb value and provide a vital service by bringing older, less flashy (but still astonishingly expensive in their original issues) tales to a readership which might otherwise be denied them. However, this is probably the only series which I can honestly say suffers in the slightest from the lack of colour.

Whilst the line-art story illustrations are actually improved by the loss of hue, the original covers – by Heath and Novick as supervised and inked by production ace Jack Adler – used all the clever technical print effects and smart ingenuity of the period to add a superb extra layer of depth to the underwater scenes which tragically cannot be appreciated in simple line and tone reproduction. Just go to any online cover browser site and you’ll see what I mean…

Nevertheless, the amazing art and astounding stories are as good as they ever were and Showcase Presents Sea Devils is stuffed with incredible ideas, strange situations and non-stop action. These underwater wonders are a superb slice of the engaging fantasy thrillers which were once the backbone of American comicbooks. Perhaps a little whacky in places, they are remarkably similar to many tongue-in-cheek, anarchic Saturday morning kids’ animation shows and will certainly provide jaded fiction fans with hours of unmatchable entertainment.…
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Young Love


By Robert Kanigher, Julius Schwartz, John Romita, Bernard Sachs, John Rosenberger, Werner Roth, Bill Draut, Mike Sekowsky, Win Mortimer, John Giunta, Tony Abruzzo, Arthur Peddy, Dick Giordano, Jay Scott Pike Gene Colan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3438-6

As the escapist popularity of flamboyant superheroes waned after World War II, newer genres such as Romance and Horror came to the fore and older forms regained their audiences. Some, like Westerns and Funny Animal comics, had hardly changed at all but crime and detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the times.

Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, mature-themed movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered post-war society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middleclass parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally, these new sensibilities seeped into comics, transforming two-fisted gumshoe and Thud-&-Blunder cop strips of yore into darkly beguiling, even frightening tales of seductive dames, big pay-offs and glamorous thugs. Sensing imminent Armageddon, America’s moral junkyard dogs bayed even louder as they saw their precious children’s minds under seditious attack…

Concurrent to the demise of masked mystery-men, industry giants Joe Simon & Jack Kirby famously invented the love genre for comicbooks with mature, beguiling, explosively contemporary social dramas equally focussed on the changing cultural scene and adult themed relationships. They began with semi-comedic prototype My Date in early 1947 before plunging into the torrid real deal with Young Romance #1 in September of that year.

Not since the invention of Superman had a single comicbook generated such a frantic rush of imitation and flagrant cashing-in. It was a monumental hit and the team quickly expanded: releasing spin-offs such as Young Love (February 1949), Young Brides and In Love.

Simon & Kirby presaged and ushered in the first American age of mature comics – not only with their creation of the Romance genre, but with challenging modern tales of real people in extraordinary situations – before seeing it all disappear again in less than eight years.

Their small stable of magazines produced for the loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines blossomed and wilted as the industry contracted throughout the 1950s.

All through that turbulent period, comicbooks suffered impossibly biased oversight and hostile scrutiny from hidebound and panicked old guard institutions such as church groups, media outlets and ambitious politicians. A number of tales and titles garnered especial notoriety from those social doom-smiths, and hopeful celebration and anticipation amongst tragic, forward-thinking if psychologically scarred comics-collecting victims was quashed when the industry introduced a ferocious Comics Code that castrated the creative form just when it most needed boldness and imagination.

We lost and comics endured more than a decade and a half of savagely doctrinaire, self-imposed censorship.

Those tales from a simpler time, exposing a society in meltdown and suffering cultural PTSD, are mild by modern standards of behaviour, but the quality of art and writing make those pivotal years a creative highpoint long overdue for a thorough reassessment.

The first Young Love ran for 73 issues (1949-1956) before folding and re-launching in a far more anodyne, Comics-Code-approved form as All For Love in Spring 1957.

Unable to find an iota of its previous and hoped-for audience it disappeared after 17 issues in March 1959 before resurrecting as Young Love again a year later with #18. It then ran steadily but unremarkably until June 1963 when the experiment and the company died with #38.

Crestwood sold up its few remaining landmark, groundbreaking titles and properties – Young Romance, Young Love and Black Magic being the most notable – to National/DC and faded from the business…

The new bosses released their first edition in the autumn of 1963 as part of their own small, shy and unassuming romance ring: carrying on with it and a coterie of similar titles targeting teenaged girls (for which, read aspirational and imaginative 8 to 12-year olds) over the next fifteen years.

The savage decline in overall comicbook sales during the 1970s finally killed the genre off. Young Love was one of the last; dying with #126, cover-dated July 1977.

This quirky mammoth monochrome compilation gathers the first 18 DC issues (#39-56 spanning September/October 1963 through July/August 1966) but, although beautiful to look upon, it is sadly plagued with twin tragedies.

The first is that the stories quickly become fearfully formulaic – although flashes of narrative brilliance do crop up with comforting regularity – whilst the second is an appallingly inaccurate listing of creator credits.

Many fans have commented and suggested corrections online, and I’m adding my own surmises and deductions about artists whenever I’m reasonably sure, but other than the unmistakable, declamatorily florid flavour of Robert Kanigher, none of us in fandom are that certain just who was responsible for the scripting of these amatory sagas. However, research continues and sites like the Grand Comicbook Database and Lambiek are continually fixing history for us…

Here, likely contenders include Barbara Friedlander, Dorothy Woolfolk, George Kashdan, Jack Miller, Phyllis Reed, E. Nelson Bridwell and Morris Waldinger but I’m afraid we may never really know.

C’est l’amour…

On these anthological pages, the heartbreak and tears begin with the introduction of a soap-opera serial undoubtedly inspired by the romantic antics of television physicians such as Dr. Kildare (1961-1966) and Ben Casey (1962-1966). Written in an uncomfortably macho “me Doctor Tarzan, you Nurse Jane” style by Kanigher and illustrated with staggering beauty by John Romita, ‘The Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N.’ follows the painful journey and regular heartache of a nurse dedicated to her patients whilst fighting her inbuilt need to “settle down” with the man of her dreams, whoever he is… It’s usually a big-headed, know-it-all medic who has no time to waste on “settling down”…

The serial opened with ‘No Cure for Love’, a 2-part novelette in which a newly-qualified Registered Nurse starts her career at County General Hospital in the OR; instantly arousing the ire of surly surgeon Will Ames whose apparent nastiness is only a mask for his moody man-concern over his poor benighted patients – but never their billables…

However, even as he romances Mary and she dares to dream, the good doctor soon proves that medicine will always be his first and only Love…

I’m not sure of the inker but the pencils on stand-alone back-up ‘You’ve Always Been Nice!’ look like Werner Roth in a novel yarn of modern Texans in love that pretty much sets the tone for the title: Modern Miss gets enamoured of the wrong guy or flashy newcomer until the quiet one who waited for her finally gets motivated…

‘The Eve of His Wedding’ – by Bernard Sachs – goes with the other favourite option: a smug, flashy girl who loses out to the quiet heroine waiting patiently for true love to lead her man back to her…

In #40 Kanigher & Romita ask ‘Which Way, My Heart?‘ of Mary Robin and she answers by letting Dr. Ames walk all over her before transferring to Pediatrics. She still found time to fall in love with a thankfully adult patient – but only until he got better…

Filling out the issue are ‘Someone to Remember’ (illustrated by Bill Draut) which sees sensible Judy utterly transform herself into a sophisticated floozy for a boy who actually prefers the old her, and ‘The Power of Love’ (incorrectly attributed to Don Heck but perhaps Morris Waldinger or John Rosenberger heavily inked by Sachs?) in which Linda competes with her own sister over new boy Bill…

Although retaining the cover spot, the medical drama was relegated to the end of the comic from #41 on and complete stories led, starting on ‘End With A Kiss’ by Mike Sekowsky & Sachs, wherein calculating Anna almost marries wrong guy Steve until good old Neil puts his foot down, whilst for a girl who dates two men at the same time, ‘Heartbreak Came Twice!’: a tale that was almost a tragedy…

Mary Robin then cries – she cried a lot – ‘No Tomorrow for My Heart!’ as Will Ames continues to call when he feels like it and she somehow finds herself competing with best friend Tess for both him and a hunky patient in their care. She even briefly quits her job for this man of her dreams…

The superb John Rosenberger inking himself – mistakenly credited throughout as Jay Scott Pike – opens #42 with ‘Boys are Fools!’ wherein young Phyllis is temporarily eclipsed by her cynical, worldly older sister Jayne… until a decent man shows them the error of their ways. Vile Marty then uses unwitting Linda as a pawn in a battle of romantic rivals for ‘A Deal with Love!’ (Rosenberger or maybe Win Mortimer & Sachs?). I don’t have any corroborating proof, but a custom of the era was for artists to trade pages or anonymously collaborate on some stories; making visual identification a real expert’s game…

With a ‘Fearful Heart!’, Mary Robin closes up the issue by accidentally stealing the love of a blinded patient nursed by her plain associate. When the hunk’s sight returned, he just naturally assumes the pretty one was his devoted carer…

Young Love #43 opened with the excellent ‘Remember Yesterday’ (looking like Gil Kane layouts over Sachs) in which Gloria relives her jilting by fiancé Grant before embarking on a journey of self-discovery and finding her way back to love… Then the Sekowsky/Sachs influenced ‘A Day Like Any Other’ and ‘Before it’s Too Late’ disclose the difficulties of being a working woman and the temptations of being left at home all alone…

After that, Kanigher & Romita end the affairs by showing the childhood days of Mary Robin and just why she turned to nursing when her childhood sweetheart becomes her latest patient in ‘Shadow of Love!’

Issue #44 declares ‘It’s You I Love!’ (Kane or Frank Giacoia with Sachs?) as wilful Chris foolishly sets her cap for the college’s biggest hunk, whilst in ‘Unattainable’ Lorna learns that she just isn’t that special to playboy Gary before Mary Robin endures ‘Double Heartbreak!’ when her own sister Naomi sweeps in and swoops off with on-again, off-again Dr. Ames…

Sekowsky & Sachs opened #45 with ‘As Long as a Lifetime!’ wherein poor April finds herself torn between and tearing apart best friends Tommy and Jamie, whilst ‘Laugh Today, Weep Tomorrow!’ (which looks like Jay Scott Pike & Jack Abel) has tragic Janet see her best friend Margot‘s seductive allure steal away another man she might have loved…

‘One Kiss for Always’ then shows Mary Robin as the patient after a bus crash costs her the use of her legs.

During her battle back to health, and loss of the only man she might have been happy with, the melodrama finally achieves the heights it always aspired to in a tale of genuine depth and passion.

The captivating Rosenberger leads in #46 as Maria and Mark conspire together to win back their respective intendeds and discover exactly ‘Where Love Belongs’, after which Mortimer reveals ‘It’s All Over Now’ for Merrill who only gets Cliff because Addie went away to finishing school.

But then she came back…

This surprisingly mature and sophisticated fable is followed by ‘Veil of Silence!’ in which Nurse Robin takes her duties to extraordinary lengths: allowing a patient to take her latest boyfriend in order to aid her full recovery…

In #47 ‘Merry Christmas’ (Rosenberger) shows astonishing seasonal spirit as Thea cautiously welcomes back sister Laurie – and gives her a second chance to steal her husband – after which secretary Vicky eavesdrops on her boss and boyfriend: almost finishing her marriage before it begins in ‘Every Beat of his Heart!’(Mortimer).

Mary Robin’s ‘Cry for Love’ starts in another pointless fling with the gadabout Ames and ends with her almost stealing another nurse’s man in a disappointingly shallow but action-packed effort, after which – in #48 – ‘Call it a Day’ (Mortimer) finds an entire clan of women united to secure a man for little Alice, before Rosenberger limns ‘Trust Him!’ wherein bitter sister Marta‘s harsh advice to love-sick sibling Jill is happily ignored. Kanigher & Romita then explore Mary Robin’s ‘Two-Sided Heart!’ after Ames again refuses to consider moving beyond their casually intimate relationship.

Of course, that shouldn’t excuse what she then does with the gorgeous amnesia patient who has a grieving girlfriend…

Young Love #49 opened with Rosenberger’s ‘Give Me Something to Remember You By!’ with Marge praying that her latest summer romance turns into a something more. Waiting is a torment but ‘Your Man is Mine!’ (Roth) shows what’s worse when sisters clash and Clea again tries taking what Pat has – a fiancé…

‘Someone… Hear my Heart!’ then unselfconsciously dips into the world of TV as Mary Robin dumps Dr. Ames for an actor and a new career on a medical show. It doesn’t end well and she’s soon back where she belongs with the man who can’t or won’t appreciate her…

Roth opened #50 with ‘Second Hand Love’ as Debbie dreads that the return of vivacious Vicky will lead to her taking back the man she left behind, whilst ‘Come into My Arms!’ (Ogden Whitney or Ric Estrada perhaps?) sees Mary Grant visit Paris in search of one man only to fall for another…

Mary Robin then finds herself pulled in many directions as she falls for another doctor and one more hunky patient before yet again rededicating herself to professional care over ‘The Love I Never Held!’

She jumps back to the front in #51 and discovers ‘All Men are Children!’ (still Kanigher & Romita) when an unruly shut-in vindictively uses her to make another nurse jealous, after which Rosenberger delivers a stunning turn with ‘Afraid of Love!’ Here, after years of obsessive yearning, Lois finally goes for it with the man of her dreams.

Romita then took a turn at an anthology solo story with ‘No Easy Lessons in Love’ as Gwen and Peter travel the world and make many mistakes before finally finding each other again.

The nurse finally got her man – and her marching orders – in #52’s ‘Don’t Let it Stop!’, but dashing intern Dan Swift only makes his move on Mary after being hypnotised! Hopefully, she lived happily ever after because, despite being advertised for the next issue, she didn’t appear again…

The abrupt departure was followed by vintage reprint ‘Wonder Women of History: Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch’ (by Julius Schwartz & John Giunta from Wonder Woman #55, September/October 1952), detailing the life of a crusading social campaigner before Roth – possibly inked by Sheldon Moldoff – details how a flighty girl stops chasing husky lifeguards and finds a faithful adoring ‘Young Man for Me!’

‘The Day I Looked Like This!’ (by Dick Giordano, not Gene Colan) celebrates the day tomboy Judi finally starts gussying up like a proper girl and unhappily discovers she is the spitting image of a hot starlet…

Issue #53 opens with ‘A Heart Full of Pride!’ (Sachs) as naïve Mib proves to herself that, just like in school, determination and perseverance pay off in romance, before Mortimer details how standoffish Cynthia learns how she needs to play the field to win her man in ‘I Wanted My Share of Love’.

Romita describes the designs of Kathy who discovers the pitfalls of her frivolous lifestyle in ‘Everybody Likes Me… but Nobody Loves Me!’ before Draut illustrates the lead feature in #54 as ‘False Love!’ exposes a case of painfully mistaken intentions when a gang of kids all go out with the wrong partners… until bold Nan finally speaks her mind.

‘Love Against Time’ by Tony Abruzzo & Sachs shows schoolteacher Lisa that patience isn’t everything, after which ‘Too Much in Love!’(Romita) hints at a truly abusive relationship until Mandy‘s rival tells her just why beloved Van acts that way…

‘An Empty Heart!’ (Arthur Peddy & Sachs or possibly Mortimer again) opens #55, revealing how insecure Mindy needs to date other boys just to be sure she can wait for beloved Sam to come back from the army, whilst Sachs’ ‘Heart-Shy’ Della takes took her own sweet time realising self-effacing Lon is the boy for her, after which the original and genuine Jay Scott Pike limns the tale of Janie who at last defies her snobbish, controlling mother and picks ‘Someone of My Own to Love’.

The romance dance concludes here with #56 and ‘A Visit to a Lost Love’ (actually Gene Colan): a bittersweet winter’s tale of paradise lost and regained, after which perpetually fighting Richy and Cindy realise ‘Believe it or Not… It’s Love’ (Abruzzo & Sachs), and ‘I’ll Make Him Love Me!’ (Sachs) show how scary Liz stalks Perry until she falls for her destined soul-mate Bud…

As I’ve described, the listed credits are full of errors and whilst I’ve corrected those I know to be wrong I’ve also made a few guesses which might be just as wild and egregious (I’m still not unconvinced that many tales were simply rendered by a committee of artists working in desperate jam-sessions), so I can only apologise to all those it concerns, as well as fans who thrive on these details for the less-than-satisfactory job of celebrating the dedicated creators who worked on these all-but-forgotten items.

As for the tales themselves: they’re dated, outlandish and frequently borderline offensive in their treatment of women.

So were the times in which they were created, but that’s not an excuse.

However, there are many moments of true narrative brilliance to equal the astonishing quality of the artwork on show here, and by the end of this titanic torrid tome the tone of the turbulent times was definitely beginning to change as the Swinging part of the Sixties began and hippies, free love, flower power and female emancipation began scaring the pants off the old guard and reactionary traditionalists…

Not for wimps or sissies but certainly an unmissable temptation for all lovers of great comic art…
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Strange Adventures volume 2


By John Broome, Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, Edmond Hamilton, France E. Herron, Dave Wood, Ed Jurist, Joe Millard, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, Jerry Grandenetti, Howard Sherman, Frank Giacoia, Manny Stallman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3846-9

Do you know what I miss? Compilations of classics anthological genre adventures.

Marvel finally wised up and recently began releasing gloriously evocative collections of their pre-superhero horror, sci fi and even war yarns but since DC stopped producing their cheap and cheerful compendia of similar material, something fabulous has been missing from our lives. Now with so many kinds of eBooks editions, it’s a crying shame that these whimsical, moody early fantasy romps are unavailable to readers of all ages and vintage. Let’s see why with this splendid and still enticing monochrome paperback tome

As the 1940s closed, masked mystery-men dwindled in popularity and the American comicbook industry found new heroes. Classic pulp fiction genre titles flourished; anthologies dedicated to crime, war, westerns, humour and horror were augmented by newer fads like funny animal, romance and most especially science fiction. In 1950, National Periodicals/DC finally escaped that last genre’s glorious thud-&-blunder/ray guns/bikini babes in giant fishbowl helmets magazine roots (as perfectly epitomised in the uniquely wonderful Golden Age icon Planet Comics) with Julius Schwartz’s introduction of Strange Adventures.

Packed with short adventures from jobbing SF writers and a plethora of new heroes such as Chris KL99, Captain Comet, Atomic Knights and others, the magnificent monthly compendium (supplemented a year later with sister-title Mystery in Space) introduced wide-eyed youngsters to a fantastical yet intrinsically rationalist universe and all its possible/probable wonders …

On a thematic note: a general but by no means concrete rule of thumb was that Strange Adventures generally took place on Earth or were at least Earth-adjacent whilst as the name suggests Mystery in Space offered readers the run of the rest of the universe…

Reprinting Strange Adventures #74-93 (November 1956 to June 1958), this second compelling collection features stories from the dawn of the Silver Age, offering fantastic fantasy plots and spectacular scenarios as an industry-wide resurgence of confidence and creativity gathered momentum and superheroes began to successfully reappear.

These stellar sagas would continually inform and shape DC’s slowly growing heroic adventure revival, whilst proving over and again that Weird Science and cosmic disaster were no match for the infallibility of human intellect and ingenuity. During this period many of the plots, gimmicks, MacGuffins, cover designs and even interior art were recycled for the more technologically-based, emergent costumed champions creeping back into public favour…

This mind-blowing, physics-challenging monochrome colossus opens with four classic vignettes, beginning with a terse thriller by John Broome & Carmine Infantino wherein a writer gains the power to see beyond the normal range and is the only human who can combat ‘The Invisible Invader from Dimension X!’, after which ‘The Metal Spy from Space!’ (Gardner Fox, Sid Greene & John Giunta) is similarly exposed and defeated by fictive pulp fictioneer “Edmond Hamilford”…

Fox, Greene & Bernard Sachs then reveal the vested interest of an investigator who obsessively seeks out ‘Earth’s Secret Visitors!’ before Edmond Hamilton, Gil Kane & Joe Giella detail how a notoriously hapless DIY dabbler finds himself in possession of the ‘Build-it-Yourself Spaceship!’

During this period editors were baffled by but still exploited a bizarre truism: every issue of any title which featured gorillas on the cover always showed increased sales. Little wonder then that so many DC comics had hairy headliners…

Strange Adventures #75 led with ‘Secret of the Man-Ape!’ by Otto Binder, Infantino & Giella, wherein a scientist intent on evolving apes into men accidentally acquires a test subject who just happens to be the vanguard of an invading alien anthropoid army, whilst ‘The 2nd Deluge of Earth!’ (Ed Jurist, Greene & Giella) sees a blind scientist save the world from Martians intent on taking over our water-rich world…

A meddlesome technologist happily makes amends and saves an imperilled alien civilisation after curiously poking his nose into the ‘Mystery of the Box from Space!’ (Binder, Kane & Sachs) before ‘This is Timearama!’ (Hamilton, Greene & Sachs) wittily and scathingly relates what happens when an honest researcher trusts businessmen with the secrets of his televisual time probe…

In issue #76 Broome, Infantino & Sachs explored the mission of a galactic saviour handicapped by fate as he strives to save humanity in ‘The Tallest Man on Earth!’, after which ‘The Flying Saucers that Saved the World!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella) reveals how a professional UFO debunker uses all he’s learned about hoaxes to counter an actual invasion by sinister subterraneans.

Although a short story anthology title, over the run of years Strange Adventures featured a number of memorable returning characters and concepts such as Star Hawkins or Space Museum. Darwin Jones of the Department of Scientific Investigation debuted in the very first issue, solving fringe or outright weird science dilemmas for the Federal Government.

A genius-level scientific detective, he made thirteen appearances over as many years and here resurfaces to foil the insidious schemes of ‘The Robot from Atlantis!’ (Binder, Kane & Giella), which feigns benevolent friendship whilst actually trying to eradicate mankind. The issue then concludes with the struggle of a geologist to get rid of ‘The Hungry Meteorite!’ (Dave Wood, Greene & Sachs) which threatens to absorb all the metal on Earth…

Another Darwin Jones thriller – by Broome, Infantino & Sachs – opened issue #77 when a Death Row convict is given superhuman intellectual abilities by desperate trans-dimension beings facing extinction. However, “Lobo” Torrence is prepared to let two worlds die to save himself, forcing the Science Detective to gamble everything on a last-ditch plan…

Hamilton, Greene & Giella then detail how ‘The Incredible Eyes of Arthur Gail!’ – damaged by a chemical accident and unable to detect non-organic materials – uncover a cruel criminal plot; Binder, Kane & Sachs expose the tragic secret of ‘The Paul Revere of Time!’ whose anonymous warnings prevent colossal loss of life and ‘The Mental Star-Rover!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella) reveals an uncanny connection between an Earth author and a piratical alien marauder…

Broome, Greene & Sachs opened Strange Adventures #78 with a spirited mash-up of Arthurian legend and The Prisoner of Zenda as mechanic Bruce Walker pinch-hits for an alien emperor in ‘The Secret of the Tom-Thumb Spacemen!’ after which Fox, Kane & Giella chillingly explore how existence depends on meteors when aliens attempt to steal ‘The Life Battery!’ which sustains our bio-sphere…

Binder & Infantino pose a classic quandary of ingenuity and survival after a prospector is stranded on a primitive island with a dead alien and a matter-transmuting device he believes is ‘The Magic Horn of Space!’ Immediately following, a test pilot is abducted into another dimension to become a guinea pig for inhuman predators as ‘The Prisoner of Space X!’ (France E. Herron, Greene & Sachs).

Issue #79 offered chilly seasonal fare with ‘Invaders from the Ice World!’ by Fox, Infantino & Sachs. When energy beings from Pluto possess snowmen in advance of an invasion it takes all of Darwin Jones’ deductive abilities to fathom their only weakness, after which ‘Around the Universe in 1 Billion Years!’ (Herron, Greene & Giella) follows a band of explorers who return to Terra after an eternity in space to discover a new race has supplanted them.

‘A Switch in Time!’ (Fox, Kane & Giella) then examines the fate of a conman who thinks himself the lucky recipient of the greatest deal in history before Hamilton, Jerry Grandenetti & Giella expose the incredible secret of ‘The Living Automobile!’ which kidnaps its driver…

Binder handled most of the writing in #80, beginning with a smart take on intellectual property as the Kane & Giella illustrated ‘Mind Robbers of Venus!’ depicts alien crooks stashing their loot in the brain of electronics engineer Ian Caldwell before Greene & Giella take over for ‘The Worlds That Switched Places!’ wherein an astronaut makes a terrible mistake that almost dooms two different dimensions.

Fox & Infantino demonstrated the duplicitous saga of Plutonian Jul Van and ‘The Anti-Invasion Machine!’ which almost destroyed Earth before Binder returns with artist Howard Sherman to seal the fate of an avaricious inventor who believes himself ‘The Man who Cheated Time!’

Strange Adventures #81 featured a subatomic would-be tyrant kidnapping convict brothers to be his tools in an ambitious plot, but the deranged alien has no idea of the ‘Secret of the Shrinking Twins!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) and consequently pays a heavy price, after which Binder, Greene & Giella pit an Earth naturalist against a potential world conqueror in ‘The Spaceman of 1,000 Disguises!’

‘The Friendly Enemies of Space!’ (Herron, Kane & Sachs) details a series of natural disasters which ruin Earth’s first contact with benevolent extra-solar life before Fox, Grandenetti & Frank Giacoia examined the fallout of a lost artefact from a higher dimension when ‘The Magic Box from Nowhere!’ drops into the hands of ordinary, greedy humans…

In #82, Herron, Infantino & Sachs’s bellicose and awesome ‘Giants of the Cosmic Ray!’ meet their match in a humble earth scientist, whilst a gobsmacked youth is astounded to discover his adoptive parents were aliens when he becomes ‘The Man Who Inherited Mars!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella)…

A lack of communication would have led to disaster had science fiction writer Owen Bently not deduced the incredible ‘Secret of the Silent Spaceman!’ (Binder, Giacoia & Giella) after which a researcher saves Earth from invaders by turning their technology against them on ‘The Day Science Went Wild!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella).

Strange Adventures #83 sees a simple college Professor revealed as an amnesiac chrononaut who has to rediscover and complete his ‘Assignment in Eternity!’ before time runs out (Binder, Greene & Giella again), whilst actor Mark Gordon finds himself hunting fans-turned-spree criminals as the ‘Private Eye of Venus!’ (Fox & Infantino) when his hit TV show inadvertently becomes the sensation of the telepathic inhabitants of our sister planet…

Herron, Greene & Giella detail a misunderstanding which reduces gigantic Good Samaritan ‘The Volcanic Man!’ to the status of an invading monster after which an accident leads to brain injury for an ordinary mortal. As crafted by Herron, Kane & Sachs, his wounds are repaired by passing aliens, but the victim develops uncanny precognitive abilities in ‘The Future Mind of Roger Davis!’

Ray Jenkins is a wealthy man who brings unearned fame and prestige in SA #84, but the glory-hound meets his fate when he encounters the ‘Prisoners of the Atom Universe!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) whilst a harried scientist prevents ‘The Radioactive Invasion of Earth!’ (Fox, Greene & Sachs) when he realises Martians also can’t abide his kids’ Rock ‘n’ Roll music…

Darwin Jones returns to solve the ‘Riddle of the Walking Robots!’ (Herron, Infantino & Giella) which ceaselessly roam Earth sowing alien seeds, after which schoolboy Tommy Ward‘s “Electronic Brain” kit becomes ‘The Toy that Saved the World!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella)… once he stops scrupulously following the instructions…

John Broome scripted the first half of issue #85, leading with artists Greene & Sachs’ ‘The Amazing Human Race!’, wherein a scientist uncovers a plot by Praying Mantises to conquer humanity before a colour-blind student finds affirmation when his disability saves an alien civilisation from destruction in ‘The Colorless World of Peter Brandt!’ (Infantino & Giella).

Binder closed the issue with a brace of tales: ‘The Riddle of Spaceman X!’ (Greene & Giella) with human scientists trying to deduce the form of an alien from examining his “abandoned” ship whilst ‘Thieves of Thought!’ (Infantino & Sy Barry) follows a speleologist who unearths a city of robots telepathically appropriating human inventions for the purposes of conquest…

In SA #86, ‘The Dog That Saved the Earth!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) discloses how alien energy transforms an ordinary mutt into a telepathic genius in time to prevent a cosmic catastrophe after which Binder, Infantino & Giella reveal how an ordinary chemist ends an ‘Interplanetary Space-Feud!’ threatening to devastate the world.

Gardner Fox then finished off the issue with two intriguing enigmas. Spelunker Bill Jackson stumbles onto an alien ship and discovers only he can stop ‘The One-Hour Invasion of Earth!’ (art by Giacoia), whilst Greene & Giella reveal how schoolboy John Haldane is saved by a mysterious stranger in payment for a similar service performed two decades hence during ‘The Weather War of 1977!’

Strange Adventures #87 begins with Herron, Infantino & Giella’s ingenious ‘New Faces for Old!’, wherein the ultimate plastic surgery craze is nothing but a crafty scheme by aliens to ferret out freedom fighters hiding amidst teeming humanity whilst ‘Mystery Language from Space!’ (Fox, Greene & Sachs) shows how a warning of planetary doom is nearly wasted as nobody can read the messages…

Fox, Infantino & Giella then detail how a freshly graduated Air Force pilot is abruptly seconded to the red planet to combat the ‘Meteor Menace of Mars!’ before Binder, Greene & Giella describe how an ingenious writer is tapped by aliens in dire distress to be ‘The Interplanetary Problem-Solver!’

Simian allure informed issue #88 as Herron, Infantino & Giella depicted Darwin Jones thwarting ‘The Gorilla War against Earth!’ and uncovering another alien invasion scheme whilst ‘The Warning Out of Time!’ (Binder, Greene & Sachs) reveals how a lost Da Vinci masterpiece conceals prophetic warnings of future disasters.

A mysterious and diligent ‘Bodyguard from Space!’ (Fox, Infantino & Sachs) attaches himself to cameraman Jim Carson because the human’s brain contains knowledge to save a dying civilisation, after which Binder, Greene & Giella pose a classic survival conundrum as Earth scientists struggled to discern ‘The Secret of the Sleeping Spaceman!’

When Saturnians raided our world in issue #89, one scientist advises neither capitulation nor resistance but instead suggests offering ‘Earth for Sale’ (Herron, Infantino & Sachs) to save humanity, after which a professor vanishes from view to find himself a ‘Prisoner of the Rainbow!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella).

A pilot on a mercy mission takes an accidental ‘Detour in Time!’ and saves future humanity in a chiller by Fox, Grandenetti & Giella before Binder, Greene & Giella’s ‘Mystery of the Unknown Invention!’ sees a nosy neighbour’s prying accidentally saving a world… but not his own…

Issue #90 opens with ‘The Day I Became a Martian!’ (Binder, Infantino & Sachs), revealing how prospective invaders periodically transform a sci fi writer to see if Earth can sustain them after which Fox, Greene & Giunta recount how a bookshop owner endures regular clandestine visits from an extraterrestrial seeking ‘The 100,000 Year Old Weapon!’

Binder also scripted the final brace of astounding yarns as an ‘Amazing Gift from Space!’ (illustrated by Infantino & Sachs) sees human suspicion nearly spurn an incredible opportunity and doom two civilisations, whilst the Greene & Giella limned ‘Mystery of Meteor Crater!’ offers a thrilling battle between Jovian invaders and ordinary Earthmen for the most powerful element in creation…

In #91 ‘The Midget Earthman of Jupiter!’ (Broome, Greene & Sachs) portrays how an Olympic decathlete assists Brobdingnagian aliens in a struggle for democratic freedom whilst Binder, Greene & Giunta’s ‘Warning to Earth!’ features an oceanographer afflicted with a mental block attempting to circumvent his psychic gag and alert the surface-world to impending undersea invasion…

Fox, Manny Stallman & Giella then detail a shipwrecked extraterrestrial swindler’s scheme to trick Earth into building his ride home after discovering ‘The Amazing Tree of Knowledge!’, before ‘Prisoner of the Space Satellite!’ (Binder, Infantino & Sachs) reveals how an isolated astronomer solves a mathematical mystery and saves the last survivor of Atlantis from death in space…

SA #92 offered a more literal tale from Joe Millard, Infantino & Sachs as ‘The Amazing Ray of Knowledge!’ boosts the intellect of children just as a sidereal phenomenon threatens to destroy the solar system. Sadly, the effect was only temporary and when the kids revert to normal their solution is beyond the ken of their parents…

When an alien impostor dies in an accident the authorities uncover a plot to end humanity. ‘Earth – Planetary Bomb!’ by Fox & Giunta sees Jeff Morgan impersonate his own doppelganger to infiltrate the doom-ring and save the world, after which Fox, Stallman & Giella reveal how a magazine artist encounters ‘Models from Saturn’ and becomes embroiled in an interplanetary revolution.

‘The Ice-Age Message!’ by Binder & Greene then sees a TV weatherman deliver a forecast of meteorological Armageddon after clashing with aliens seeking to steal Earth’s carbon dioxide…

Strange Adventures #93 wraps up the nostalgic future-watching, beginning with extra-length thriller ‘Heart of the Solar System!’ (Millard, Infantino & Giella) wherein a space-traffic patrolman strives to protect the artificial organ which regulates the laws of physics in our sector of space from stellar marauders, after which Fox, Stallman & Sachs expose temporal meddlers whose experiments drop the first volume of a cosmic dictionary in the lap of a contemporary quiz show contestant.

Sadly as ‘The Wizard of A!’, Joe Bentley‘s brief moment of fame almost eradicates the time continuum…

The final tale in this titanic tome is one last Darwin Jones romp as Fox & Giunta’s ‘Space Rescue by Proxy!’ describes the Science Sleuth’s dealings with a telepathic alien sent to warn Earth of impending doom. Tragically, the saviour himself falls into deadly danger and has to be rescued by Jones’ ingenuity…

Couched in the grand tradition of legendary pulp sci-fi editor John Campbell, with human ingenuity and decency generally solving the assorted crises of cosmic interaction, these yarns and sagas are a timeless highpoint of all-ages comics entertainment.

If you dream in steel and plastic and are still wondering why you don’t yet own a personal jet-pack or live on food-pills, this volume might go some way to assuaging that unquenchable fire for the stars…
© 1956, 1957, 1958, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.…

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Showcase Presents the Haunted Tank volume 2


By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Sam Glanzman, Ross Andru, Doug Wildey & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0789-8

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics. He also exceled in horror stories, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman and many others too numerous to cover here.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel.

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote Flash (Jay Garrick) and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Lady Cop, and so many memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last terrible temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, which Kanigher also scripted.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio after Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

In 1956 he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’; the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny but formulaic adventure arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot and The Losers as well as the irresistibly compelling “combat ghost stories” collected here in this second stupendously expansive war-journal.

This terrific monochrome tome re-presents more blockbusting exploits of boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Stryker and Rick Rawlins (from G.I. Combat #120-156, October/November 1966 to October/November 1972) from a period during which superheroes rose to astonishing global dominance before almost vanishing into comicbook Valhalla once more.

Apparently immune to such tenuous trendiness, the battle-hardened veterans of the M-3 Stuart Light Tank – named for the legendary Confederate Army General who was a genius of cavalry combat, and haunted by his restless spirit – soldiered on, battling threats mortal and frequently metaphysical on many fronts during World War II. The series became – after Sgt. Rock – DC’s most successful and long-lived combat feature.

The tales were generally narrated by Jeb as he manned the Commander’s spotter-position (head and torso sticking out of the top hatch and completely exposed to enemy fire whilst driver Slim, gunner Rick and loader Arch remained relatively safe inside), constantly conversing with his spectral namesake who offered philosophy, advice and prescient, if often obscurely veiled, warnings …

Throughout the early days Jeb’s comrades continually argued about what to do with him. Nobody believed in the ghost and they all doubted their commander’s sanity, but since he began seeing the General, Stuart Smith had become a tactical genius and his “gifts” were keeping them all alive against incredible odds…

This volume opens with G.I. Combat #120 ‘Pull a Tiger’s Tail!’ – illustrated by Irv Novick – detailing how, after accompanying both Sgt. Rock and Navajo fighter-pilot Johnny Cloud on sorties, Jeb defies orders to capture a giant Tiger tank his own way…

Another spiritually-sponsored warrior, Cloud regularly communed with a mounted Indian Brave dubbed Big-Brother-in-the Sky, galloping across the heavens during his own high-flying missions.

The inspirational Russ Heath illustrated #121’s ‘Battle of Two Wars!’ wherein, after rescuing a shell-shocked pigeon, the tankers are inexplicably drawn back to WWI to save Sgt Rock’s father. He then returns the favour once the Stuart returns to its proper time, whilst in ‘Who Dies Next?’ (#122, with art by Novick), the General issues a dire proclamation that one of their own will not last the day out – a forecast that comes true in a most shocking manner…

Heath returned to the art with #123’s ‘The Target of Terror!’ as guest star Mlle. Marie returned with news of a secret weapon to be destroyed at all costs. Sadly, the French Resistance leader has partial amnesia and doesn’t remember exactly what or where…

In follow-up ‘Scratch that Tank!’ the crew’s shiny new replacement vehicle is a cause of acute embarrassment until it finally gains a few praiseworthy combat scars…

G.I. Combat #125 decrees ‘Stay Alive… Until Dark!’ as Jeb’s sorely reduced battle-group attempts to hold too much ground with too few tanks, culminating in a Horatian last stand in the shattered, cloistered streets of a tiny French town, after which the crew endure deadly desert warfare in a desperate search for Panzers hidden by a cunning ‘Tank Umbrella!’

Novick illustrated the gritty ‘Mission – Sudden Death!!’ in #127 as Mlle. Marie leads the tank-jockeys far from their combat comfort zone on an infantry raid to rescue her captured father, after which Heath returned to limn ‘The Ghost of the Haunted Tank!’

This superbly evocative thriller reveals the crew finally cracking during a brutal massed Panzer assault and restraining their clearly delusional commander for his own good. However, when solid, no-nonsense Slim takes the observer’s spot he too starts seeing the spectral sentinel and is forced to act on the apparition’s strategic advice…

Issue #129 is pure Kanigher poesy as ‘Hold that Town for a Dead Man!’ depicts the tankers rolling past an American soldier expired at his post, and swearing to eradicate the foes who felled him…

When the blistering cat-and-mouse duel seems to go against the crew they are saved by an impossible burst of gunfire fired by a cold, stiff hand…

In the afterlife all great military commanders sponsor mortal combatants. General Stuart is stuck looking after a pack of “Damned Yankees”, but the other side also has phantom patrons. G.I. Combat #130 sees the return of savage shade Attila the Hun, who directly attacks his revenant rival in a deadly ‘Battle of the Generals!’ Jeb can only watch helplessly whilst trying to save his tank from mundane but just as murderous German panzer, artillery and air attacks, until…

Their next mission took the crew and a band of savage child-warriors into the heart of Paris to rescue Mlle. Marie from the Gestapo in #131’s ‘The Devil for Dinner!’ The short-lived and extremely controversial Kid Guerrillas of Unit 3 had debuted in the Sgt. Rock tale from Our Army at War #194, June 1968.

Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella stepped in to illustrate the follow-up wherein the Belle of La Resistance leads Jeb and the boy-soldiers – bizarrely disguised as a circus troupe – against merciless SS leader ‘The Executioner!’

The artists stayed on for #133’s ‘Operation: Death Trap’ as the Haunted Tank and crew are parachuted into North Africa to liberate enslaved natives working in a German diamond mine, before – following a ‘Special Battle Pin-up’ of the tankers by Joe Kubert – Ross Andru & Mike Esposito signed up for a stint, beginning with ‘Desert Holocaust’ wherein the tankers deal out vengeance for the three MacBane brothers; sibling tank-commanders slaughtered by the Afrika Korps.

Continuity was never a big concern for Kanigher and stories would often occur in no logical or chronological order. In #135 the lads are suddenly back in France, battling paratroopers and air-lifted Panzers with only aged WWI survivors to aid them in ‘Death is the Joker’, whilst ‘Kill Now – Pay Later!’ pits Tank against U-Boat and Jeb against its driven doom-obsessed Kommander in an improbable duel, before Heath returned in #137 to illustrate the African adventure ‘We Can’t See!’ Here the Americans are all temporarily blinded but nevertheless succeed in destroying a poison gas cache thanks to aid of a little Arab boy.

Kanigher often used his stories as a testing ground for new series ideas. G.I. Combat #138 introduced one of his most successful in ‘The Losers!’, when the Armoured Cavalry unit encounter a sailor, two marines and old friend Johnny Cloud, all utterly demoralised after losing the men under their respective commands.

Inspired by Jeb and a desire for revenge, the crushed survivors regain a measure of respect and fighting spirit after surviving a certain suicide-mission and destroying a Nazi Radar tower…

The new team were formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge (latterly supplemented by Pooch, the Fighting Devil Dog) were Pacific-based Marines debuting in All-American Men of War #67, March 1959 and running for fifty issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959-August 1965).

Captain Johnny Cloud was a native American fighter pilot who shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82. The “Navaho Ace” flew solo until issue #115, (1966) whilst Captain Storm was a disabled PT Boat skipper who fought on despite having a wooden left leg in his own eponymous 18-issue series from 1964 to 1967. All three series were originally created by comics warlord Kanigher and The Losers swiftly returned as an elite unit of suicide-soldiers starring in Our Fighting Forces.

G.I. Combat #139 again saw the Haunted Tank parachuted into an Arabian nightmare when the crew interrupt a funeral and save the widow from being forced onto the pyre with her deceased husband. ‘Corner of Hell’ finds Jeb wedding and losing his bride to Nazi sympathizers and an ancient prophecy…

Issue #140 featured a reprint not included here – although the new Kubert introduction page is – before the graphic narratives resume with ‘Let me Live… Let me Die!’ wherein Kanigher & Heath confront the topics of race and discrimination in a powerful tale describing the plight of African-American soldiers who were used as porters, gravediggers and ammunition carriers, but forbidden from bearing or actually using arms.

When Jeb arrives at a recently decimated ammo dump, the sole survivor of the Segregated Negro unit demands to accompany the crew and be allowed to fight and die like a man. Rushing to reinforce Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company and despite the thinly veiled disdain of Slim, Arch and Rick, when Jeb is wounded the valiant tag-along finally gets his chance…

G.I. Combat #142 finds Jeb obsessed with the moment of his own death in ‘Checkpoint – Death!’ but when the General isn’t forthcoming soon forgets it as an unseasonal snowstorm turns the world into a frozen hell…

‘The Iron Horseman!’ sees a frustrated WWI tanker finally get a chance to be a hero when Panzers attack a convent and Jeb’s crew are ambushed. There follows an informational spread ‘Battle Album: General Stuart Light Tank M31A’ – by Kubert – before #144 reveals a retrofitted Heath-illustrated origin for the Haunted Tanker in ‘Every Man a Fort!’

Now with Jeb a Northern Yankee, the tale reveals how he has to win with his fists the respect of pure-bred Southerners Rick, Slim and Arch before they let him call himself Jeb Stuart, and cements that bond during their first foray under fire in North Africa…

The desert milieu continued in #145’s ‘Sun, Sand & Death!’ when a sandstorm forces the tank off-course and leads them to an abandoned B-25 bomber, giving the dying pilot a chance to redeem his lost honour, whilst #146 sees the M-3 and its crew endure debilitating hazards battling the Afrika Korps but still persevering when the General advises Jeb to ‘Move the World!’…

For some Americans the wounds of the Civil War still festered, as Jeb discovers when he encounters the hostile commander of a ‘Rebel Tank’ in #147. Of course, the Germans are happy to remind the feudsters who is currently doing all the shooting, after which in #148 ‘The Gold-Plated General!’ (a thinly disguised analogue of George S. “Blood and Guts” Patton) demands a spit-and-polish war, but even under combat conditions leads by painful example…

American services discrimination was again confronted in G.I. Combat#149 when a Jewish soldier joins the division in ‘Leave the Fighting to Us!’ Many of the good guys have to eat their words when the tank group liberates a Nazi concentration camp…

A major visual change came in #150 with ‘The Death of the Haunted Tank!’ This saw the M-3 destroyed in combat and the crew jury-rigging a jigsaw replacement from the remnants of other scrapped and abandoned but, unsurprisingly, bigger, more powerful vehicles.

Proving again that men and not the machine are the heart of the partnership, the General sticks around and when the new Haunted Tankers passes through an alpine village they eerily relive a mediaeval battle against barbarian invaders in #151’s ‘A Strong Right Arm!’ before bringing a Nazi infiltrator aboard who turns their homemade rolling fortress into a deadly ‘Decoy Tank’ to lure Allied forces into an ambush…

Comics and animation legend Doug Wildey replaced Heath for #153 as sentimental fool Jeb adopts a lost piglet, orphan puppy and lame duckling before completing his tank’s transformation into ‘The Armored Ark!’ by packing in a homeless and displaced family. This all happens while tracking down and eradicating a hidden Nazi rocket silo, after which the series took on a far grittier and raw feel with the addition of a new regular artist.

With G.I. Combat #154 (June/July 1972), unsung master and battle-scarred veteran Sam Glanzman began his decades-long association with the feature, pencilling and inking the blistering improbable ‘Battle Prize!’ wherein Haunted Tank and crew are captured and paraded before Hitler in Berlin before busting loose and heading East.

Soon after being hijacked by Polish Resistance fighters, the Yanks are stranded in ice-bound, siege-locked Russia…

Shamefully, Sam Glanzman is one of the least highly-regarded creators in American comics, despite having one of the longest careers and certainly one of the most unique styles. His work, in genres from war to mystery, westerns, science fiction, sword & sorcery, horror, fantasy and even graphic autobiography is passionate, powerful, subtly engaging and irresistibly compelling.

With a solid, uniquely rough-hewn style he has worked since the 1940s on a variety of titles for many companies, mostly on anthology material for fantasy, mystery, war and adventure titles, but also on serial characters such Attu, Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, Hercules and Jungle Tales of Tarzan for Charlton, Kona and Voyage to the Deep for Dell/Gold Key: magnificent action sagas that fired the imagination and stirred the blood, selling copies and winning a legion of fans amongst his fellow artists if not from the small but over-vocal fan-press.

His most significant works are undoubtedly semi-autobiographical graphic novels A Sailor’s Story and Wind, Dreams and Dragons, although his Vietnam set ‘The Lonely War of Willie Schultz’ and the subtly beguiling U.S.S. Stevens are arguably as important and unmissable.

Glanzman, born in 1924, was still active today producing online strips until his death in July 2017.

G.I. Combat #155 undertook ‘The Long Journey’ as the Haunted Tank experienced the worst horrors of war whilst trekking across the embattled Eastern Front. Aided by Russian partisans, women, children and dotards, they fought off the fascists with every drop of their blood and sweat whilst making their way to a port and the normal war…

This second sterling tome ends with the crew back in Africa where the desert and the Wehrmacht vie for the privilege of destroying the beleaguered tankers as their frantic search for fuel and water drags them ‘Beyond Hell’…

An added attraction for art fans and battle buffs are the breathtaking covers by Heath and Kubert…

These spectacular tales took the Haunted Tank through tumultuous times when America fervently questioned the very nature and necessity of war. Vietnam was progressively blighting the nation’s sensibilities, and in response DC’s war comics addressed the issue and also confronted the problems of race and gender roles in a most impressive and sensitive manner.

As always, they combine spooky chills with combat thrills and a fierce examination of both war and warriors but always offer a powerful human message that has never dated and may well rank this work amongst the very best war stories ever produced. Hopefully someday soon you’ll be able to experience them in respectable modern archival editions too.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.