Category: DC War

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Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock volume 4


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to game-changing Blazing Combat magazine, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining US 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 Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-&-freedom oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response DC’s (or rather National Periodical Publishing, as it then was) military-themed comic books became even more bold and innovative…

For what seemed like forever at the time, the “combat-happy Joes” of Easy Company and their indomitable invincible “top-kick” Sgt Rock were one of the great and enduring creations of American comics. 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 pictorial combat that 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 was 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). Happy 65th Anniversary you G.I. guys!

The archetypal and idealised “common man” sergeant was an anonymous boxer who wasn’t especially skilled or gifted but simply refused to be beaten: absorbing all punishment dealt out to him. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted, that same Horatian quality soon 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 fourth monumental military milestone collects in chronological publishing order and stark, stunning monochrome, more of the groundbreaking classics which made Sgt. Rock a legend. These grimly gritty, epically poetic war stories are taken from still-anthological Our Army at War #181-216 (bracketing cover-dates June 1967 – February 1967): a period when American comics underwent 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 editions – colour and/or digital – but hope and profit motives still cling on…

Scripted throughout by Writer/Editor Kanigher and illustrated primarily by Russ Heath and/or Joe Kubert, the terse episodes herein begin with #181 as the taciturn topkick meets ‘Monday’s Coward – Tuesday’s Hero’ with Heath depicting how the sarge helps three deserters find their fates whilst Easy escort them to a firing squad, after which a change of venue – to North Africa – sees ‘The Desert Rats of Easy!’ (#182, Kanigher & Heath) avenge their comrades of Baker Company by destroying a cunningly concealed munitions dump…

A general industry shift towards mystery and supernatural themes was impacting all sectors of DC’s output and OAaW #183’s ‘Sergeants Don’t Stay Dead!’ tipped into symbolism and metaphysics as a dying soldier’s drawing and an exploding tank seemingly send the titanic topkick back into earlier manifestations as a key combatant in the Revolutionary, Civil and First World wars, prior to Kubert illustrating a terse ethical psycho-drama in #184 as Rock and his comrades risk their lives saving a ‘Candidate for a Firing Squad!’ who is happy to see them all die if he can save his own skin…

Unsafely ensconced in Europe again, ‘Battle Flag for a G.I.’ finds the weary warriors endangered by a starry-eyed young patriot whose battle banner imperils and – ultimately – inspires them all before #186 reprinted the Kanigher/Kubert classic from OAaW #90 as ‘3 Stripes Hill!’ revealing how Rock won his stripes, after which Heath returns for #187’s ‘Shadow of a Sergeant!’ as a hero-worshipping replacement dogs Rock’s heels and gets too close to the action…

Kubert & Jack Abel limn ‘Death Comes for Easy!’ as Easy are knocked off-kilter by fortune-telling replacement “Gypsy” after which #189 tackles the unsettling topic of child-soldiers in Kanigher, Kubert & Abel’s ‘The Mission was Murder!’ When French resistance fighters are killed, their kids regroup as Unit 3 to assist Rock and Easy in eradicating a hidden Nazi radar station, after which Our Army at War #190 (an 80-page Giant reprint issue) offers another chance to read Kubert’s ‘What Makes a Sergeant Run?’ as Rock shares his hard-earned war wisdom with the young and the hapless, as first seen in OAaW #97.

Air Ace and proud Navajo flier Johnny Cloud co-stars in 191’s ‘Death Flies High!’ as the soldiers and airman complete a downed bomber’s mission against a lethal windmill(!) after which Kubert & Abel illustrate another Unit 3 thriller as Rock is captured and faces ‘A Firing Squad for a Sergeant!’, before Kubert flies solo in #193in a flashback to Easy’s African campaign. ‘Blood in the Desert’ sees the tough top kick playing bodyguard to a farmer obsessed with making the sands bloom, even if he must irrigate it with his own blood…

Kubert writes and draws the next Unit 3 yarn in #194 as a mission goes sour and Rock is caught by sadistic Colonel Koldbludt. The gleeful torturer really wants the kid guerillas and in ‘A Time for Vengeance’ regrets getting his wish…

Kanigher & Kubert reunite for #195 as Rock and the kids hit a ‘Dead Town!’ dripping with recent blood and ancient history to liberate slave labourers before another Kubert all-alone tale foresightedly explores PTSD before we even had the term when Rock reaches his limit in ‘Stop the War… I Want to Get Off’ and a mysterious figure helps him out with a perspective-altering voyage through history…

In OAaW #197, Kanigher & Heath place Rock’s guys and Unit 3 between the German army and a doomed French village in ‘Last Exit for Easy’ (if you are precious about chronology the inexplicable placement of this yarn just after Dunkirk will drive you bonkers, but just remind yourself it’s only comics and you’ll survive), after which Kanigher & Kubert return to basics for # 198’s ‘Plugged Nickel!’ as the sarge proves the true value of good luck keepsakes in combat and tackles an alpine fortress and its ‘Nazi Ghost-Wolf’ in #199…

As much to celebrate the era as the anniversary, Our Army at War #200 inducted proto-hippie ‘The Troubadour’ in a bizarre tale of frontline pacifism and protest (delivered in rhyme and sans word balloons, too!). It’s supplemented by a classy ‘Special Battle Pin-up’ by Kubert and precedes a subtle shift in narrative emphasis beginning with #201’s ‘The Graffiti Writer!’ as Easy company slog across battlefield and devastated villages only to discover that “Kilroy was here!” first…

The ”combat happy Joes” take centre stage in #202 after learning (erroneously) that ‘The Sarge is Dead!’ but their battles briefly pause for an 80-Page Giant in #203 which offers similarly-themed reprint ‘Easy’s Had It!’ (by Bob Haney & Kubert from #103), exploring what happens when Rock is wounded and the company must fight without their guiding light and lucky talisman…

OAaW #204 & 205 were also reprint issues, represented here by their superb Kubert covers, but #206 resumes abnormal military service with ‘There’s a War On!’ as a Nazi psy-ops expert targets Rock with drugs, women and real food, but still fails to break his resolve, after which ‘A Sparrow’s Prayer’ harks back to North Africa where a tough spot seemed to need a devout recruit’s ardent orisons to save his companions’ bodies and souls…

Heath returned as regular artist with # 208 as ‘A Piece of Rag… a Hank of Hair!’ found Easy in a French village and reluctant babysitters to a little girl used a decoy by SS killers, before ‘I’m Still Alive!’ focussed on a replacement who was convinced his days were numbered…

Our Army at War #210 delivered a much-demanded sequel when Easy infiltrated an Italian fishing village and found their cheeky bugbear was still there first in ‘I’m Kilroy!’

A spiritual tone pervades #211’s Alpine adventure ‘The Treasure of St. Daniel!’ as the liberation of a small village reveals the location of a long lost treasure and the fact that the greedy occupiers didn’t really leave, after which a bombing raid renders the sarge deaf in in the middle of a joint US/UK commando raid in ‘The Quiet War!’

A small tale with big impact comes in #213’s ‘A Letter for Bulldozer!’ as the company strongman is torn apart by an envelope he dares not open, prior to the arrival of disruptive loner PFC Willy Hogan who leans too late how to be Easy in 214 ‘Easy Co… Where Are You?’ before the new material concludes with ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ in #215, wherein French kids appear to prefer their retreating Nazi overlords to the liberating Americans. Of course, there’s a simple nasty explanation if only Rock can find it…

Designated Sgt. Rock’s Prize Battle Tales, 80-Page Giant OAaW #216 ends this combat catalogue with Kanigher & Kubert’s classic yarn ‘Doom over Easy!’ – as seen originally in #107 – with the usually savvy soldiers afflicted by crippling superstition until the sergeant steps in…

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as here – his stories are 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 or Heath fronting each sortie, this battle-book is a visually vital compendium and certified delight for any jaded comics fan seeking 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…
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents The War That Time Forgot


By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Russ Heath, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1253-7 (TPB)

Unbelievably, STILL not a Major Motion Picture, The War That Time Forgot debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #90 and ran wild there until #137 (May 1968). It skipped only three issues: #91, 93 & 126, the last of which starred the United States Marine Corps simian Sergeant Gorilla. Look it up: I’m neither kidding nor being metaphorical…

At present this stunningly bizarre black-&-white compendium is the only comprehensive collection: gathering together most but not all of the monstrously madcap material from SSWS #90, 92, 94-125 and 127-128, cumulatively spanning April/May 1960 to August 1966. Simply too good a concept to leave alone, this seamless, shameless blend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caprona stories (known alternatively as the Caspak Trilogy or The Land That Time Forgot) provided everything baby-boomer boys – and surely many girls too, if truth be told – could dream of with giant lizards, humongous insects, fantastic adventures and two-fisted heroes employing lots of guns and gear and explodey stuff…

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, Horror stories, Romance, superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Iron Man, Lois Lane, Steel Sterling, Batman and other genres and stars too numerous to cover here. He scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as The Flash to the superhero-hungry kids of the World in 1956.

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 (Shazam!-fuelled) 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 scripted Golden Age iterations of Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary, Dr. Pat and Lady Cop, plus memorable female foes Harlequin and Rose and Thorn. This last he reconstructed during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting superhero.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, and in 1952 became writer/editor of the company’s combat titles All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Amy at War. He launched Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, cowboy Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, The Viking Prince and a host of others.

Among his many epochal war series were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The Haunted Tank and The Losers as well as the visually addictive, irresistibly astonishing “Dogfaces vs Dinosaurs” dramas depicted here. Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and I suspect he used this uncanny but formulaic adventure arena as a personal try-out venue for his many series concepts. The Flying Boots, G.I. Robot, Suicide Squad and many other teams and characters initially appeared in this lush Pacific hellhole with wall-to-wall danger. Indisputably, the big beasts were the stars, but occasionally ordinary G.I. Joes made enough of an impression to secure return engagements, too…

The wonderment commenced in Star Spangled War Stories #90 as paratroopers and tanks of the “Question Mark Patrol” are dropped on Mystery Island – from whence no American soldiers have ever returned. The crack warriors discover why when the operation is assaulted by pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs and worse on the ‘Island of Armoured Giants!’ Each yarn is superbly rendered by veteran art team Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.

Larry and Charlie, sole survivors of that first foray, returned to the lost world in #92’s ‘Last Battle of the Dinosaur Age!’ when aquatic beasts attack their rescue submarine forcing them back to the lethal landmass. ‘The Frogman and the Dinosaur!’ takes up most of SSWS #94 as a squad of second-rate Underwater Demolitions Team divers are trapped on the island, encountering the usual bevy of blockbuster brutes and a colossal crab as well.

What starts out as paratroopers versus pterodactyls in #95 turns into a deadly turf-war in ‘Guinea Pig Patrol!’ before ‘Mission X!’ introduces the Task Force X/Suicide Squad in a terse infiltration story with the increasing eager US military striving to set up a base on the strategically crucial monster island. The Navy took the lead in #97’s ‘The Sub-Crusher!’ with equally dire results as a giant gorilla joins the regular roster of horrors, after which a frustrated palaeontologist is blown off course and into his wildest nightmare in ‘The Island of Thunder’. The rest of his airborne platoon aren’t nearly as excited at the discovery…

The Flying Franks were a trapeze family before the war, but as “The Flying Boots” Henny, Tommy & Steve won fame as paratroopers. For #99’s ‘The Circus of Monsters!’ they face the greatest challenge of their lives after washing up on Mystery Island and narrowly escaping death by dinosaur. They aren’t too happy on being sent back next issue to track down a Japanese secret weapon in ‘The Volcano of Monsters!’

In #101 ‘The Robot and the Dinosaur!’ ramp up the fantasy quotient as reluctant Ranger Mac is dispatched to the primordial preserve to field-test the Army’s latest weapon: a fully automatic, artificial G.I. Joe, who promptly saves the day and returned to fight a ‘Punchboard War!’ in the next issue: tackling immense killer fish, assorted saurians and a giant Japanese war-robot that dwarfs the dinosaurs. The mecha-epic carried over and concluded in #103’s ‘Doom at Dinosaur Island!’, after which the Flying Boots encored in Star Spangled #104’s ‘The Tree of Terror!’ when a far-ranging pterodactyl drags the brothers back to the isle of no return for another explosive engagement. ‘The War on Dinosaur Island!’ sees the circus boys leading a small-scale invasion, but even tanks and the latest ordnance prove little use against pernicious, eternally hungry reptiles, after which ‘The Nightmare War!’ sees a dino-phobic museum janitor trapped in his worst nightmare. At least he has his best buddies and a goodly supply of bullets and bombs with him…

The action shifts to the oceans surrounding the island for sub-sea shocker ‘Battle of the Dinosaur Aquarium!’ with plesiosaurs, titanic turtles, colossal crabs and crocodilians on the menu, before hitting the beaches in #108 for ‘Dinosaur D-Day!’ when the monsters take up residence in the Navy’s landing craft. ‘The Last Soldiers’ then pits determined tank-men against a string of scaly perils on land, sea and air, after which a new Suicide Squad debuts in #110 to investigate a ‘Tunnel of Terror’ into the lost land of giant monsters. This time, though, there’s a giant gorilla on their side…

That huge hairy beast is the star of ‘Return of the Dinosaur Killer!’ as the harried unit leader and a wily boffin (visually based on Kanigher’s office associate Julie Schwartz) struggle to survive on the tropically reptilian atoll, whilst ‘Dinosaur Sub-Catcher!’ shifts locale to ice floes as a pack of lost sea dinosaurs attack a polar submarine and US weather station.

Star Spangled War Stories #113 returned to the blue Pacific for ‘Dinosaur Bait!’ and a pilot tasked with hunting down the cause for so many lost subs after which ‘Doom Came at Noon!’ revisits snowy climes as dinosaurs inexplicably rampage through alpine territory, making temporary allies of old enemies dispatched to destroy hidden Nazi submarine pens.

Issue #115’s ‘Battle Dinner for Dinosaurs!’ sees a helicopter pilot marooned on Mystery Island drawn into a spectacular aerial dogfight, before a duo of dedicated soldiers faced ice-bound beasts in ‘The Suicide Squad!’ The big difference being that here Morgan and Mace are more determined to kill each other than accomplish their mission…

‘Medal for a Dinosaur!’ bowed to the inevitable and introduced a (relatively) friendly baby pterodactyl to balance out Mace & Morgan’s barely-suppressed animosity, and ‘The Plane-Eater!’ finds the army odd couple adrift in the Pacific and in deep danger until our leather-winged little guy turns up once more…

The Suicide Squad were getting equal billing by the time of #119’s ‘Gun Duel on Dinosaur Hill!’, as yet another group of men-without-hope battle saurian horrors and each other to the death, after which the apparently un-killable Morgan & Mace pop back with Dino, the flying baby dinosaur. They also make a new ally and companion in handy hominid Caveboy, before the whole unlikely ensemble struggle to survive increasingly outlandish creatures in ‘The Tank Eater!’ Star Spangled War Stories #121 then presented another diving drama as a UDT frogman gains a Suicide Squad berth, proving to be a formidable fighter and ultimately ‘The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!’ Increasingly, G.I. hardware and ordnance began to gain the upper hand over bulk, fang and claw and much-missed representational maestro Russ Heath added an edge of hyper-realism to #122’s ‘The Divers of Death’ wherein two Frogman siblings battle incredible underwater insects but still can’t win the respect of their landlubber older brothers, and Gene Colan illustrated aquatic adventure ‘The Dinosaur who Ate Torpedoes!’, before Andru & Esposito reenlisted to depict ‘Terror in a Bottle!’. This was the second short saurian saga to grace issue #123 and another outing for that giant ape who loved to pummel pterosaurs and larrup lizards.

Undisputed master of gritty fantasy art Joe Kubert added his pencil-and-brush magic to tense and manic thriller ‘My Buddy the Dinosaur!’ in #124, and stuck around to illumine the return of G.I. Robot in stunning battle bonanza ‘Titbit For a Tyrannosaurus!’ (#125), after which Andru & Esposito limned Suicide Squad sea saga ‘The Monster Who Sank a Navy!’ in #127. The last tale here (#128) sees Colan resurface to illuminate a masterfully moving human drama actually improved by the inclusion of ravening reptiles in ‘The Million Dollar Medal!’.

Throughout this eclectic collection of dark dilemmas, light-hearted romps and spectacular battle blockbusters the emphasis is always on human fallibility; with soldiers unable to put aside long-held grudges, swallow pride or forgive trespasses even amidst the strangest and most terrifying moments of their lives, and this edgy humanity informs and elevates even the daftest of these wonderfully imaginative adventure yarns.

Classy, intense, insanely addictive and Just Plain Big Fun, The War that Time Forgot is a deliciously guilty pleasure and I for one hope the remaining stories from Star Spangled War Stories, Weird War Tales, G. I. Combat and especially the magnificent Tim Truman Guns of the Dragon miniseries all end up in sequel compilations before many more eons pass.

Now Read This book and you will too…
© 1960-1966, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Unknown Soldier volume 1: Haunted House


By Joshua Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2311-3 (TPB)

One of the very best concepts ever devised for a war comic, The Unknown Soldier was actually a successful spin-off, having first appeared as a walk-on in a Robert Kanigher/Joe Kubert Sgt. Rock story (Our Army at War #168, cover-dated June 1966). He won his own series in 1970, beginning with Star-Spangled Comics #151, cover-dated July 1970 and an all-Kubert affair.

The timely interventionist was a faceless super-spy and master-of-disguise whose forebears had proudly fought and died in every American conflict since the birth of the nation. This family’s last son had dedicated himself to ensuring the safety of his nation in the face of outrageous aggression from the Nazis and Japanese, and specifically the death of his own older brother in an enemy sneak attack…

The war strip grew to be one of DC’s most popular and long-lived: Star-Spangled became The Unknown Soldier in 1977 and the comic only folded in 1982 with issue #268, when sales of traditional comic books were in severe decline.

Since then the character has resurfaced numerous times – in superhero guest-shots and as a 12-issue miniseries in 1988-9; a 4-part Vertigo tale in 1997 and this ferocious politically-charged contemporary reboot which surfaced as an ongoing series in 2009. Another iteration was later revived and unsuccessfully updated as part of the 2011 “New 52” project.

With each iteration the hero moved further and further away from the originating concept, but never truly abandoned or escaped it.

As reimagined by Joshua Dysart (Violent Messiahs, Swamp Thing, Hellboy: B.P.R.D., Conan, Harbinger, Bloodshot, Goodbye Paradise) for adult imprint Vertigo Comics, the action shifts to Uganda at the beginning of this century, where almost continual tribal unrest since the fall of Idi Amin had turned the nation into a charnel house.

Especially appalling were the actions of murderous fundamentalist Christian demagogue Joseph Kony: a self-professed prophet whose “Lord’s Resistance Army” kidnapped, pressganged and brainwashed children: making killers of boys and sex slaves of girls – all forcibly indoctrinated into his religion-cloaked armed insurgency. If you’re old enough, you’ll recall a time when his atrocities were never far from our news…

Here, Dysart and illustrator Alberto Ponticelli (Dial H for Hero, Frankenstein, Come un cane, Sam & Twitch, Blade II, Alias, Blatta) co-opt those headlines as basis for a shocking tale of barbarity and duplicity set in 2002 when noted pacifist, physician and award-winning humanitarian Dr. Moses Lwanga returned to the country of his birth after decades away.

A successful refugee from Amin’s lethal reign, he has been raised in America since he was seven. After benefitting from an Ivy League education at Harvard, he intends on doing good for his benighted former countrymen. The move has already paid wonderful dividends as his first explorations won him a wife in the form of equally-accomplished local doctor Sera Christian.

Now, having endured the painful rigmarole of fundraising and gladhanding even the most well-meaning of interested parties – such as “involved and concerned” humanitarian cause-driven actress Mrs Margaret Wells – Moses is more than ready to head in-country and save actual lives.

It’s a painful, frustrating task as it’s not just modern problems causing bloodshed and carnage. The country suffers from ancient grievances underlying everything else: caused by the colonial British bundling together disparate tribes and adjacent regions into one country. When they left, eternal differences between the southern Ganda/Buganda and northern Acholi Peoples fuelled much of the brutal ambitions of all those monstrous “leaders” seeking to fill the power vacuum…

Into this morass of murder and exploitation the Lwangas plunge, setting up a field hospital in Acholiland and trying their very best. They are keenly observed by many, especially journalist Momolu Sengendo and President Museveni’s highly ineffective Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF), who are providing security for the facility which is deep in the region where Kony’s atrocities are daily occurring…

Apart from Sera, nobody is aware of the horrific, violent nightmares Moses endures nightly, and even she does not know how she figures in them…

Weeks later, the couple are struggling to cope with a continuous stream of mutilation, rape and punishment amputation cases caused by Lord’s Resistance Army units: largely autonomous groups spreading chaos and terror in the name of Jesus and Kony. One morning it all becomes too much. When a dying boy is brought in and reveals the LRA have taken his sister, Moses snaps and heads into the bush, outdistancing his extremely reluctant guards. He is easily captured and forced to watch children brutalise even younger children. Deep inside him, something breaks and a terrifyingly different man emerges: one as skilled in combat and death as Moses Lwanga is in healing…

When the smoke clears and the shooting stops, he’s subject to flashbacks of things that never happened, ongoing hallucinations and a voice in his head giving him orders…

Days later, a kind of rationality returns as he awakens with a ruined infected face swathed in bandages. They’ve been applied by an Australian nun, running a home for orphan girls in the middle of the worst place on Earth they could possibly be…

The famous doctor’s disappearance has caused dangerous waves in the outer world, and the press and the UPDF are frantically beating the bushes, but a much more measured approach is being taken by mysterious overseas interests. They have tasked the local CIA office to sort the problem and the ops on the ground “commission” – extort – veteran agent and drunken renegade Jack Lee Howl to find Moses at all costs…

The subject of all that interest is physically recovering at the convent school, but not so much in his head. That voice is telling him that neither he nor the children are safe and it’s backed up by increasingly agonising flashbacks and ever more daring insurgent forays.

Inevitably, the attack comes and broken child soldiers come looking for war brides, only to meet a force of murderous nature no amount of training could prepare them for…

Nevertheless, the bandaged terror fails and is captured by local LRA commander Lieutenant Lakut. A fanatical, remorseless monster, he recognises another when he sees one, and tries to break and recruit his captive. He would have been far wiser killing him right at the start…

As helpful-seeming old lag Howl probes Sera Lwanga for clues, in the bush Moses – or at least the passenger in his head – escapes and even more kids die as he tries to save the convent school residents, but another partial failure only tips him further way from the good man he wants to be…

By the time Howl finds him, Moses is having hallucinations – or are they recollections? – about another, far older killer with a bandaged face and no morality…

Ultimately, Moses battles his way back to Sera at an Internally Displaced Persons camp, only to lead Lakut to fresh victims. In the course of the massacre that follows, the doctor is lost to the soldier and in the aftermath of driving way the LRA, the bandaged man resolves that the only way to heal this infection is to hunt down and kill Joseph Kony himself…

To be continued…

A powerful and unforgettable tale of inhumanity made ever more shocking by its real world origins, this is a staggeringly potent comics tale long overdue for further attention. This initial tome – still cruelly out of print and unavailable digitally – was coloured by Oscar Celestini and lettered by Clem Robins, and features a variant cover by Rich Corben, augmenting regular covers by Igor Kordey whose image for US #1 won the Glyph Comics Award for Cover of the Year.

Dark, brooding, painfully true, Haunted House is a book worthy of your time and deserving of everyone’s attention.
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Goes to War


By Will Eisner, Bob Powell, Jon L. Blummer, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Robert Kanigher, Ed Herron, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, David Michelinie, Chuck Dixon, Garth Ennis, Chuck Cuidera, John Severin, Joe Kubert, Jerry Grandenetti, Mort Drucker, Russ Heath, Jack Abel, Alex Toth, Gerry Talaoc, Judith Hunt, Sam Glanzman, Eduardo Barreto, Chris Weston, Christian Alamy & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-7795-0015-1 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Blockbuster Thrills No Movie Could Match… 9/10

For America, the genre of war comics only really took in 1950, as the Korean War scared the pants off a world still recovering from WWII. Even so, while war was current affairs, publishers didn’t shirk making stories and heroes amidst the bomb blasts and strafing runs…

Many publishers fed the trend, but although a firm fan fave, the sector soon settled into mediocrity. However, after the meteoric rise and sudden demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to the game-changing Blazing Combat, the only sure place to find controversial, challenging, exceptional and entertaining combat comics was DC.

In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a generation, the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (herself a true “war baby”) was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting combat on a variety of fronts and from many differing points of view.

As the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response, DC/National Periodical Publications’ military-themed comic books became even more bold and innovative…

That stellar creative period came to an end as all strip trends do, but a few of the more impressive and popular features (Sgt. Rock, Haunted Tank, The Losers) survived well into the second superhero revival.

Currently, English-reading fans of the genre are grievously underserved in both print and digital formats, but this magnificent hardback and digital compendium is hopefully the vanguard of a change of fortune…

Re-presenting material from Military Comics #1; All-American Comics #48; Boy Commandos #1; Our Army at War#67, 83, 233, 235; Our Fighting Forces #49, 102; Star Spangled War Stories #87, 183; G.I. Combat #87; Showcase#57; Weird War Stories #3; The Losers Special #1; Sgt. Rock Special #2 and Enemy Ace: War in Heaven #1-2 spanning August 1941, this epic package chronologically samples the company’s wide and deep well of war tales…

Tales of ordinary guys in combat began with the industry itself and although mostly sidelined during the capes-&-cowls war years, they quickly re-asserted themselves again once the actual fighting stopped. Those early days of the industry were awash with both opportunity and talent, and these factors coincided with a vast population hungry for cheap entertainment. Comics had no acknowledged fans or collectors; only a large, transient clientele open to all varied aspects of yarn-spinning and tale-telling – a situation which persisted right up to the end of the 1960s. Thus, the action here starts before it started for America…

Even though loudly isolationist and more than six months away from active inclusion in the Second World War, creators like Will Eisner and publishers like Everett M. (“Busy”) Arnold felt Americans were ready for the themed anthology title Military Comics.

Nobody was ready for Blackhawk.

Military Comics #1 launched on May 30th 1941 (August cover-dated) and included in its line-up Miss America, Jack Cole’s Death Patrol, Fred Guardineer’s Blue Tracer, X of the Underground, The Yankee Eagle, Q-Boat, Shot and Shell, Archie Atkins and Loops and Banks (by “Bud Ernest” – actually aviation-nut and unsung comics genius Bob Powell).

None of the strips – not even Cole’s surreal and suicidal team of hell-bent fliers – had the instant cachet and sheer appeal of Eisner & Powell’s “Foreign Legion of the Air”, led by the charismatic Dark Knight of the airways known only as Blackhawk.

Happy Anniversary “Magnificent Seven”!

Chuck Cuidera, famed for creating Blue Beetle for Fox, drew ‘The Origin of Blackhawk’ wherein a lone pilot fighting the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 is shot down by Nazi Ace Von Tepp, only to rise bloody and unbowed from his plane’s wreckage to form the World’s greatest team of airborne fighting men…

This mysterious paramilitary squadron of unbeatable fliers, dedicated to crushing injustice and smashing the Axis war-machine, battled on all fronts during the war and stayed together to crush Communism, international crime, Communism and every threat to democracy from alien invaders to supernatural monsters – and more Communism – becoming one of the true milestones of the US industry.

There were many melodramatic touches that made the Blackhawks so memorable in the eyes of a wide-eyed populace of thrill-hungry kids. There were the cool, black leather uniforms and peaked caps. The unique, outrageous – but authentic – Grumman F5F-1 Skyrocket planes they flew from their secret island base, and of course, their eerie battle-cry “Hawkaaaaa!”

But perhaps the oddest idiosyncrasy to modern readers was that they had their own song (would you be more comfortable if we started calling it an international anthem?) which Blackhawk, André, Stanislaus, Olaf, Chuck, Hendrickson and Chop-Chop would sing as they plummeted into battle…

This is a good place to remind everyone that historically, war comics have never been a place with comfortable depictions of race, ethnicity or creed. Please treat the material as necessarily historically authentic or simply find other more evolved and comfortable books to read…

Quality Comics adapted well to peacetime demands: Plastic Man and Doll Man lasted far longer than other superhero titles, whilst the rest of the line adapted into tough-guy crime, war, western, horror and racy comedy titles. The Blackhawks soared to even greater heights, starring in their own movie serial in 1952. However, the hostility of the marketplace to mature-targeted titles after the adoption of the self-censorious Comics Code was a clear sign of the times. In 1956 Arnold sold most of his comics properties and titles to DC and set up as a general magazine publisher.

Many of the purchases were a huge boost to National’s portfolio, with titles such as G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs and others running into the 1980s whilst the appeal and potential of characters such as Uncle Sam, assorted Freedom Fighters, Kid Eternity and others keep them coming back to this day…

Next up is Jon L. Blummer’s Hop Harrigan, America’s Ace of the Airways. He debuted in All-American Comics #1 in April 1939 as a dashing aviator: becoming a radio show phenomenon and ultimately a movie serial star. Harrigan was a serving pilot throughout the war and in this tale from All-American Comics #48 March 1943 tests a secret weapon launched from a B-24 bomber to inflict hell on the Japanese.

When Timely Comics failed to make good on financial obligations, Captain America creators Joe Simon & Kirby jumped ship to National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms. After establishing themselves with The Sandman and Manhunter, they returned to the “Kid Gang” genre they had created with The Young Allies and devised a juvenile Foreign Legion entitled The Boy Commandos.

These bellicose brats initially shared – or stole – some of the spotlight from Batman & Robin in flagship title Detective Comics before and whilst their solo title became one of the company’s top three sellers.

Frequently cited as the biggest-selling American comic book in the world at that time, Boy Commandos was such a success that the editors – knowing “The Draft” was lurking – green-lit the completion of a wealth of extra material to lay away for when their star creators were called up. S&K produced so much four-colour magic in a phenomenally short time that Publisher Jack Liebowitz suggested they retool some of it into adventures of a second kid gang… and thus was born Home Front heroes The Newsboy Legion…

We never learn how American Captain Rip Carter got to command a British Commando unit nor why he was allowed to bring a quartet of war-orphans with him on a succession of deadly sorties into “Festung Europa”, North Africa, the Pacific or Indo-Chinese theatres of war. All we had to do was realise that cockney urchin Alfy Twidgett, French lad Pierre –latterly and unobtrusively renamed Andre Chavard – little Dutch boy Jan Haasen and rough, tough little lout Brooklyn were fighting the battles we would, if we only had the chance…

Boy Commandos #1 (Winter 1942-1943) here visits ‘The Town that Couldn’t be Conquered!’ as Rip leads the lads back to Jan’s home village to terrify the rapacious occupiers and start a resistance movement…

National/DC were one of the last publishers to fully embrace the end of decade combat trend, converting superhero/fantasy adventure anthology Star Spangled Comics into Star Spangled War Stories the same month it launched Our Army at War (both cover-dated August 1952). All-American Comics was repurposed as All-American Men of War one month later as the “police action” in Korea escalated.

They grew the division slowly but steadily, adding Our Fighting Forces #1 (November 1954) – just as EC’s groundbreaking war comics were vanishing – and in 1957 added G.I. Combat to their portfolio when Quality Comics quit the funnybook business.

As the 1950s closed however, the two-fisted anthologies all began incorporating recurring characters such as Gunner and Sarge – and latterly Pooch – from Our Fighting Forces #45 on (May 1959) – soon to be followed by Sgt.  Rock and The Haunted Tank. Ultimately, all war titles had a lead star or feature to hold the fickle readers’ attention.

The potency of the anthological model is demonstrated here by ‘Push-Button War!’ by Ed Herron & John Severin from Our Army at War #67, (February 1958) as a bombardier learns how the rest of his flight crew do their deadly jobs after which Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) depicts the birth of a legend…

Crafted by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert, ‘The Rock and the Wall!’ was actually the fourth appearance of a character undergoing constant revision. G.I. Combat #68 has an anonymous boxer who simply refused to be beaten. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted in the US Army, that 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.

Dubbed “Rocky”, the character returned as a sergeant in Our Army at War #81, again facing superior forces as ‘The Rock of Easy Co.!’ in a brief but telling vignette before finally winning a personal and extremely individualistic identity in the next issue. This was ‘Hold Up Easy!’: another harsh and declarative mini-epic from Kanigher which saw hard-luck heroes Easy Company delayed and then saved by callow replacements who eventually came good…

Only now can we see the story reprinted here as the true debut of the immortal everyman hero. Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘The Rock and the Wall!’ features a tough-love, battlefield tutor shepherding his men to competence and survival amidst the constant perils of war. Here the grizzled noncom meets a rival for his men’s admiration in the equally impressive Joe Wall…

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 life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old. So pervasive is this icon of comic book 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.

For most fans, DC’s war comics are synonymous with two names. Individually and in partnership, Kanigher & Kubert built the combat division.

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, as well as horror stories, westerns and superhero titles likeTeen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman plus other too numerous to cover here. A restlessly creative writer, he 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, The War that Time Forgot, The Haunted Tank, The Losers and the controversial star of this stupendously compelling war-journal.

He sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, joined the Fox Features shop and created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Shazam!-shouting 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 and Hawkman, created The Black Canaryand many memorable female villains such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last turbulent terror he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting vigilante who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – which he also scripted.

When the taste for mystery-men faded at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved seamlessly into adventure, westerns and war yarns: becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles.

As well as scripting for All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War, he created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 before adding G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality sold their titles to DC in 1956. This was whilst still working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Viking Prince and so many 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 the hero-hungry kids of the world. Drawn by Carmine Infantino, the risky experiment included multi-talented veteran Joe Kubert as inker for the crucially important debut issue…

Kubert was born in 1926 in rural Southeast Poland (which became Ukraine and might be Outer Russia by the time you read this). At age two, his parents took him to America and he grew up in Brooklyn.

His folks encouraged Joe to draw from an early age and the precocious kid began a glittering career at the start of the Golden Age, before he was even a teenager. Working and learning at the Chesler comics packaging “Shop”, MLJ, Holyoke and assorted other outfits, he began his close association with National/DC in 1943, whilst still dividing his time and energies between Fiction House, Avon, Harvey and All-American Comics, where he particularly distinguished himself on The Flash and Hawkman.

In the early 1950s he and old school chum Norman Maurer were the creative force behind publishers St. Johns: creating evergreen caveman Tor and launching the 3D comics craze with Three Dimension Comics.

Joe never stopped freelancing, appearing in EC’s Two-Fisted Tales, Avon’s Strange Worlds, Lev Gleason Publications & Atlas Comics until 1955 when, with the industry imploding, he took a permanent position at DC, only slightly diluted whilst he illustrated the contentious and controversial newspaper strip Tales of the Green Berets (from 1965 to 1968). An elder statesman of the industry, he was creating new works and passing on knowledge and experience through his world-famous Joe Kubert School until his death in August 2012.

Here ‘Blind Gunner’ from Our Fighting Forces #49, (September 1959 by Kanigher & Jerry Grandenetti) revisits Pacific Theatre warriors Gunner and Sarge as the sharpshooter looses his sight and is paired up with an astounding – and scene-stealing – K-9 star… “Pooch”.

With Mort Drucker, Kanigher then hits a ‘T.N.T. Spotlight!’ (Star Spangled War Stories #87, November 1959) as French Resistance leader Mlle Marie defeats a Nazi manhunt and retains her reputation for ruthless infallibility before we witness the birth of another genuine phenomenon.

In G.I. Combat #87 (April/May 1961), Kanigher & Russ Heath launched one of the strangest and most beloved war series ever conceived. ‘Introducing – the Haunted Tank’ sees boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Strykerand Rick Rawlins all assigned to the same M-3 Stuart Light Tank, named for the legendary Confederate Army General who was a genius of cavalry combat. During a patrol they somehow destroy an enemy Panzer even though they were all knocked unconscious…

Narrated by Jeb in 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 remain inside), he recounts how a ghostly voice offered advice and prescient, if veiled, warnings, all while enduring the jibes of fellow soldiers who drive bigger, tougher war machines. Eventually the little tank proves its worth and Jeb wonders if he imagined it all due to shock and his injuries, but we know better – as decades of further exploits proved…

The war department was always pushing envelopes and experimenting and the next star is one of the most notorious and remarkable.

Enemy Ace first appeared as a back-up in flagship title Our Army at War in tales loosely based on “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen. The stories were a magnificent, thought-provoking examination of and tribute to the profession of soldiering, whilst simultaneously condemning the madness of war, produced by dream team Kanigher & Kubert during a period when the ongoing Vietnam conflict was beginning to tear American society apart.

An immediate if seminal hit, the series told bitter tales of valour and honour from the point of view of German WWI fighter pilot Hans von Hammer: a hidebound, noble warrior fighting for his country in a conflict that was swiftly excising all trace of such outmoded concepts from the business of government sanctioned mass-killing.

Mere months later, he starred in a brace of full-length thrillers for prestigious try-out vehicle Showcase. Issue #57 (July/August 1965) here declares him ‘Killer of the Skies!’: recapitulating all that had gone before whilst introducing a potential equal in the form of Canadian ace “The Hunter”. A new wrinkle was added to the mix as Von Hammer now perpetually agonised and bemoaned his inability to save the human conveyor belt of naive, foolish replacement pilots to his Jagdstaffel from killing themselves through enthusiasm, bravado and youthful stupidity…

Eventually the real war hit DC’s comic pages as Capt. Hunter began a personal crusade in Vietnam. Green Beret Captain Phil Hunter debuted in Our Fighting Forces #99, drawn to the conflict to find his twin brother Nick: shot down and now M.I.A. ‘Cold Steel for a Hot War!’ comes from Our Fighting Forces #102 (August 1966 by Kanigher & Jack Abel) and sees the obsessed warrior training child soldiers beside enigmatic turncoat femme fatale Kewpie Doll…

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response DC’s military-themed comics became even more bold and innovative. However, the sudden downturn in superheroes led to some serious rethinking. Although war titles maintained and even built sales, they beefed up the anthological elements and began expressing anti-war sentiments…

Sgt, Rock increasingly became a mouthpiece for such sentiment: experiencing the horror and stupidity of fighting and revealing what lay behind the glory and patriotic fervour. Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘Head-Count!’ (Our Army at War #233, June 1971) detailed a new replacement to Easy Co who used the conflict to feed his own sick appetites, after which Kanigher & Alex Toth reveal how boyhood dreams turn to nightmares in shocking US Civil War vignette ‘The Glory Boys!’ (Our Army at War #235, August 1971)

The theme is revisited in ‘The Pool…’ from Weird War Stories #3 (January/February 1972): an early tale by relative newcomers Len Wein & Marv Wolfman, ably illustrated by Heath which shows how both cavemen tribes and modern soldiers battle eternally to possess the only source of water in a trackless wasteland…

Times and tastes constantly evolved, and simple fighting was no longer satisfactory…

One of the very best concepts ever devised for a war comic, The Unknown Soldier was a spin-off, first appearing as a walk-on in a 1966 Sgt. Rock story (Our Army at War #168, by Kanigher & Kubert). His later series featured a faceless super-spy and master-of-disguise whose forebears had proudly fought and died in every American conflict since the birth of the nation.

The strip became one of DC’s most popular and long-lived: Star Spangled morphed into Unknown Soldier in 1977 with #205: only folding in 1982 (#268) when sales of traditional comic books harshly declined. Since then the character has frequently been rebooted and reinvented: each iteration moving further and further way from the originating concept.

His origin revealed how two inseparable brothers joined up in the days before America was attacked and were posted together to the Philippines just as the Japanese began their seemingly unstoppable Pacific Campaign. Overwhelmed by a tidal wave of enemy soldiers one night the brothers held their jungle posts to the last and when relief came only one had survived, his face a tattered mess of raw flesh and bone…

As US forces retreated from the islands the indomitable survivor was evacuated to a state-side hospital. Refusing medals, honours or retirement, the recuperating warrior dedicated his remaining years to his lost brother Harry and determinedly retrained as a one-man-army intelligence unit. His unsalvageable face swathed in bandages, the nameless fighter learned the arts of make-up, disguise and mimicry, perfected a broad arsenal of fighting skills and offered himself to the State Department as an expendable resource who could go anywhere and do anything.

After a long run by numerous stellar creators, shifting fashions provoked a shift in emphasis. Relative neophytes David Michelinie & Gerry Talaoc came aboard with SSWS #183, resulting in an evocative change of direction with ‘8,000 to One’.

The horror boom peaked in 1974 and new editor Joe Orlando capitalised on that fascination with a few startling changes – the most controversial being to expose the Unknown Soldier’s grotesque, scar-ravaged face – presumably to draw in monster-hungry fear fans…

The story itself goes back to the Immortal G.I.’s earliest days as an American agent as he’s despatched to Denmark to rescue a ship full of Danish Jews destined for Hitler’s death camps. Disguised as SS Captain Max Shreik, the Soldier is forced to make an unconscionable choice to safeguard his mission. The degree and manner of graphic violence was also exponentially increased to accommodate the more mature readership as the Soldier took a very personal revenge…

Another result of changing tastes was teaming older strip stars. The Losers were an elite unit of American soldiers formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge – supplemented by Fighting Devil Dog Pooch – were Pacific-based Marines, debuting in All-American Men of War #67 (March1959). They ran for 50 issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May1959-August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud – Navajo Ace and native American fighter pilot – shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82. He flew solo until issue #115 (1966), whilst the final component of the Land/Air/Sea team was filled by Captain Storm, a disabled PT Boat commander (he had a wooden leg) who had his own 18 issue title from 1964 to 1967. All three series were created by warlord Kanigher.

They had all pretty much passed their sell-by dates when they teamed-up as guest-stars in a Haunted Tank tale in 1969 (G.I. Combat #138 October), but these “Losers” found a new resonance together in the relevant, disillusioned, cynical Vietnam years, and their rather nihilistic, doom-laden anti-hero adventures took the lead spot in Our Fighting Forces#123 (January/February 1970), written by Kanigher with art from giants like Ken Barr, Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, John Severin and Joe Kubert.

With the tag-line “even when they win, they lose” they saw action all over the globe, winning critical acclaim and a small, passionate following until #181 (September/October 1978) – when the comic was cancelled – and one last hurrah in 1982’s Unknown Soldier #265.

When DC revised its entire continuity in 1985 for Crisis on Infinite Earths a final tale was devised by Kanigher, Judith Hunt, Sam Glanzman & Mike Esposito in a one-shot. The Losers Special #1 saw the doomed heroes perish saving the war effort by destroying a German missile base. That’s not a spoiler: It’s comics and they haven’t all stayed dead…

Readers’ understanding and appreciation of war stories constantly matured over the decades and by the time of ‘Hammer and Anvil’ (Sgt. Rock Special #2, 1992 by Chuck Dixon & Eduardo Barreto) the tales were practically indistinguishable from film or TV fare. Seldom a matter of good versus evil, here, war itself and weather are the enemy as Easy Company endure the horrors of Bastogne and clash with Nazi infiltrators indistinguishable from G.I.’s at the Battle of the Bulge…

Ending this sortie of superb classics is a brilliant extrapolation by modern day keeper of the war flame Garth Ennis, ably assisted by Christian Alamy, Chris Weston & Russ Heath. Released in 2001 as a 2-issue miniseries, Enemy Ace: War in Heaven takes another look at the flyer on the other side, now transplanted to World War II and a far less defensible position…

Bavaria 1942, and 46 years old Baron Hans von Hammer is visited by an old flying comrade urging him to come out of retirement and serve his country. No lover of Nazism, the old ace has remained isolated until now, but Germany’s attack on Russia has proven a disastrous blunder, and this last plea is a much warning as request.

Neophyte pilots on the Eastern Front need his experience and leadership, whereas Hitler’s goons don’t need much excuse to remove a dissident thorn…

Based loosely on the lives of such German pilots as Adolf Galland, book 1 – rendered by Weston – finds von Hammer as indomitable as ever in the killer skies but unable to stomach the increasing horror and stupidity of the conflict and its instigators. The phrase “My Country, Right or Wrong” leaves an increasingly sour taste in his mouth as the last of his nation’s young men die above Soviet fields…

Book 2 is set in 1945 with Germany on the brink of defeat and von Hammer flying an experimental jet fighter (a Messerschmitt 262, if you’re interested): shooting down not nearly enough Allied bombers to make a difference and still annoying the wrong people at Nazi High Command.

He knows the war is over but his sense of duty and personal honour won’t let him quit. He is resigned to die in the bloody skies that are his second home, but is shot down and parachutes into a concentration camp named Dachau…

With art from comics legend Russ Heath, this stirring tale ends with a triumph of integrity over patriotism: a perfect end to the war record of a true soldier and another compelling, deeply incisive exploration of war, its repercussions, both good and bad, and the effects that combat has on singular men. This should be mandatory reading for every child who wants to be a soldier…

With covers Will Eisner & Gil Fox, Simon & Kirby, Grandenetti, Kubert, Dan Brereton and Alamy, this monument to combat comics is a stunning example of passion in play and a clarion call to publishers to return to their archives and release many more such tomes.
© 1941, 1943, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1985, 1994, 2001, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, Bob Haney, Ross Andru, Mort Drucker, Irv Novick, Russ Heath & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1713-6

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 life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old. So pervasive is this icon of comicbook 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.

This initial compendium collects in stunning black and white the tentative first steps in the character’s evolution from G.I. Combat #68 and Our Army at War #81-82 to the first full barrage of battle blockbusters from OAAW #83-117, covering January 1959 (and many happy returns to you, Sarge!) through April 1962: a period wherein the American comicbook market was undergoing a staggering revolution in style, theme and quality.

Behind the stunning Jerry Grandenetti cover (the first of many in this bulky and impressive monochrome paperback tome) for G.I. Combat #68 lurks a quiet, moodily unassuming story (by Kanigher & Joe Kubert) of an anonymous boxer who wasn’t particularly skilled but simply refused to be beaten. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted in the US Army, however, 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.

Dubbed “Rocky” the character returned as a sergeant in the April Our Army at War (#81) again facing superior German forces as ‘The Rock of Easy Co.!’ in a brief but telling vignette by Bob Haney, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito before finally winning a personal and extremely individualistic identity as Sgt. Rock in the next issue. This was the Mort Drucker illustrated ‘Hold Up Easy!’: another harsh and declarative mini-epic from Kanigher which saw hard-luck heroes Easy Company delayed and then saved by callow replacements who eventually came good…

Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) saw the true launch of the immortal everyman hero in Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘The Rock and the Wall!’: a tough-love, battlefield tutor shepherding his men to competence and survival amidst the constant perils of war. Here the grizzled nomcom meets a rival for his men’s admiration in the equally impressive Joe Wall…

Irv Novick illustrated ‘Laughter on Snakehead Hill!’ as the embattled dog-faces of Easy fight to take a heavily-fortified citadel before OAAW #85 introduces the first continuing cast member in the Kubert-limned ‘Ice Cream Soldier!’ Here Rock assuages a fearful replacement’s jangled nerves with tales of another hopeless “green apple” who grew into his job.

This ploy of incorporating brief past-action episodes into a baptism of fire scenario would play over and over again, and never got old…

Haney returned in #86 to script ‘Tank 711’ for Kubert as the terse top-kick educated another newbie in combat etiquette. Kanigher returned to describe the taking of “No-Return-Hill” and the initiation of four more raw recruits in ‘Calling Easy Co.!’ after which Grandenetti illustrated a brace of tales in #88 and 89: ‘The Hard Way’, in which Rock suffers a shocking crisis of confidence and ‘No Shot from Easy!’ wherein the indomitable sergeant is forced to give his toughest ever order…

Issue #90 offered classic Kubert as ‘Three Stripes Hill!’ revealed the story of how Rock won his stripes after which the traditionally anthological Our Army at War offered three complete Sgt. Rock sagas in #91, beginning with ‘No Answer From Sarge!’ as the NCO risks everything to drag a recruit out of a crippling funk; ‘Old Soldiers Never Run!’ where he has to weigh an old man’s pride against Easy’s continued existence, and the Haney-scripted tragic fable of a sole-surviving Scottish soldier in ‘The Silent Piper!’

OAAW #92 saw Kanigher & Kubert tackle battlefield superstitions in ‘Luck of Easy!’, and ‘Deliver One Airfield!’ introduces Zack Nolan, a son of privilege who has to learn teamwork the hard way before #94’s ‘Target… Easy Company’ pits the unit against a German General determined to eradicate the increasingly high-profile heroes.

Issue #95 debuted charismatic and ambitious Bulldozer Nichols who wants Rock’s rank and position in ‘Battle of the Stripes!’, after which ‘Last Stand for Easy!’ sees the still in-charge topkick compelled to relinquish his lead-from-the-front position and ‘What Makes a Sergeant Run?’ finds him again sharing his hard-earned war wisdom with the young and the hapless.

Haney penned ‘Soldiers Never Die!’ in #98, with Rock forced to overcome his team’s trauma at losing a beloved comrade whilst Kanigher described ‘Easy’s Hardest Battle!’ in #99, as the weary warrior recalls a number of instances which all qualified, before once more triumphing over insurmountable odds and adding one more clash to the list.

The Stalwart Sergeant risked everything to save a broken replacement in #100’s ‘No Exit for Easy!’ and repeated the task in ‘End of Easy!’ as a parachute drop goes tragically awry, before #102’s ‘The Big Star!’ concedes the consequences of depending on a young man utterly unsuited for combat…

‘Easy’s Had It!’ in #103 was another Haney contribution, exploring what happens when Rock is wounded and the company has to fight without their guiding light and lucky talisman, after which Kanigher assumed regular scripting duties beginning with #104 and ‘A New Kind of War!’ depicting the grizzled vet totally outgunned by a valiant nurse who refuses to retreat and never surrenders.

In #105 a ‘TNT Birthday!’ has Rock worried about the underage kid who had somehow got past all the instructors to join Easy under terrifying fire whilst ‘Meet Lt. Rock!’ (illustrated by Novick) sees the dedicated noncom forcibly promoted until he manages to undo the horrifying prospect after which #107’s ‘Doom Over Easy!’ again sees the savvy soldiers afflicted by crippling superstition…

The superb Russ Heath drew his first Rock strip in OAAW #108: ‘The Unknown Sergeant!’ has the squad passing through a French village with a statue of a WWI Yank “doughboy” bearing an uncanny resemblance to their own indomitable leader – provoking some very uncomfortable historical hallucinations – before Kubert’s return in #109’s ‘Roll Call of Heroes!’ signals a dose of grim reality when Rock recalls his own deadly baptism of fire and lost comrades, after which a green Lieutenant almost provokes mutiny and murder until he learns the rules of Combat Arithmetic in ‘That’s An Order!’

‘What’s the Price of a Dogtag?’ is painfully answered in the occupied streets and on seemingly deserted beaches in #111, whilst ‘Battle Shadow!’ focuses on the burgeoning supporting cast in a blisteringly explosive extravaganza that heralds African American soldier Jackie Johnson taking centre stage (in a bold early example of comicbook affirmative action) for a memorable last-stand moment in ‘Eyes of a Blind Gunner’ in #113 (December 1961).

The incessant toll of lost comrades hits hard in ‘Killer Sergeant!’, whilst civilian survivors and partisans who comprise ‘Rock’s Battle Family!’ help him survive the worst the war can throw at him – featuring a cameo from French Resistance star Mademoiselle Marie – before the ragged warrior finds himself all alone when he answers #116’s ‘S.O.S. Sgt. Rock!’ to save lost comrade Ice Cream Soldier…

This inaugural battle-book concludes with a dramatic tale of three hopelessly square pegs who finally find their deep, round holes in #117’s traumatic saga of ‘The Snafu Squad!’

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as he does here – remains an imaginative, evocative, iconoclastic and heart-rending reporter and observer of the warrior’s way and the unchanging condition of the dedicated and so very human ordinary foot-slogging G.I.

With superb combat covers from Kubert, Grandenetti, and Heath fronting each episode, this battle-book is a visually perfect compendium and is a lost 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 fan should see, especially as modern tastes in books and digital compilations haven’t quite remembered that star warriors and superheroes are not the only flavours…
© 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.