Category: Unknown Soldier

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DC Finest: Team-Ups: Chase to the End of Time


By Bob Haney, Cary Burkett, Martin Pasko, Dave Michelinie, Len Wein, Cary Bates, Steve Englehart, Paul Levitz, Jim Aparo, José Luis García-López, Murphy Anderson, Curt Swan, Dick Dillin, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Don Newton, Romeo Tanghal, Frank McLaughlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Dick Giordano, Jack Abel, Bob Smith & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-082-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Here’s another stunning and timely compilation comprising the best of vintage comics; one more astounding and epic DC Finest edition. These weighty, full colour treasure troves are chronologically curated themed tomes highlighting past glories from the company that invented superheroes and so much more. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

As you’ve probably noticed, a big part of superhero fiction involves interacting – if not always uniting – with other costumed stars. Every producer, purveyor and publisher of Fights ‘n’ Tights fare employs and exploits the concept of allied action and chums in conflict, with apparently every consumer insatiably coveting them and more of the same. With The Man of Steel and a whole bunch of super-suited & booted associates happily and profitably cavorting across big screens everywhere now, let’s look at a few of his past collaborations… and while we’re at it, peek at some of his best pal’s other playmates at the same time…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to observe how the new gaudy gladiator stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the comics industry – and according to DC Comics Presents first editor Julie Schwartz, it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded it – we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together (and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other) far more than we want to see them trounce their archenemies in a united front…

The concept of team-up comic books – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with less well-selling company characters – was far from new when DC awarded their then-biggest gun (it was the publicity-drenched weeks before the release of Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton’s Batman was over a decade away) a regular arena to share adventures with other stars of their firmament, just as Batman had been doing since the middle of the 1960s.

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short tales of period heroes: a format mirroring contemporary movie fascination with historical dramas. Written by Bob Kanigher, issue #1 led with Golden Gladiator, the Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. From #5 the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, and manly, mainly mainstream romps carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like sister publication Showcase.

Brave and the Bold #25 (August/September 1959) debuted Task Force X: Suicide Squad, followed by Justice League of America (#28), Cave Carson (#31) and Hawkman (#34). Since only the JLA hit first time out, there were return engagements for the Squad, Carson and Hawkman. Something truly different appeared in #45-49 with science fictional Strange Sports Stories before B&B #50 triggered a new concept that once again truly caught reader imaginations.

It paired superheroes Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding issues: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII wonders Sgt. Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie and the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom with Flash in #53. The next team-up – Robin, Aqualad & Kid Flash – swiftly evolved into the Teen Titans. After Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter, new hero Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58. Then it was back to superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time this particular conjunction (Batman & Green Lantern) would be particularly significant. Soon the book would become a vehicle for Batman team-ups…

With the 1978 release of Superman The Movie it was time to reward the Man of Tomorrow with a similar dedicated publication, although in truth, the Action Ace had already enjoyed the sharing experience once before, when World’s Finest Comics briefly ejected the Caped Crusader and Superman paired with a coterie of heroes including Flash, Robin, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Vigilante, Dr. Fate and others (i#198-214; cover-dated November 1970 to October/November 1972) before the traditional status quo was re-established.

This superb all action collection intriguingly re-presents the first 14 star-studded monthly DC Comics Presents releases and the equivalent contemporary issues of The Brave and the Bold – #141-155). These together collectively span May/June 1978 through October 1979. We open with B&B and resident creators Bob Haney & Jim Aparo, so before the off here’s some background.

Robert Gilbert Haney, Jr. was born on 15th March 1926, growing up in Philadelphia listening to radio dramas and serials, and reading newspaper strips like Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon. Higher education at Swathmore College led to service in the US Navy. He was one of the lucky ones to survive The Battle of Okinawa relatively unscathed.

Follow up studies at Columbia University led to a Master’s degree, after which Haney began a prolific storytelling career by writing a slew of popular novels under a number of noms de plume. In 1947, he moved sideways into comic books, beginning with racy tale ‘College for Murder’ in Harvey Comics’ Black Cat #9 (cover-dated January 1948). From then until 1955 he freelanced for various publishers like Fawcett, Hillman, Standard and St. John on genre tales packed with action, grit and wit.

When anti-comics witch-hunts in the 1950s led to a bowdlerising, self-inflicted Comics Code, Haney shifted gears and began an almost exclusive position as a scripter at DC/National Comics, initially for the war comic division. His first sale was ‘Frogmen’s Secret’ in All American Men of War #17 (January 1955), and he scripted the very first Sgt Rock story in 1959, and countless more for all the combat titles.

Immensely versatile, he wrote for every genre division from licensed to humour, western to superhero and for titles including Blackhawk, Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog, Sea Devils, Tomahawk, Challengers of the Unknown, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, My Greatest Adventure, Doom Patrol, Aquaman, Hawkman, Space Ranger, Green Arrow, Deadman, The Unknown Soldier, and the very first Batman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #59. For decades the book would be his personal playground and where he delivered his take on most of the company’s vast pantheon…

Haney co-created the Teen Titans, Metamorpho, Eclipso, Enchantress (in Strange Adventures), Aquagirl, Cain of The House of Mystery and the Super-Sons, but ultimately his style began to clash with DC’s changing teen demographic. Happily, he had also been working in animation since the mid-1960s, scripting episodes of The New Adventures of Superman and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure TV shows; and in the 1980s, DC’s loss was cartoon kids’ gain. Haney worked extensively on new shows including Karate Kat, Silverhawks and ThunderCats, as well as producing books of general fiction and consumer journalism. Ultimately, rapprochement with a new DC management saw Haney return to comics for nostalgia-tinged titles including Elseworlds 80-Page Giant #1 (August 1999); Silver Age: The Brave and the Bold #1 (July 2000); and – posthumously published –Teen Titans Lost Annual #1 (March 2008).

Haney died on November 25th 2004, in La Mesa, California.

Taking his cues from news headlines, popular films and proven genre-sources, Haney continually produced gripping yarns that thrilled and enticed, with no need for more than a cursory nod to an ever-more-onerous continuity. Anybody could pick up an issue of B&B and be sucked into a world of wonder. Consequently, these tales are just as fresh and welcoming today, their themes and premises just as immediate now as then. Moreover, Jim Aparo’s magnificent art is still as compelling and engrossing as it always was.

James N. Aparo (August 24th 1932 – July 19th 2005) was a true but quiet giant of comic books. Self-taught, he grew up in New Britain Connecticut, and, after failing to join EC Comics whilst in his 20s, slipped easily into advertising, newspaper and fashion illustration. Even after finally becoming a comics artist he assiduously maintained his links with his first career. For most of his career he was a triple-threat, pencilling, inking and lettering his pages. In 1963 he began drawing Ralph Kanna’s newspaper strip Stern Wheeler, and three years later was working on a wide range of features for go-getting visionary editor Dick Giordano at Charlton Comics. Aparo especially shone on the minor company’s licensed top gun The Phantom. In 1968 when Giordano was lured away to National/DC he brought his top performers (primarily Steve Ditko, Steve Skeates and Aparo) with him. Aparo began a life-long association with the company where legends live illustrating and reinvigorating moribund title Aquaman – although he also continued with The Phantom until his duties grew with the addition of numerous short stories for the monolith’s burgeoning horror anthologies and revived 1950s supernatural champion The Phantom Stranger.

Aparo went on to become a multi award-winning mainstay of DC’s artistic arsenal, with stellar runs on The Spectre, The Outsiders and Green Arrow, but his star was always and forever linked to Batman’s.

In B&B #141’s ‘Pay – Or Die!’ that relationship and the artist’s versatility shines as Black Canary helps Batman quash The Joker’s byzantine extortion scheme.

Fast-paced, straightforward, done-in-one dramas almost by definition, these quick treats were perfect introducer tales and seldom carried over, but in #142, ‘Enigma of the Death-Ship!’ sees Aquaman and wife Mera battle the Dark Knight to suppress a family secret, before the sordid trail of a covert Gotham drug lord leads to the most respected man in America in the next issue, with Cary Burkett collaborating with Haney for conclusion ‘Cast the First Stone’ as manic crime-crusher The Creeper confronts his mentor and finds even the most esteemed hero can have feet of clay…

The brave, bold portion of our entertainment pauses here to allow the Metropolis Marvel his moment to shine with a debut 2-part thriller from DC Comics Presents #1 & 2 (July/August & September/October 1978), featuring Silver Age Flash Barry Allen, who had also been Superman’s first co-star in that aforementioned World’s Finest Comics run. ‘Chase to the End of Time!’ and ‘Race to the End of Time!’ by scripter Marty Pasko & utterly astounding José Luis García-López inked by Dan Adkins, rather reprises that selfsame WF tale. Here warring alien races trick both heroes into speeding relentlessly through the time-stream to prevent Earth’s history from being corrupted and destroyed. As if that isn’t dangerous enough, nobody could predict the deadly intervention of the Scarlet Speedster’s most dangerous foe, Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, but the heroes sort it all out in the end…

In B&B #144 Haney& Aparo deliver a magical mystery tale of ‘The Arrow of Eternity’ as Caped Crusader and Emerald Archer head back in time to Agincourt and foil a wicked plot by time-tamperer the Gargoyle, whilst in DCCP #3, David Michelinie’s tantalising pastiche of classic Adam Strange/Mystery in Space thrillers results in a modern masterpiece for García-López to draw and ink in ‘The Riddle of Little Earth Lost’. Here Man of Two Worlds and Man of Steel foil the diabolical cosmic catastrophe scheme of deranged ex-tyrant Kaskor to transpose, subjugate and/or destroy Earth and light-years distant planet Rann.

Courtesy of Haney & Aparo, The Phantom Stranger and Batman face ‘A Choice of Dooms!’ pursuing voodoo crime lord Kaluu in B&B #145 whilst DCCP #4 welcomed Len Wein to script the superb ‘Sun-Stroke!’ for García-López, as Man of Steel and madly-malleable Metal Men join forces to thwart solar-fuelled genius I.Q. and toxic elemental menace Chemo after an ill-considered plan to enhance Earth’s solar radiation exposure provokes a cataclysmic solar-flare…

Haney and guest artists Romeo Tanghal & Frank McLaughlin switch worlds and times in B&B #146 as the Batman of World War II assists faceless superspy the Unknown Soldier in stopping Nazi assassin Count von Stauffen from murdering America’s top brass and greatest scientists to sabotage the nation’s most secret weapon project, whereas modern day Sea King Aquaman is embroiled in ‘The War of the Undersea Cities’ (by Wein, Paul Levitz & Murphy Anderson) in DCCP #5.

This time, Superman must step in after Aquaman’s subjects in Poseidonis re-open ancient hostilities with the mer-folk of undersea neighbour Tritonis, home of the caped Kryptonian’s college girlfriend Lori Lemaris. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail when the deadly Ocean Master is revealed to be meddling in their sub-sea politics…

Supergirl enjoyed her first ever B&B Bat team-up. She had previously paired with Wonder Woman in #63, in the outrageously-dated and utterly indefensible ‘Revolt of the Super-Chicks!’ but here in #147 however, Burkett & Aparo’s ‘Death-Scream from the Sky!’ sees her and the Gotham Guardian save the world from extermination by satellite and shady surprise super villain Dr. Light…

A DCCP two-parter opens with ‘The Fantastic Fall of Green Lantern’ (Levitz, Curt Swan & Francisco Chiaramonte) in #6 which sees the Man of Steel briefly inherit the awesome power ring after Hal Jordan falls in battle against his female antithesis Star Sapphire. Although triumphant against her, “Green Superman” is subsequently ambushed by warriors from antimatter universe Qward leading to ‘The Paralyzed Planet Peril!’ (#7 by Levitz, Dick Dillin & Chiaramonte) wherein those bellicose aliens seek to colonise Earth… until robotic AI hero Red Tornado swirls in to the rescue.

Back in B&B, Good Cheer mingles with Drama as ‘The Night the Mob Stole X-Mas!’ delivers seasonal fluff by Haney pencilled by Joe Staton, with Aparo applying his overpowering inks to a tale of cigarette smugglers and aging mafioso, with Plastic Man helping to provide a mandatory Christmas miracle. The disbanded Teen Titans briefly reform in #149 for Haney & Aparo’s ‘Look Homeward, Runaway!’ to help Batman hunt and redeem a kid gang moving from petty crime to the big leagues after which in DCCP #8, ‘The Sixty Deaths of Solomon Grundy’ (Steve Englehart & Murphy Anderson) teams Swamp Thing with Action Ace. At this time the bog-beast still believed he was a transformed human and not an enhanced plant, and Alec Holland searches the sewers of Metropolis for a cure to his condition, only to stumble onto a battle between the Man of Steel and the mystic zombie who was “born on a Monday”…

Anniversary event The Brave and the Bold #150 was celebrated with a pairing that was both old hat and never seen before. Haney & Aparo’s ‘Today Gotham… Tomorrow the World!’ commemorates the landmark anniversary with an extended tale of Bruce Wayne’s abduction by terrorists and the undercover superhero who secretly shadows him. No hints here from me…

In that other caped crimebuster’s book, Pasko returns to script Staton & Jack Abel’s ‘Invasion of the Ice People!’ in #9, wherein Wonder Woman assists in repelling an arctic assault by malign disembodied intellects whist in B&B #151, The Flash becomes prey and appetiser for a predatory haunt feeding off patrons at Gotham’s hippest nightspot… and Batman barely breaks the spell at the ‘Disco of Death’ (Haney & Aparo). Another 2-part tale commences with DCCP #10’s ‘The Miracle Man of Easy Company’ (Cary Bates, Staton & Abel), as a super-bomb blasts Superman back to WWII and a momentous if amnesia-tainted meeting with indomitable everyman soldier Sgt. Rock. However before the Caped Kryptonian returns home to battle a brainwashed and power-amplified Hawkman in #11’s ‘Murder by Starlight!’ (Bates, Staton & Chiaramonte) there’s an intriguing interruption. B&B #152 splits the saga as Haney & Aparo reveal ‘Death Has a Golden Grab!’. Here mighty mite The Atom helping the Gotham Gangbuster stop a deadly bullion theft.  Chronologically #153 – courtesy of Burkett, Don Newton & Bob Smith – then sees Red Tornado help Batman survive old school greed and the hi-tech ‘Menace of the Murder Machines’ before DCCP #12 arranged a duel between the Man of Steel and New God Mister Miracle in ‘Winner Take Metropolis’ by Englehart, Richard Buckler & Dick Giordano.


B&B #154 finds Element Man Metamorpho treading ‘The Pathway of Doom…’ to save former girlfriend Sapphire Stagg and help Batman disconnect a middle eastern smuggling pipeline, prior to the brave, bold portion of our entertainment coming to a close with #155’s ‘Fugitive from Two Worlds!’ as Haney & Aparo detail Green Lantern Hal Jordan clashing with the Dark Knight over jurisdiction rights regarding an earthshaking alien criminal.

Closing this perfectly curated portion of comics history is another two-part tale spanning centuries as Levitz scripts an ambitious epic limned by Dillin & Giordano that begins with ‘To Live in Peace… Nevermore!’ When the Legion of Super-Heroes visit the 20th century they must prevent Superman saving a little boy from alien abduction to preserve the integrity of the time-line. It doesn’t help that the lad is Jon Ross, son of Clark Kent’s oldest friend and most trusted confidante. Furious and deranged by loss, Pete Ross risks the destruction of reality itself by enlisting the aid of Superboy to battle his older self in ‘Judge, Jury… and No Justice!’, but achieves only stalemate and a promise from the Man of Tomorrow to somehow make things right…

This titanic tome offers a tantalising snapshot of combined A-lister capers and demonstrates the breadth of DC’s roster of lesser stars in punchy, pithy adventures acting as a perfect shop window and catalogue of legendary fascinating characters – and creators. It also delivers a delightful variety of self-contained, satisfying entertainments ranging from the merely excellent all the way to utterly unmissable. DC Finest: Team-Ups is an ideal introduction to the DC Universe for every kid of any age and passport to Costumed Dramas of a simpler, more inviting time.
© 1978, 1979, 2025 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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Showcase Presents the Unknown Soldier volume 2


By David Michelinie, Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher, Gerry Conway, Gerry Talaoc, Dick Ayers, Joe Kubert, Romeo Tanghal & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4081-3 (TPB)

Whereas the Britain comics scene has never relinquished its fascination with war stories, 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 combat comics was DC.

In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a small section of the current generation, the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales exploring combat on a variety of fronts and from many 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-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…

That stellar and challenging 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. One of the most engaging wartime wonders was a compelling espionage thriller starring a faceless, nameless hero perpetually in the right place at the right time, ready, willing and so very able to turn the tide one battle at a time…

This second moody monochrome paperback compendium (still criminally unavailable in digital formats, as are far too many non- superhero, horror or sci fi tales) collects the lead feature from issues #189-204 of the truly venerable Star-Spangled War Stories anthology mag (July 1975-March 1977) and thereafter #205-226 (May 1977-April 1979) of the abruptly re-titled Unknown Soldier from when the “Immortal G.I.” finally took over the book in name as well as fact.

One of the very best concepts ever devised for a war comic, The Unknown Soldier was actually a spin-off – having first appeared as a walk-on in a Sgt. Rock yarn from Our Army at War #168 (June 1966, by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert).

By 1970, the top flight illustrator had become group editor of DC’s war titles and was looking for a new cover/lead character to follow the critically acclaimed Enemy Ace who had been summarily bounced to the back of the book after issue #150.

The new 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…

As previously stated, the strip grew to be one of DC’s most popular and long-lived. With issue #205 in 1977, Star-Spangled became Unknown Soldier and the comic only folded in 1982 (issue #268) when sales of traditional comicbooks were in harsh decline.

Since then the character has resurfaced a number of times (12 issue miniseries in 1988-9, a 4-part Vertigo tale in 1997 followed by a rebooted ongoing series in 2008, and again in 2011 as part of the company’s “New 52” mega reboot): each iteration moving further and further way from the originating concept.

One intriguing factor of the initial tales is that there is very little internal chronology: for most of the run individual adventures take place anytime and anywhere between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the surrenders of Germany and Japan. This picaresque approach adds a powerful sense of both timelessness and infallible, unflinching continuity. The Unknown Soldier has always and will always be where he is needed most…

As seen in the previous Showcase volume, his full origin was revealed in Star-Spangled War Stories #154’s ‘I’ll Never Die!’: recounting how two inseparable brothers enlisted 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. 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 before offering himself to the State Department as an expendable resource who could go anywhere and do anything…

After a long run of spectacular stories by numerous stellar creators, shifting fashions eventually provoked a shift in emphasis. Relative neophytes David Michelinie & Gerry Talaoc came aboard with Star-Spangled War Stories #183, resulting in an evocative change of direction.

The horror boom in comics was at its peak in 1974 and new editor Joe Orlando capitalised on that fascination with a few startling modifications – the most controversial being to reveal the Soldier’s grotesque, scar-ravaged face – presumably to draw in monster-hungry fear fans…

Here the military/macabre mood resumes with Michelinie & Talaoc on fine form and well dug-in as the Unknown Soldier is despatched to discover the secret of the ‘The Cadaver Gap Massacres’ (SSWS #189).

What he finds as Nazi officer Major Wollheim is a death camp where prisoners are guinea pigs for making monsters and experimental atrocity weapons. Before long he falls foul of a repentant, guilt-riddled scientist whose loyalties ultimately are only to money. The ghastly discoveries of ‘Project: Omega’ lead to a cataclysmic clash with uncontrollable beast-men and the salvation of the only true innocent in the capacious modern hellscape…

Issue #191 offered ‘Decision at Volstadt’ as the fleeing superspy encounters rabid resistance fighters, merciless Hitler Youth zealots and fanatical Lt. Strada, who has already lost far too much to the Immortal G.I. Captured by his Italian nemesis, the rival soldiers’ ‘Vendetta’ ends the only way it could in SSWS #192…

Gerry Conway scripted ‘Save the Children!’ in #193, detailing how a mission to blow up a train carrying generals directing the war on the Eastern Front goes horribly wrong after the phantom fighter finds his targets’ families have come along for the ride, after which Michelinie returns to investigate ‘The Survival Syndrome’ wherein penetration of a high-tech Nazi communications complex hidden in a French village shows the wary warrior the true cost of a having a quisling in the family…

Star-Spangled War Stories #195 introduced ‘The Deathmasters’ as the Unknown Soldier infiltrates a Nazi assassination school and find himself assigned to murder one of the Allies’ greatest assets in war-torn Odessa in #196’s ‘Target Red’.

Conning everyone into thinking he’s succeeded, the Soldier then returns to Germany to scotch a scheme to replace key Allied personnel with Nazi doppelgangers. All it costs to quash the project is the life of an innocent girl and a little bit more of his soul…

The war in North Africa is almost over in #197 but the master of disguise is nevertheless dispatched to destroy German anti-tank airplane prototypes in ‘The Henschel Gambit’. Typically however, he is intercepted by Arab raiders led by a US Senator’s maverick daughter and is again forced to choose between his mission and innocent lives…

Thereafter, thanks to Nazi counter-intelligence manoeuvrings, the Immortal G.I. is tricked into killing the Allies’ top strategist in ‘Traitor!’ Court Martialled and sentenced to death, he is forced to escape and retrace his steps, seeking a witness to his innocence in #199’s ‘The Crime of Sgt. Schepke’.

En route, he encounters Maquis legend Mlle Marie but events spiral completely out of control and has no choice but to sacrifice her entire resistance unit to destroy a new super-weapon in the concluding ‘Deathride’ Although Marie honours her promise and clears his name, she also swears to kill him for expending her comrades like pawns…

The scene switches to New York City in SSWS #201 as the Soldier engages in ‘The Back-Alley War’: infiltrating a gang of German-American anti-war isolationists in search of saboteurs and spies.

He’s in Italy for #202 where an outbreak of typhus is holding up the war. His task is to find a downed US plane carrying an experimental counter serum but his infiltration of a Nazi hospital seems to indicate that neither side has found ‘The Cure’…

Issue #203 sees the master-spy reduced to teaching arrogant, unstable English aristocrat (with royal connections) Richard Ebbington all the tricks of his deadly craft, only to be subsequently ordered by the top brass to stop his unstable pupil from fulfilling his first murder mission.

Somebody up top forgot to tell somebody in the middle that Ebbington’s target is a German general planning to assassinate Hitler, so the Unknown Soldier is forced to stop his protégé’s ‘Curtain Call’…

After 36 years of gloriously variegated publication, Star-Spangled War Stories ended with #204 as prior scripter Bob Haney and veteran war artist Dick Ayers joined Talaoc for ‘The Unknown Soldier Must Die!’, wherein old ally Chat Noir(an African-American sergeant who got fed up of institutionalised racism and deserted the US Army to join the French Resistance) is captured by the Nazis and brainwashed into becoming their secret weapon against the Immortal G.I.…

Cover-dated May 1977 the first Unknown Soldier (#205) places history’s lynchpin at the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944. Whilst expanding on his origins ‘Legends Never Die!’ also proves once more that the right man in the right place at the right time can change the course of destiny…

‘Glory Gambit!’ begins an extended campaign as Adolf Hitler himself unleashes the Wehrmacht’s answer to the Unknown Soldier. His Black Knight is Count Klaus von Stauffen: the chess-obsessed SS officer who captured and brainwashed Chat Noir. The fascist fanatic is now making his way into the heart of England with but one mission…

The hunt for the merciless master of disguise and doom continues throughout London in #207’s ‘Kill the King!’, before the scene again shifts, dumping the Soldier in North Africa in 1942 to rehabilitate a trio of deserters in ‘Coward, Take my Hand!’

US #209 takes us to the Pacific in 1945 and a personal duel with a Japanese prison camp torturer whose attempts to break the scarred superspy result in defeat, death and ‘Tattered Glory!’ on blood-drenched rock called Iwo Jima…

In #210 the Man of Many Faces invades a Nazi fortress by impersonating a specialist interrogator. He has been ordered to rescue or kill America’s most important agent in ‘Sparrows Can’t Sing!’, after which issue #211 reprints a classic Haney & Kubert tale from Star-Spangled War Stories #159 wherein George S. Patton became the thinly-veiled basis for ‘Man of War’ with the Unknown Soldier dispatched to investigate a charismatic general who had pushed his own troops to the brink of mutiny…

An experimental surgical operation traps the G.I. behind the wrong face on the wrong side of the German lines in #212, where he encounters Hitler’s fanatical schoolboy “Werewolf” killer-elite and becomes in turn ‘The Traitor in Wolf’s Clothing!’

The shocking theme was further explored in #213 as Unknown Soldier has to extract from the Fatherland the son of a scientist vital to the war effort. Sadly, ‘The Ten-Year-Old Secret Weapon!’ has embraced every facet of life in the Hitler Youth and fights his would-be rescuer every step of the way…

Kanigher wrote and Romeo Tanghal inked the Ayers illustrated ‘Deadly Reunion!’ in #214 as of the Soldier – in the guise of an elderly Jew – allows himself to be taken to a death camp to spring Mlle. Marie. She isn’t at all grateful…

Haney, Ayers &Talaoc reunite in #215 as the faceless fury replaces a sailor in the merchant marine to expose a traitor selling out convoy freighters to U-boats haunting ‘The Savage Sea!’, after which ‘Taps at Arlington!’ (art by Ayers & Tanghal) sees Chat Noir confront American racism whilst the Soldier exposes a spy painting a bullseye on the backs of troops in Italy…

In #217 the Man Without a Face becomes Hermann Goering’s chief supplier of stolen paintings in ‘Dictators Never Sleep!’ The plan is to give the infamous art lover a Rembrandt primed to explode when Hitler is in front of it… and it would have worked if Klaus von Stauffen hadn’t been present…

With the Black Knight hot on his heels, the frustrated phantom is harried across Europe in ‘The Unknown Soldier Must Die!’, only stopping briefly to destroy a V2 base and have another shot at the Fuehrer before experiencing ‘Slaughter in Hell!’ (inked by Tanghal) when von Stauffen turns the tables by impersonating his arch enemy in a bid to murder Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He would have succeeded if not for the Immortal G.I.’s strategic cunning…

Issue #220 by Haney, Ayers &Talaoc sees the Soldier organise a band of maverick warriors from many Nazi-conquered countries into a daring-but-doomed foreign legion dubbed ‘The Rubber Band Heroes’, after which ‘Sunset for a Samurai!’finds him on a suicide mission to the heart of Japan to save an undercover agent crucial to the American forces…

Unknown Soldier #222 promised ‘No Exit from Stalag 19!’ when the unsung hero is ordered to rescue a military boffin from the heart of Fortress Europa (in a wry and trenchant riff on The Bridge on the River Kwai) whilst in #223, ‘Mission: Incredible!’ (Ayers &Tanghal) details the convoluted course of a plan to destroy a Heavy Water plant in the snow-capped mountains of Norway.

The Soldier and Chat Noir reunite in #224 to investigate a dead zone where Allied bombers vanish without trace, only to find barbaric military madness running wild in ‘Welcome to Valhalla!’ after which the Immortal G.I. is forced to arrest a charismatic general for treason in ‘Four Stars to Armageddon!’ (Ayers & Talaoc) before uncovering the astounding truth behind his supposed betrayals.

The military madness lurches to a bloody halt with #226 as Chat Noir and his faceless comrade do what entire flotillas of Navy vessels could not: using guile and subterfuge to board the Nazi’s unbeatable dreadnaught and ‘Sink the Kronhorst!’…

Dark, powerful, moving and overwhelmingly ingenious, The Unknown Soldier is a magnificent addition to the ranks of extraordinary mortal warriors in an industry far too heavy with implausible and incredible heroes. These tales will appeal to not just comics readers but all fans of adventure fiction.
© 1975-1979, 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Unknown Soldier volume 2


By David Michelinie, Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher Gerry Conway, Gerry Talaoc, Dick Ayers, Joe Kubert, Romeo Tanghal & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4081-3

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 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 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.

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…

That stellar and challenging 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. One of the most engaging wartime wonders was a notional espionage thriller starring a faceless, nameless hero perpetually in the right place at the right time, ready, willing and so very able to turn the tide one battle at a time…

This second moody monochrome compendium collects the lead feature from issues #189-204 (July 1975-March 1977) of the truly venerable Star-Spangled War Stories anthology and thereafter #205-226 (May 1977-April 1979) of the abruptly re-titled Unknown Soldier from when the “Immortal G.I.” finally took over the book in name as well as fact.

One of the very best concepts ever devised for a war comic, The Unknown Soldier was actually a spin-off – having first appeared as a walk-on in a Sgt Rock story from Our Army at War #168 (June 1966, by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert).

By 1970 the illustrator had become editor of DC’s war titles and was looking for a new cover/lead character to follow the critically acclaimed Enemy Ace who had been summarily bounced to the back of the book after issue #150.

The 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 grew to be one of DC’s most popular and long-lived: Star-Spangled became Unknown Soldier in 1977 with #205 and the comic only folded in 1982 with issue #268 when sales of traditional comicbooks were in harsh decline.

Since then the character has resurfaced a number of times (12 issue miniseries in 1988-9, a 4-part Vertigo tale in 1997 followed by a rebooted ongoing series in 2009), each iteration moving further and further way from the originating concept.

One intriguing factor of the original tales is that there is very little internal chronology: for most of the run individual adventures take place anytime and anywhere between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the surrenders of Germany and later Japan. This picaresque approach adds a powerful sense of both timelessness and infallible, unflinching continuity. The Unknown Soldier has always and will always be where he is needed most…

As seen in the previous Showcase volume, his full origin was revealed in Star-Spangled War Stories #154’s ‘I’ll Never Die!’ recounting 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 of spectacular stories by numerous stellar creators, shifting fashions eventually provoked a shift in emphasis. Relative neophytes David Michelinie & Gerry Talaoc came aboard with Star-Spangled War Stories #183, resulting in an evocative change of direction.

The horror boom in comics was at its peak in 1974 and new editor Joe Orlando capitalised on that fascination with a few startling modifications – the most controversial being to reveal the Soldier’s grotesque, scar-ravaged face – presumably to draw in monster-hungry fear fans…

The military/macabre mood resumes here with Michelinie & Talaoc on fine form and well dug-in as the Unknown Soldier is despatched to discover the secret of the ‘The Cadaver Gap Massacres’ (SSWS #189).

What he finds as Nazi officer Major Wollheim is a death camp where prisoners are mere guinea pigs for making monsters and experimental atrocity weapons, and before long he falls foul of a repentant, guilt-riddled scientist whose loyalties ultimately are only to money. The ghastly discoveries of ‘Project: Omega’ lead to a cataclysmic clash with uncontrollable beast-men and the salvation of the only true innocent in the entire death-camp…

Issue #191 offered a ‘Decision at Volstadt’ as the fleeing superspy encounters rabid resistance fighters, merciless Hitler Youth zealots and fanatical Lt. Strada, who has already lost far too much to the Immortal G.I. Captured by his Italian nemesis, the rival soldiers’ ‘Vendetta’ ends the only way it could in SSWS #192…

Gerry Conway scripted ‘Save the Children!’ in #193, detailing how a mission to blow up a train carrying generals directing the war on the Eastern Front goes horribly wrong after the phantom fighter finds his targets’ families have come along for the ride, after which Michelinie returns to explore ‘The Survival Syndrome’ wherein the penetration of a high-tech Nazi communications complex hidden in a French village shows the wary warrior the true cost of a having a quisling in the family…

Star-Spangled War Stories #195 introduced ‘The Deathmasters’ as the Unknown Soldier infiltrates a Nazi assassination school and find himself assigned to murder one of the Allies’ greatest assets in war-torn Odessa in #196’s ‘Target Red’.

Conning everyone into thinking he’s succeeded, he then returns to Germany to scotch a scheme to replace key Allied personnel with Nazi doppelgangers: all it costs to quash the project is the life of an innocent girl and a little bit more of his soul…

The war in North Africa is almost over in #197 but the master of disguise is nevertheless dispatched to destroy German anti-tank airplane prototypes in ‘The Henschel Gambit’. Typically however he is intercepted by Arab raiders led by a US Senator’s maverick daughter and again forced to choose between his mission and innocent lives…

Thereafter, thanks to Nazi counter-intelligence manoeuvrings, the Immortal G.I. is tricked into killing the Allies’ top strategist in ‘Traitor!’ Court Martialled and sentenced to death, he is forced to escape and retrace his steps, seeking a witness to his innocence in #199’s ‘The Crime of Sgt. Schepke’.

En route he encounters Maquis legend Mlle Marie but events spiral completely out of control and he has no choice but to sacrifice her entire resistance unit to destroy a new super-weapon in the concluding ‘Deathride’…

Although Marie honours her promise and clears his name, she also swears to kill him for expending her comrades like pawns…

The scene switches to New York City in SSWS #201 as the Soldier engages in ‘The Back-Alley War’ by infiltrating a gang of German-American anti-war isolationists in search of saboteurs and spies and to Italy in #202 where an outbreak of typhus is holding up the war.

His task is to find a downed US plane carrying an experimental counter serum but his penetration of a Nazi hospital seems to indicate that neither side has found ‘The Cure’…

Issue #203 finds the master-spy reduced to teaching arrogant, unstable English aristocrat (with royal connections) Richard Ebbington all the tricks of his deadly craft, only to be subsequently ordered by the top brass to stop him fulfilling his first murder mission.

Somebody up top forgot to tell somebody in the middle that Ebbington’s target is a German general planning to assassinate Hitler, so the Unknown Soldier is forced to stop his protégé’s ‘Curtain Call’…

After 36 years of varied publication Star-Spangled War Stories ended with #204 as prior scripter Bob Haney and veteran war artist Dick Ayers joined Talaoc for ‘The Unknown Soldier Must Die!’ wherein old ally Chat Noir (an African-American sergeant who got fed up of institutionalised racism and deserted the US Army to join the French Resistance) is captured by the Nazis and brainwashed into becoming their secret weapon to kill the Immortal G.I.…

Cover-dated May 1977 the first Unknown Soldier (#205) places history’s lynchpin at the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944. Whilst expanding on his origins ‘Legends Never Die!’ also proves once more that the right man in the right place at the right time can change the course of destiny…

‘Glory Gambit!’ begins an extended campaign as Adolf Hitler himself unleashes the Wehrmacht’s answer to the Unknown Soldier. Black Knight is Count Klaus von Stauffen, the chess-obsessed SS officer who captured and conditioned Chat Noir and is now making his way into the heart of England with but one mission…

The hunt for the merciless master of disguise and doom continues throughout London in #207’s ‘Kill the King!’, before the scene again shifts, dumping the Soldier in North Africa in 1942 to rehabilitate a trio of deserters in ‘Coward, Take my Hand!’

US #209 takes us to the Pacific in 1945 and a personal duel with a Japanese prison camp torturer whose attempts to break the scarred superspy result in defeat, death and ‘Tattered Glory!’ on blood-drenched rock called Iwo Jima…

In #210 the Man of Many Faces invades a Nazi fortress impersonating a specialist interrogator to rescue or kill America’s most important agent in ‘Sparrows Can’t Sing!’ after which issue #211 reprints a classic Haney & Kubert tale from Star-Spangled War Stories #159 where George S. Patton became the thinly-veiled basis for ‘Man of War’ with the Unknown Soldier dispatched to investigate a charismatic general who had pushed his own troops to the brink of mutiny…

An experimental surgical operation traps the G.I. behind the wrong face on the wrong side of the German lines in #212, where he encounters Hitler’s fanatical schoolboy “Werewolf” killer-elite and becomes in turn ‘The Traitor in Wolf’s Clothing!’

The shocking theme was further explored in #213 as Unknown Soldier has to extract from the Fatherland the son of a scientist vital to the war effort. Sadly ‘The Ten-Year-Old Secret Weapon!’ has embraced every facet of life in the Hitler Youth and fights his would-be rescuer every step of the way…

Kanigher wrote and Romeo Tanghal inked the Ayers illustrated ‘Deadly Reunion!’ in #214 as of the Soldier – in the guise of an elderly Jew – allows himself to be taken to a death camp to spring Mlle. Marie. She isn’t at all grateful…

Haney, Ayers &Talaoc reunited in #215 as the faceless fury replaced a sailor in the merchant marine to expose a traitor selling out convoy freighters to U-boats haunting ‘The Savage Sea!’ after which ‘Taps at Arlington!’ (art by Ayers & Tanghal) sees Chat Noir confront American racism whilst the Soldier exposes a spy painting a bullseye on the backs of troops in Italy…

In #217 the Man Without a Face becomes Hermann Goering’s chief supplier of stolen paintings in ‘Dictators Never Sleep!’ The plan is to give the infamous art lover a Rembrandt primed to explode when Hitler is in front of it… and it would have worked if Klaus von Stauffen hadn’t been present…

With the Black Knight hot on his heels the frustrated phantom is harried across Europe in ‘The Unknown Soldier Must Die!’, only stopping briefly to destroy a V2 base and have another shot at the Fuehrer before experiencing ‘Slaughter in Hell!’ (inked by Tanghal) when von Stauffen turns the tables by impersonating his arch enemy in a bid to murder Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower.

He would have succeeded if not for the Immortal G.I.’s strategic cunning…

Issue #220 by Haney, Ayers &Talaoc saw the Soldier organise a band of maverick warriors from many Nazi-conquered countries into a daring-but-doomed foreign legion dubbed ‘The Rubber Band Heroes’ after which ‘Sunset for a Samurai!’ finds him on a suicide mission to the heart of Japan to save an undercover agent crucial to the American forces…

Unknown Soldier #222 promised ‘No Exit from Stalag 19!’ when the unsung hero was ordered to rescue a military boffin from the heart of Fortress Europa (in a wry and trenchant riff on the plot of The Bridge on the River Kwai) whilst in #223, ‘Mission: Incredible!’ (Ayers &Tanghal) details the convoluted course of a plan to destroy a Heavy Water plant in the snow-capped mountains of Norway.

The Soldier and Chat Noir reunited in #224 to investigate a dead zone where Allied bombers simply vanish without trace, only to find barbaric military madness running wild in ‘Welcome to Valhalla!’ after which the Immortal G.I. is forced to arrest a charismatic general for treason in ‘Four Stars to Armageddon!’ (Ayers &Talaoc) before uncovering the astounding truth behind his supposed betrayals.

The military madness lurches to a bloody halt with #226 as Chat Noir and his faceless comrade do what entire flotillas of Navy vessels could not: using guile and subterfuge to board the Nazi’s unbeatable dreadnaught and ‘Sink the Kronhorst!’…

Dark, powerful, moving and overwhelmingly ingenious, The Unknown Soldier is a magnificent addition to the ranks of extraordinary mortal warriors in an industry far too heavy with implausible and incredible heroes. These tales will appeal to not just comics readers but all fans of adventure fiction.
© 1975-1979, 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved.