{"id":26522,"date":"2022-09-20T10:58:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T10:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26522"},"modified":"2022-09-20T10:58:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T10:58:12","slug":"suicide-squad-the-silver-age-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/09\/20\/suicide-squad-the-silver-age-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide Squad: The Silver Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy Robert Kanigher<\/strong>, Howard Liss<\/strong>, Ross Andru<\/strong> & Mike Esposito<\/strong>, Gene Colan<\/strong>, Joe Kubert<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-6343-0 (HB) 978-1 4012 7516 7 (TPB)<\/p>\n

The War that Time Forgot<\/strong><\/em> was a strange series which saw paratroopers and tanks of the \u201cQuestion Mark Patrol\u201d<\/em> dropped on Mystery Island<\/em> from whence no American soldiers ever returned. Assorted crack GIs discovered why when the operation was suddenly overrun by pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs and worse\u2026<\/p>\n

However, the combat-&-carnosaur creation was actually a spin-off of an earlier concept which hadn\u2019t quite caught on with the comics-buying public. That wasn\u2019t a problem for Writer\/Editor Kanigher: a man well-versed in judicious recycling and reinvention\u2026<\/p>\n

Back in 1955 he had devised and written anthology adventure comic The Brave and the Bold<\/strong> which featured short complete tales starring a variety of period heroes: a format mirroring that era\u2019s filmic fascination with historical dramas.<\/p>\n

Issue #1 led with Roman swords-&-sandals epic Golden Gladiator<\/em>, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight<\/em> and Joe Kubert\u2019 Viking Prince<\/strong>. Soon the Gladiator was side-lined by the company\u2019s iteration of Robin Hood<\/em>, but the high adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning superhero revival saw B&B<\/strong> transform into a try-out vehicle in the manner of the astounding successful Showcase<\/strong>. Used to launch enterprising concepts and characters such as Cave Carson<\/strong>, Strange Sports Stories<\/strong>, Hawkman<\/strong> and the epochal Justice League of America<\/strong>, the title began test runs s with #25 (August\/September 1959) with the fate-tempting Suicide Squad<\/strong> – code-named Task Force X<\/em> by the US government to investigate uncanny mysteries and tackle unnatural threats.<\/p>\n

The scary tales were all illustrated by Kanigher\u2019s go-to team for fantastic fantasy (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) and they clearly revelled at the chance to cut loose and show what they could do outside the staid whimsy of Wonder Woman<\/strong> or gritty realism of the war titles they usually handled\u2026<\/p>\n

The Brave and the Bold<\/strong> #25 introduced a quartet of merely human specialists – air ace war hero Colonel Rick Flag<\/em>, combat medic Karin Grace<\/em> and big-brained boffins Hugh Evans<\/em> and Jess Price<\/em> – all officially convened into a unit whose purpose was to tackle threats beyond conventional comprehension such as the interstellar phenomenon dubbed \u2018The Three Waves of Doom!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The quartet were built on a very shaky premise. All three men loved Karin. She only loved Rick (who wouldn\u2019t?), but agreed to conceal her inclinations and sublimate her passions so Hugh and Jess would stay on the team of scientific death-cheaters\u2026<\/p>\n

In their first published exploit, a cloud from outer space impacted Earth and created a super-heated tsunami which threated to broil America. With dashing derring-do, the troubleshooters quenched the ambulatory heat wave only to have it spawn a colossal alien dragon emanating super-cold rays that might trigger a new ice age\u2026<\/p>\n

The only solution was to banish the beast back into space on a handy rocket headed for the sun, but tragically, the ship had to be piloted\u2026<\/p>\n

Having heroically ended the invader, the team were back two months later as B&B<\/strong> #26 opened with an immediate continuation. \u2018The Sun Curse\u2019 <\/em>saw our stranded astronauts struggling – in scenes eerily prescient and reminiscent of the Apollo 13<\/strong> crisis a decade later – to return their ship to Earth. Uncannily, the trip bathes them in radiation which causes them to shrink to insect size\u2026<\/p>\n

Back on terra firma but now imperilled by everything around them, the team nonetheless manages to scuttle a proposed attack by a hostile totalitarian nation before regaining their regular stature\u2026<\/p>\n

A second, shorter tale finds the quartet enjoying some downtime in Paris before the Metro is wrecked by an awakened dinosaur. Of course, our tough tourists are ready and able to stop the \u2018Serpent in the Subway!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In an entertainment era dominated by monsters and aliens, with superheroes still only tentatively resurfacing, Task Force X were at the forefront of beastie-battles. Their third and final try-out issue found them facing evolutionary nightmare as a scientist vanished and the region around his lab was suddenly besieged by gigantic insects and a colossal reptilian humanoid the team dubbed \u2018The Creature of Ghost Lake!\u2019 <\/em>(December 1959\/January 1960). They readily destroyed the monster but never found the professor\u2026<\/p>\n

A rare failure for those excitingly experimental days, the Suicide Squad vanished after that triple try-out run, only to resurface months later for a second bite of the cherry. The Brave and the Bold<\/strong> #37 (August\/September 1961) opened with Karin displaying heretofore unsuspected psychic gifts and predicting an alien \u2018Raid of the Dinosaurs!\u2019 <\/em>which pitted the group against hyper-intelligent saurians whilst \u2018Threat of the Giant Eye!\u2019 <\/em>focussed on the retrieval of a downed military plane and lost super-weapon. That mission brought the Squad to an island of mythological mien where a living monocular monolith hunted people\u2026<\/p>\n

In #38 (October\/November 1961) the team tackled the \u2018Master of the Dinosaurs\u2019<\/em> – an alien using Pteranodons to hunt like an Earthling employs falcons – after which the fabulous four fell afoul of extra-dimensional would-be conquerors but still had enough presence of mind and determination to defeat the \u2018Menace of the Mirage People!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

B&B<\/strong> #39 (December 1961\/January 1962) called \u201ctime!\u201d on Task Force X after \u2018Prisoners of the Dinosaur Zoo!\u2019<\/em> saw the team uncover an ancient extraterrestrial ark caching antediluvian flora and fauna, and a \u2018Rain of Fire!\u2019 <\/em>found them crushing a macabre criminal entombing crime-busters in liquid metal. That was it for the Squad until 1986 when a new iteration of the concept was launched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Or was it? Superhero fans are notoriously clannish and insular so they might not have noticed how one creative powerhouse refused to take \u201cno thanks\u201d for an answer\u2026<\/p>\n

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, westerns, horror stories, superhero titles such as Wonder Woman<\/strong>, Lois Lane<\/strong>, Teen Titans<\/strong>, Hawkman<\/strong>, Metal Men,<\/strong> Batman<\/strong> and other genres too numerous to cover here. He also scripted \u2018Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt\u2019<\/em> – the very first story of the Silver Age. This introduced Barry Allen<\/em> AKA the Flash<\/strong> to hero-hungry kids in 1956.<\/p>\n

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932 and wrote for the theatre, film and radio before joining the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer<\/em>, Steel Sterling<\/em> and The Web<\/em> whilst also providing scripts for Blue Beetle<\/strong> and the original Captain Marvel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s DC. He wrote the original Flash<\/strong> and Hawkman<\/strong>, created Black Canary<\/strong> and Lady Cop<\/strong>, plus many memorable villainous femme fatales like Harlequin<\/em> and Rose and Thorn<\/em>. This last he reconstructed during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting female superhero.<\/p>\n

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher easily switched to espionage, adventure, westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer\/editor of the company\u2019s combat titles: All-American War Stories<\/strong>, Star Spangled War Stories<\/strong> and Our Amy at War<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

He created Our Fighting Forces<\/strong> in 1954 and added G.I. Combat<\/strong> to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while helming Wonder Woman<\/strong>, Johnny Thunder<\/strong>, Rex the Wonder Dog<\/strong>, Silent Knight<\/strong>, Sea Devils<\/strong>, The Viking Prince<\/strong> and a host of others.<\/p>\n

Among his numerous game-changing war series were Sgt. Rock<\/strong>, Enemy Ace<\/strong>, <\/em>the Haunted Tank<\/strong> and The Losers<\/strong> as well as the visually addictive, irresistibly astonishing \u201cDogfaces and Dinosaurs\u201d dramas sampled and filling out the back of this stunning collection\u2026<\/p>\n

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and even used the uncanny but formulaic adventure arena of The War that Time Forgot<\/strong> as a personal laboratory for his series concepts. The Flying Boots<\/em>, G.I. Robot<\/em> and many other teams and characters first appeared in the manic Pacific hellhole with wall-to-wall danger. Indisputably the big beasts were the stars, but occasionally (extra)ordinary G.I .Joes made enough of an impression to secure return engagements, too\u2026<\/p>\n

The War that Time Forgot<\/strong> debuted in Star Spangled War Stories<\/strong> #90 (April-May 1960), running until #137 (May 1968). It skipped only three issues: #91, 93 and #126 (the last of which starred the United States Marine Corps simian Sergeant Gorilla<\/em> – look it up: I\u2019m neither kidding nor being metaphorical\u2026).<\/p>\n

Simply too good a concept to ignore, this seamless, shameless blend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s Lost World<\/strong> and Edgar Rice Burroughs\u2019 Caprona<\/strong> stories – known alternatively as the Caspak Trilogy<\/strong> or The Land That Time Forgot<\/strong> – provided everything baby-boomer boys could dream of: giant lizards, humongous insects, fantastic adventures and two-fisted heroes with lots of guns. The only thing mostly missing was cave-girls in fur bikinis\u2026<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1963, a fresh Suicide Squad debuted in Star Spangled War Stories<\/strong> #110 to investigate a \u2018Tunnel of Terror\u2019 <\/em>into the lost land of giant monsters: this time though, a giant albino gorilla decided that us mammals should stick together\u2026<\/p>\n

The huge hairy beast was also the star of \u2018Return of the Dinosaur Killer!\u2019 <\/em>in #111 as the unnamed Squad leader and a wily boffin (visually based on Kanigher\u2019s office associate Julie Schwartz) struggled to survive on a reptile-ridden tropical atoll\u2026<\/p>\n

SSWS<\/strong> #116 (August\/September 1964) depicted a duo of dedicated soldiers facing ice-bound beasts in \u2018The Suicide Squad!\u2019 <\/em>– the big difference being that Morgan<\/em> and Mace<\/em> were more determined to kill each other than accomplish their mission\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Medal for a Dinosaur!\u2019 <\/em>in #117 bowed to the inevitable: introducing a (relatively) friendly and extremely cute baby pterodactyl to balance out Mace & Morgan\u2019s barely suppressed animosity, after which \u2018The Plane-Eater!\u2019 <\/em>in #118 saw the army odd couple adrift in the Pacific and in deep danger until the leather-winged little guy turned up once more\u2026<\/p>\n

The Suicide Squad were getting equal billing by the time of #119\u2019s \u2018Gun Duel on Dinosaur Hill!\u2019 <\/em>(February\/March 1965), as yet another band of men-without-hope battled saurian horrors – and each other – to the death, after which seemingly unkillable Morgan & Mace returned with Dino<\/em>, the flying ptero-tot, who found a new companion in handy hominid Caveboy<\/em> before the whole unlikely ensemble struggled to survive against increasingly outlandish creatures in \u2018The Tank Eater!\u2019\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Issue #121 presented a diving drama when a UDT (Underwater Demolitions Team) frogman won his Suicide Squad rep as a formidable fighter and \u2018The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!\u2019 <\/em>Increasingly now, G.I. hardware and ordnance trumped bulk, fang and claw\u2026<\/p>\n

Undisputed master of gritty fantasy art Joe Kubert added his pencil-and-brush magic to a tense, manic thriller featuring the return of the G.I. Robot in stunning battle bonanza \u2018Titbit for a Tyrannosaurus!\u2019 <\/em>in #125 (February\/March 1965), after which Andru & Esposito covered another Suicide Squad sea-saga in #127: \u2018The Monster Who Sank a Navy!\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

This eclectic collection tumultuously terminates in scripter Howard Liss and visual veteran Gene Colan\u2019s masterfully crafted, moving human drama from #128 which was astoundingly improved by the inclusion of ravening reptiles in \u2018The Million Dollar Medal!\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout this calamitous compilation of dark dilemmas, light-hearted romps and battle blockbusters, the emphasis is always on foibles and fallibility; with human heroes unable to put aside grudges, swallow pride or forgive trespasses even amidst the strangest and most terrifying moments of their lives. This edgy humanity informs and elevates even the daftest of these wonderfully imaginative adventure yarns.<\/p>\n

Classy, intense, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, the original Suicide Squad offers a kind of easy, no-commitment entertainment seldom seen these days and is a deliciously guilty pleasure for one and all. Surely, this is a movie we would all watch\u2026
\n\u00a9 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robert Kanigher, Howard Liss, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-6343-0 (HB) 978-1 4012 7516 7 (TPB) The War that Time Forgot was a strange series which saw paratroopers and tanks of the \u201cQuestion Mark Patrol\u201d dropped on Mystery Island from whence no American soldiers ever … <\/p>\n

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