What Happened to Poor General Norton?

 

cover art by Joe Kubert

A brief bit of comic book history: In G.I. Combat #148 (June-July 1971), writer Bob Kanigher and artist Russ Heath introduced the character of General Norton, who is clearly an expy for real-life General Patton.

In fact, he's so clearly supposed to be a fill-in for General Patton, it's a wonder that Kanigher didn't just use Patton as a guest star again.

In G.I. Combat #159, writer Archie Goodwin and artist Sam Glanzman give us a General Norton cameo as he sends an armored column led by the Haunted Tank on a raid behind enemy lines to liberate a POW camp. This mission fails, just as the real-life March 1945 raid ordered by Patton failed.

That brings us to G.I. Combat #196 (November 1976). General Patton appears in this issue, pushing his tank column forward to reach a fuel depot before he runs out of gas, ramming tanks that do run out of gas off the road so the rest of the column can keep moving.

Jeb is asked to lead a column of four other tanks to take and hold the fuel depot until Patton arrives. Along the way, though, a German ambush leaves the crews of the other tanks dead, killed by concussions that left the tanks intact. With no time to bury the dead, each member of Jeb's crew takes the driver seat in one of the tanks, making an eerie trip to the fuel depot with dead men essentially looking over their shoulders. 

They reach the depot just in time to hold off an approaching German column. The German commander realizes the tanks are short-handed, but doesn't want to attack in the growing darkness for fear of igniting the fuel. He needs it as badly as Patton does.

During the night, Jeb and his men sneak into no-man's-land to plant cannon shells as booby-traps. They're spotted just as they finish and Rick is wounded, but they all make it back to their tanks.

There's an effectively done scene showing Gus praying for Rick. Then daylight comes. Jeb sees Patton's tanks approaching and roll barrels of gas down towards them. 

The Germans attack, but are slowed by the cannon shell booby-traps. Patton's tanks arrive and drive them off. 

It's a good story. The tank ride with dead companions really does hit an eerie vibe. Gus's concern for Rick and his faith in God are handled respectfully. Patton's determination to keep moving forward is historically accurate, while the story moves along at a nice pace. As usual, Sam Glanzman's art is superb. 

Patton would make several other appearances in the book (issues 208 and 275), with the General actually getting to see and talk to the ghost of General Stuart in #208. 

Why didn't Kanigher originally use Patton back in #148? It's very possible there were legal concerns--Patton had been dead for 25 years by then, but his son was still around and was himself a general who had served in Vietnam. A concern that an appearance by Patton in a comic book might generate a lawsuit may have existed.

 

So what opened the door? I have no documented proof, but I have a theory. In 1974, Jack Kirby put in a Patton cameo in Our Fighting Forces #148, based on his own encounter with Patton during the war. Kirby, I suspect, just did this without worrying about legal concerns and, as it turns out, there were no legal concerns. No lawsuits came flying at DC Comics.

Was this, then, what convinced Kanigher to drop poor General Norton into Comic Book Limbo and begin using the real General Patton? Kirby did it--got away with it--so Kanigher followed suit. I think it's at least possible. And it would be ironic, considering that Kanigher was always openly critical of Kirby's work.

Of course, the 1970 movie Patton, which helped shape him as an iconic historical figure, might have also eventually helped convince DC legal eagles that using Patton in a story was okay. 

That's it for now. Next week, we'll return to the Marvel Universe as one unlikely character is thrown into a sword-and-planet adventure. 

Tanks, Planes and Automobiles

 

cover art by Russ Heath

So how does a pilot get a medal for a ground action and a tank commander get a medal for an air action? It's a question that has plagued the greatest military minds through the ages. But in G.I. Combat #115 (Dec '65/Jan '66), writer Bob Kanigher and artist Russ Heath give us the answer.

Jeb Stuart and his crew stop at a forward airbase, where Jeb gets into the cockpit of Johnny Cloud's P-51--pretty much sitting on Johnny's lap--to examine the plane's controls. When the Luftwaffe attacks and begin strafing the base, Johnny is forced to take off with Jeb STILL on his lap!

Despite having to fly the plane while reaching around Jeb, Johnny still manages to shoot down a German fighter. But return fire jams his gun.

Fortunately, Jeb was carrying his Tommy gun and, working on concert with Johnny's skilled manuvering, he manages to shoot down two more enemy planes. Thus he earns a medal for air combat.

It's fun to look through this sequence and realize that we are never given an angle that allows us to see how Johnny is managing to fly with Jeb in the way--which would have involved foot pedals for the rudder as well as controls on the instrument panel. DC war comics were never noted for realism, so it really doesn't matter, but its fun to realize that poor Russ Heath might not have been able to draw a believable way of Johnny doing this, so drew the action so that we never see what he's doing.

Out of curiousity, I looked up the take-off procedure for a P-51. It involves adjusting the fuel mixture (controls near his left elbow, setting flaps (controls also near his left elbow) and rudder (floor pedals), releasing the brakes (toe portion of the rudder pedals) and using the throttle for speed (once again, on the left side of the pilot). I suppose Johnny could have still reached a lot of his controls, stuck his legs past Jeb's legs to reach the pedals and reached around Jeb to work the stick and fire the machine guns. So maybe it's possible?

Once again, I realize the sequence isn't meant to be realistic--just look cool. And it does indeed look cool. But I am who I am and I had to look it up. 

Anyway, not long after, Johnny is flying a mission and has to crash-land on top of a haystack. It turns out the Haunted Tank is hiding in that haystack, having run out of ammunition. But now the tank is basically hauling around a plane equipped with multiple heavy machine guns.

Working in concert with Jeb's skillful manuevering, Johnny manages to take out two enemy tanks. At one point, he refers to his guns as "wing cannons." If we take that at face value and conclude that Johnny's plane was equipped with 20mm cannon rather than the usual machine guns, then perhaps this feat becomes possible. Though, once again, the sequence is meant to look cool, not be realistic. And it does indeed look cool.

So that's how a pilot gets a medal for ground combat and a tank commander gets a medal for air combat. But then, after the medal ceremony, Johnny and Jeb's jeep is ambushed by German troops. The ensuing brawl with the Germans earns them both medals for infantry combat.

It's a fun story--a typical example of how Kanigher could come up with a gimmicky plot and depend on the magnificent artists he worked with to bring it all to life.

Next week, we will meet a comic book character I've only just learned about--Mr. Young of the Boothill Gazette. 

Time Traveling Tank

 

cover art by Russ Heath

The Russ Heath cover for G.I. Combat #121 (December 1966-January 1967) is magnificent and does depict a scene from the story accurately, but it does not hint at the main plot twist. That plot twist being the Haunted Tank travels backwards in time!

The story, written by Bob Kanigher and drawn by Russ Heath, begins in a standard enough manner--with the Germans trying to kill Jeb Stuart and his crew. After a close call battling a German fighter, things get mildly odd when a confused pigeon lands on the tank.

Slim, the driver, makes the unwise decision of allowing an animal that is famous for not being house-broken nest in his helmet. We never see the consequences of this, though, so I guess it worked out. 

Anyway, the ghost of General Stuart appears to say the pigeon is going to be responsible for them fighting in two wars. It's a different sort of warning than Jeb normally gets from his ghostly mentor. It's not a cryptic warning that will save their lives later on. Instead, its merely a prediction of what will happen. And it's not quite accurate--the pigeon doesn't seem to be responsible for their eventually side trip to World War I. It does lead the tank back to World War 2, so it does have a key role in the story.

That last paragraph seems nitpicky. This is a fun story highlighted by Heath's typically magnificent art.

Anyway, a little later, the Haunted Tank blasts a German tank off a cliff. To avoid the 60-ton monster from landing on them, the small tank drives into a cave. The German tank crashes down outside the entrance, trapping them in the cave.

It's a large cave, though, and there's a number of tunnels leading out of it. They try one at random and find themselves on a World War I battlefield!

I love how nonchalant Jeb is about this. He deduces that they apparently gone through a time warp in the cave and then just goes with it. We get no indication of what the rest of the crew thought. Maybe they were busy cleaning bird poop out of Slim's helmet.

The American troops are pinned down by early model German tanks. The leader of the Americans is a double for Sgt. Rock. Jeb deduces that this is Rock's dad.

The Haunted Tank takes out one of the German tanks and WWI-Rock leads his troops on a charge to destroy the other enemy tank. He uses a tactic his son will often employ, crawling onto the tank and spraying gunfire through view ports until ammunition is touched off. 

Having saved the WWI-era Americans, Jeb takes the tank back into the cave tunnels to hopefully find a way back to World War II. It's here the pigeon takes a role, leading them through the right tunnel and getting them home.

They almost get nailed by another Tiger tank, but WWI-era Rock and his troops show up to save them.

WW1-Rock heads back to his own time and has some interesting stories to eventually tell his son. Jeb and his crew return to their war--once again very blase about having just traveled through time. Of course, Jeb regularly talks to a ghost, so perhaps he's just gotten used to the unusual.

This really is a good story. Heath's art is especially noteworthy in the large panel depicted a First World War battle, but its... well... magnificent from start to finish. (It is very difficult to talk about Heath's work without regularly repeating the word "magnificent.") And the story itself takes a bizarre but fun concept and runs with it, without worrying about detailed explanations or rigid story logic. 

Next week, we'll stay in the DC Silver Age as we visit Hawkman. 

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

Another Joe Kubert cover, this one from 1969.

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

From 1970: A Joe Kubert cover

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

A Joe Kubert cover from 1970. 

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

This 1967 cover is by Russ Heath.

Cover Cavalcade

 

An action-packed Joe Kubert cover from 1978.

Cover Cavalcade

A fantastic Joe Kubert cover from 1971.

Cover Cavalcade

A really, really eerie Joe Kubert cover from 1970.

Going Down with the Ship... or the Tank!

cover art by Joe Kubert

As a writer, Robert Kanigher was more concerned with telling great individual stories than he was with maintaining continuity in a particular series. This is especially true with the World War II-themed comics he wrote, in which the action from issue to issue jumped haphazardly from one point in the war to another without any concern over whether the stories could be logically strung together in a way that matched real-life history. As long as a story told on its own was good, then Kanigher went with it.

This is especially true in his Haunted Tank series. Every once in a while, a story would refer back to Lt. Jeb Stuart's childhood. In fact, I can think of at least four stories (including this one) in which he does this. But every single time, poor Jeb's childhood seems to have changed. In one story, he grew up in the South with the other members of the tank crew. In another, he met them for the first time when he took command of the tank and had to fist-fight each of them in turn to get them to accept a Darned Yankee as their C.O.

In G.I. Combat #136 (June-July 1969), we find out that Jeb's dad died in the First World War, giving his life rather than retreating from his post. Gee whiz, young Jeb had a confusing childhood.

The art in this issue, by the way, is mostly by Ross Andru. At least three pages, though, were drawn by Joe Kubert because of deadline issues.

As you can see from the panels above, Jeb is being paralleled to a young German named Ludwig von Ernst, who also lost his dad in the Great War. Notice the difference, though. Both fathers died rather than surrender or abandon their post. Ludwig, though, is being taught that this was his dad's responsibility, with the implicit lesson that he needs to do the same should a similar situation arise.

Jeb, on the other hand, is told by his mother that she hopes he'll never have to make that choice. She doesn't denigrate her husband's sacrifice or dismiss her bravery, but she understandably hopes that her son will never have to choose to die.

Jeb readily admits that he doesn't know what choice he would make, while Ludwig is certain he'll stand by his post even unto death.

Well, to the surprise of actually no one, the two men meet during World War II. Jeb now commands a tank (conveniently haunted by his Civil War namesake), while Ludwig has followed directly in his dad's footprints, commanding a U-boat.

When Ludwig brings his sub alongside a dock in a bombed out town to make repairs, he has an unlikely encounter with Jeb's tank.

Jeb ends up ramming the sub's conning tower, causing both vessels to sink. Ludwig, as he always claimed he would, goes down with his boat. Jeb and his crew jump free from the sinking tank and survive.

So Jeb's internal question--would he stay and die if necessary--goes unanswered. For Ludwig, that question has been answered.

The story, though, arguably has a deeper theme that Kanigher may not have consciously intended. Jeb and his crew abandon the tank rather than drown. Because of this, they live to fight another day. After all, a tank is easier to replace than trained men. 

Ludwig, on the other hand, consciously chooses to die. The story isn't clear, though, on whether he could have gotten out of the sub in time. If so, was staying and dying a useless sacrifice? As long as his crew was out, was there any reason for him to stay? Unlike Jeb, Ludwig does not live to fight another day. He's no longer available to serve his country.

Self-sacrifice to save others or do one's duty is admirable and heroic, but if someone sacrifices himself unnecessarily--doing so simply because he was taught to do so in his youth... well, is that misplaced courage? That Ludwig was incredibly brave is undeniable, but does bravery without wisdom accomplish anything?

That's it for this week. Next week, it's Green Arrow vs. dinosaurs. I know I reviewed a dinosaur-themed story last week, but on my blog, there is no such thing as too many dinosaurs.

War Time Team Ups.

By 1964, DC Comics had established a growing cast of World War II-themed characters, fighting in both the European and Pacific theaters. But, oddly, team-ups between these characters had been rare.

So, when Brave and the Bold #52 (Feb-March 1964) decided to have the European-based characters team-up in a single story, it was a bit of a big deal. These characters included a fighter pilot, a tank commander, an infantry sergeant and a French Resistance fighter. Getting two of them together into a single story would probably be pretty easy. But putting all for of them in the same tale would be a challenge.

Fortunately for all of us with good taste in our graphic literature, writer Bob Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert proved to be up to that challenge. "Suicide Mission" gradually brings all the various characters in a way that makes sense in context to DC Comics' unique WWII universe.

It begins with P-51 pilot Johnny Cloud being given the mission of rescuing an Underground agent named Martin and bringing him back to Allied lines. The mission is extremely dangerous because every German this side of Berlin is looking for Martin, but the agent has information that can save thousands of Allied lives.

But the mission starts to go awry from the start. Johnny arrives at the rendezvous only to find most of Martin's Underground team dead or dying. Martin himself is hidden in a hay wagon, encased in a metal suit. The Nazis had captured him and figured a heavy metal suit would hamper any escape or rescue attempts.

Well, Martin might currently weigh a ton, but Johnny manages to jam him into his plane. They are able to make a getaway only because the last of the Underground soldiers sacrifices himself for them.

This, in fact, will be an ongoing theme throughout the story. On several occasions, men will give their lives to save their comrades and allow the mission to go forward. It's an effective bit of writing on Kanigher's part, setting up the tense ending when each of the major characters expresses a willingness to die for the others.

Back to the story. Cloud's plane is damaged in a dogfight and forced to crash land. Fortunately, Jeb Stuart's Haunted Tank is nearby, though circumstances separate most of the crew from the tank. Jeb has to make do with Johnny, who isn't trained to operate a tank, to help navigate the vehicle and its valuable passenger home.

This is another story detail that I enjoy. Johnny tries to drive the tank, but he's pretty hopeless at it. It's something he's simply not trained to do. Finally, Jeb takes over driving and firing the gun while Johnny calls out directions.

The ghost of General Stuart shows up to tell Jeb he needs to find a "Rock of Strength" to complete the mission. Jeb has no idea what the general means, but few readers would have missed the pretty obvious reference to Sgt. Rock.

Rock does soon show up. When the four other men in his patrol get killed, he uses a bazooka to take out a Tiger Tank and save Jeb, Johnny and Martin. But the Haunted Tank has lost a tread, so now the good guys are on foot.

But at least they have time to pry Martin out of his iron suit. And they soon find that Martin isn't a "him," but a "her." The Underground agent they've been rescuing is Mlle. Marie.

Marie didn't get on the cover, so there's a fair chance that original readers of this comic didn't tumble to her identity before the dramatic reveal. But, by golly, I knew who she was all the time.

The climax of the story has all four protagonists claiming to be Martin after they get captured by a German tank. This is the culmination of the theme of self-sacrifice that's been running through the entire story. Soldiers look out of each other and, if necessary, are often willing to die for each other.

No dying is required today, though. Well, at least no Allied dying. When Rock is able to take out the tank by the clever application of two bazooka rockets to the treads, it seems likely that a few Germans died. 

There's a short epilogue in which the three Americans are each promoted and Rock immediately starts planning for a way to get himself busted down to sergeant again. Rock does not want to be an officer. He works for a living, by golly!

That's it for now. Next week, we'll look at the last Lee Hunter/Reb Stuart tale.

Cover Cavalcade

From 1967: One of Russ Heath's best covers.

Cover Cavalcade

Yet another exciting Joe Kubert cover--this one from 1975.

Cover Cavalcade

Apparently, tanks and little kids don't go together!

How Many Haunted Tanks Does it Take to Win a War?

When writer Bob Kanigher first created the Haunted Tank in G.I. Combat #87 (1961), he came up with a pretty nifty idea. A guy named Jeb Stuart, the namesake of the famous Civil War cavalry general, is placed in command of a Stuart tank during World War II. Soon, he discovers that his tank is actually haunted by Gen. Stuart. Only Jeb can see and hear the general, who provides him with cryptic advice that Jeb usually interprets in the nick of time to pull himself and his tank out of the fire.

For a dozen years, this formula worked well. The art was nearly always provided by either Joe Kubert or Russ Heath, giving the stories the strong visual backbone they needed. Kanigher didn’t worry a lot about character development or historical continuity. He just told good stories, giving Kubert and Heath the opportunity to provide wonderful imagery.

But in 1973, things changed for Jeb and his crew. I’ve already reviewed  G.I. Combat#150, in which the Stuart is destroyed and  the crew goes to a tank graveyard and builds a bigger, better tank out of a mish-mash of parts from destroyed tanks.

For three years, the series played on the irony of the Haunted Tank being built Frankenstein-like from the wrecks of dead tanks. But in G.I. Combat #185 (December 1975), that tank was destroyed when a

German fighter plane, shot out of the sky by the Jeb’s crew, smashed into it.

Jeb and his men find their way to a nearby village. There they see that a small Stuart Tank—the twin of the original Haunted Tank—has been captured by the Germans. Taking over the Stuart, they engage in a dogfight against a huge Tiger Tank through the streets of the village. Jeb wins by taking advantage of his tank’s smaller size, using the narrow alleys to get behind the Tiger and blast it to pieces. It’s another fine issue, with Sam Glanzman doing a particularly good job of depicting the tank vs. tank fight. We always understand the situation as we follow the action—Glanzman is able to ensure that we can always see where the two opposing tanks are in relation to each other.

So they were back to using a Stuart. But that lasted less than a year. In G.I. Combat #194 (September 1976), the Stuart takes out two enemy tanks, but is itself fatally damaged. The crew bails out only to be captured and sent to a nearby concentration camp.

Meanwhile, the commander of one of the German tanks, himself badly wounded, is taken to a base holiday. The commander is a particularly brilliant tactician. Rather than lose his skill, the German doctors rebuild his body, turning him into a robot.

When the Americans escape (in a grisly scene in which they hid in the truck taking bodies to a mass grave, then knife the truck drivers once out of the camp), they run across a Sherman tank whose crew was killed. They take this for their own. General Stuart is enraged—how dare they use a tank named after “that Union firebrand who set fire to my beloved South!”

When the Sherman goes up against a Tiger tank commanded by the robotic commander, they end up in a fight for their lives that they only barely win. The issue ends with Gen. Stuart returning to them, having realized he is the guardian of men, not a “hunk of steel.”

The story here strays perhaps a little bit too far into science-fiction territory to really work as effectively as it could, but Glanzman’s art is still strong and, in the end, a robot Nazi tank commander is no more unlikely than a ghostly Confederate cavalryman who gets into a snit over the name of a tank.

Anyways, Jeb and his crew stayed in a Sherman until the series eventually ended. (Though not the same Sherman the whole time—they lost a few along the way.) Regardless of which tank they were using—each of which had its own little bit of irony behind it—the stories were always fun to read. General Stuart was right—it was the fighting hearts of Jeb Stuart, Arch, Slim, Rick and Gus that were really important.