JUNE IS DC WAR COMICS FIRST ISSUE MONTH!!!
A Jerry Grandenetti cover from 1952. It was re-titled from All-American Western and kept the same numbering system for two issues. After two issues with the old numbering system, though, future issues were renumbered starting with an Issue #2. (So there never was an All-American Men of War #1).
JUNE IS DC WAR COMICS FIRST ISSUE MONTH!
A Jerry Grandenetti cover from 1957. DC acquired G.I. Combat from Quality Comics and kept the same numbering system, so the first DC issue is #44.
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.
FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!
NOVEMBER IS CHARLTON WAR COMICS MONTH!!!
From 1958, this cover is tentatively credited to Dick Giordano.
NOVEMBER IS CHARLTON WAR COMICS MONTH!
This 1961 cover is tentatively credited to Jack Abel.
Our Army at War #214 (January 1970) is a story that is pretty predictable in every story beat it hits. But it's still enjoyable in that Bob Kanigher (who is probably the writer) organizes those beats skillfully and Russ Heath (the artist) provides his usual magnificent pencils.
Easy Company is searching through the rubble of a shelled-out town and taking some casualties doing so. Fortunately, they get a replacement. Unfortunately, that replacement is a bit of a jerk.
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Hogan, we learn, grew up in the slums of New York and he's used to watching out for himself. In fact, he declines to tag along with one of the patrols checking out the town, deciding he's better going it alone.
There's a brief battle scene in which Easy Company charges into the Germans and mops them up. Hogan is wounded, but alive and starting to learn that he doesn't have to win the war on his own.
As I said, each beat of the story is predictable. We know that Hogan's loner tendency is going to get him and Easy into trouble. We know that Hogan will redeem himself in the end. I think the only part that isn't predictable is where Hogan is alive and learning his lesson, or if he's dead but redeemed by his courage. Either ending would have worked and--as I said--skillful storytelling and great art keeps us engrossed in the tale from start to finish.
Next week, we'll visit with Green Lantern.
It took nearly a half-century, but when the Willy Schultz stories were collected into a hardback last year by Dark Horse Books, writer Will Franz was finally able to wrap up the series. Sadly, Sam Glanzman is no longer with us, but Wayne Vansant stepped in and did an excellent job drawing the story.
I normally don't cover recent comics, but this is an obvious exception. Franz does a magnificent job of bringing the saga to a close. He had only 20 pages to do so and when this chapter suffers, it is because Franz has only a couple of panels to cover aspects of Schultz's story that might have taken up multiple chapters had Charlton stuck with the series back in the 1970s. The story is undeniably rushed. But its a case where it would be unfair to criticize a writer for working within the space he'd been given. It's great to have an end to the story and Franz, as I said, does a magnificent job.
The chapter opens with a shocking scene--Elena (the girl who was falling in love with Willy) has been captured and hanged, along with several other partisans. In addition, Willy is forced to acknowledge that the pardon he'd been promised was never going to happen--even if the murder conviction was thrown out, he had literally fought for the Germans while in Africa. He was going to be considered a traitor no matter what.
Soon, Willy is found by the Germans. But he's wearing a German uniform himself so is once again able to pass himself off as a Wermacht officer, claiming his papers were taken when he was captured by partisans. He ends up fighting on the Russian Front.
It's here that I most regret that Franz had only 20 pages to work with. Moral dilemmas facing Willy are mentioned, but glossed over without the indepth dialogue that Franz was so good at giving his characters to express those dilemmas. Willy is forced to fight Russian partisans who are really no different that the Italian partisans he had fought with. Later, he's forced to realize that he (and, in fact, every German) has been fighting to keep the death camps operating--there is simply no turning away from that responsibility.
All of this deserves more than a passing reference and I have no doubt Franz would have handled these issues brilliantly had he been able to do so in the '70s. It's no fault of his that he has to rush through all this when he did get a chance to bring the saga to an end. But it will always be a regretful "what could have been."
Willy gets a chance to surrender to American troops just before a random artillery shell wounds him and leaves him scarred. While he recovers, Germany surrenders. But Willy has to run when someone recognizes him. He joins the French Foreign Legion and ends up fighting in Vietnam.
After the French are defeated, the story skips ahead to 1969. Willy now owns a plantation in South Vietnam. He's married to Ilse, the German nurse he had met in North Africa. She has her own scars--her family had been executed after the July 1944 atttempt to assassinate Hitler and she had been tortured by the Gestapo. But the two are together and have made peace with the world.
It's a satisfying ending, though I can't help but spoil it a little in my mind by wondering what happened to Willy and Ilsa after South Vietnam fell five years later.
But I really am complaining too much. It's is cool that "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" was finally brought to a strong conclusion by the saga's original writer.
Next week, Captain Marvel Jr. deal with a conspiracy of shape-shifting aliens.
Fightin' Army #92 (July 1970) gave us the last chapter of the saga of Willy Schultz in its original run with magnificent Sam Glanzman art. It's not the very last chapter--when this series was reprinted by Dark Horse last year, writer Will Franz did provide a final chapter. Sam Glanzman is gone, but artist Wayne Vansant provided great art work. We will, in a couple of weeks, break the usual rule about covering anything other than pre-digital media to review that final chapter. But for now, we're looking at the final Charlton Comics chapter.
Willy is still serving with an Italian partisan unit and that unit is not having a good time. There's a trader in their midst and partisans waiting for a supply air-drop are ambushed and killed because the Germans knew they'd be there.
Most of this issue then moves to Willy and OSS agent Jon Daurio drinking together. Jon has just learned that his wife died in childbirth. Willy tries to comfort him as best he can. Jon, after getting more than a little drunk, pontificates on the brutality of war. He still believes that Willy is guilty of the murder of an American officer, but how is he any different from the rest of them, who kill their fellow human beings every day?
Willy also shares a very human moment with Elena. This is one of the strongest chapters in the series. It has only a little action and is very dialogue-heavy--something that can be a weakness in graphic storytelling. But Franz writes great dialogue. Willy, Jon and Elena all have distinctive personalities. It is simply a great scene.
Soon after, Jon and some partisans are gunned down by the traitor in their midst. Jon lives long enough to finger Elena's father as the traitor. The old man is quickly run down and killed, with the partisans promising that Elena need not know about him.
That leaves Willy in command of the partisans. And after this, Charlton pulled the plug on the series (though they did reprint portions of it in later years). Willy doesn't get a satisfying end to his saga for over fifty years.
But he did get that ending eventually. As I said, we'll take a look at that finale in a few weeks. Next week, we'll check to see how Hulk is doing with his girlfriend Jarella.
Fightin' Army #91 (May 1970) brings us another excellent chapter in "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz," written by Will Franz and drawn by Sam Glanzman.
I really enjoy the way this story is constructed. It starts in the midst of action, with Willy being tracked by a trio of Germans. Willy kills one of them, but is himself wounded.
We then jump to a flashback--and a brief nightmare by Willy during that flashback--that together fill in the back story. Willy, Elena and a squad of other partisans are ambushed by Germans. Only Willy and Elena (who has some sharpnel in her leg) get away.
They take refuge in a farmhouse, but there's reason to suspect the husband and wife who live there may sell them out to the Germans. After all, the Germans would kill the family if its found they were hiding partisans AND the partisans have themselves stolen from farmers in the past.
Still, there's no choice. Willy tries to stay away to watch the couple while Elena sleeps, but he drifts off. When he wakes up, he sees the husband has indeed led Germans to the house. Willy runs for it, trying to lead the Germans away from Elena. That's where we rejoin him, wounded with two more Germans still on his trail.
He manages to take them out and return to the farm. More partisans have arrived and Elena is okay. But Willy isn't terribly happy with the farm couple.
It's a chapter that tells a suspensful story AND comments effectively on the brutality of war. As I mentioned before, I'm impressed by the combined use of flashback and nightmare to gradually give us necessary plot exposition. This chapter is a great example of just how exceptional as a whole this saga is.
Next week, we'll dive into the ocean to visit with Aquaman.
The next chapter of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" appears in Fightin' Army #90 (March 1970). Will Franz is still the writer and Sam Glanzman continues to provide the excellent artwork.
Willy is still fighting alongside Italian partisans and he's definitely not having an easy time of it. The story opens with Willy and some partisans trapped in a house, with a German tank outside about to blow them into oblivion.
While several wounded men provide covering fire, Willy and the others make a break for it, reaching a ditch with the hope of taking out the tank with grenades and molotov cocktails. This is a desperation tactic and it doesn't look like it will work.
Several men are killed when a molotov cocktail detonates in the trench. Others panic and run only to be machine gunned. In the meantime, the tank has destroyed the house and killed the wounded men there.
Willy's the only one left. He manages to blow a tread off the tank in the nick of time, then hit the tank with another molotov. But when a German crawls from the burning tank, Willy can't make himself shoot the man. He's saved by the arrival of Major Dario, the OSS man in charge of the partisans. Dario shoots the German just before the German shoots Willy.
So far, we've been given an intense battle scene. The story winds down with Willy and Dario discussing the situation. Dario reveals that he doesn't really believe Willy is innocent of the murder he was charged with so long ago. He also wonders why Willy would regret having to kill the Germans who just slaughtered the wounded men in the house. Willy counters this by saying the dead Germans had friends as well.
And that's it. This chapter is one incident during Willy's time with the partisans. But, aside from the fantastic battle scene, it once again explores the moral uncertainty of war and does so intelligently.
All the same, as I write these reviews, I do wish the saga had spent more time dealing with why it was necessary to fight the Nazis. We do get some of this in the last chapter of the saga and its obvious that both Will Franz and Sam Glanzman understood the evils of fascism. I think this superb series could have been a little better if that aspect of the war had been in the forefront more often.
On the other hand, the saga has been making the legitimate point that many individual German soldiers were not evil men. And no one work of fiction is obligated to examine every single moral aspect of the story being told. If Franz and Glanzman choose to concentrate on one aspect of war and do so with dramatic power and intelligence, then perhaps there's no reason to complain. This is something that must be left up to each individual reader.
Also, the last chapter was written years after the original series was cancelled. Perhaps if Franz and Glanzman had been able to continue the series in the early 1970s, they would have spent more time on the evils of fascism. Who knows?
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