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The DC War Comics 1959-1976 by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook |
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| Kubert |
"Lost Paradise"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath
"Accident . . ."
Story and Art by Sam Glanzman
Jack: No sooner does Rock get comfortable on the abandoned P.T. Boat then he finds his vessel under attack from a Japanese zero! He shoots it down but the flaming plane crashes into the floating boat and Rock must dive into the ocean, where he comes face to face with a hungry shark! Lucky for him, a hospital boat happens by and three injured soldiers blow Jaws out of the water. Rock is taken aboard ship, where pretty Lt. Kathy Wilson fattens him up with some much-needed chow.
Rock helps minister to the wounded soldiers on the ship until they mutiny and take over, insisting that the vessel set its course for "Lost Paradise," an island where they can leave war far behind. Unfortunately, they come upon a pitched battle where Marines are trying to land on an island defended by a battery of guns. The hospital ship is destroyed and Rock finds himself on another island, battling the enemy with the aid of the soldier-patients from the hospital ship.
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| Amazing Heath |
Japanese planes attack a convoy of Allied ships for days on end, fraying sailors' nerves to the breaking point. A peaceful Chinese fishing boat sails into the area and, by "Accident . . .," the U.S.S. Stevens blows it to bits.
Another four-page lesson from Sam Glanzman features mediocre art and little plot, but the anti-war message is clear.
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| "Accident . . ." |
Peter: The Rock this issue was okay, if a bit choppy, as if Big Bob had no idea where the adventure was going (one panel these guys are pacifists, the next they're screaming "Now! Let's blow these Japs to kingdom come!" or something similar) but I'm ready now for the Rock Tour to wind down and for the Sarge to reunite with his Easy pals. Heath remains untouchable, just awe-inspiring. Much better is Sam Glanzman's "Accident . . .," which is the strongest USS Stevens installment I've read in quite a while.
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| Kubert |
"A Cocktail for Molotov!"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling
"Decision!"
Story by Don Karr
Art by Walt Simonson
"The Thousand-Stitch Belt"
Story and Art by Sam Glanzman
Peter: The Unknown Soldier has just pulled himself from the muck of one mission when he's assigned another: impersonate Vyacheslav Molotov, Foreign Affairs Minister to Stalin, and board a plane to England so that the real Molotov can make it to London without incident. Thanks to some help from the Russkies, US pulls off the charade and Molotov makes it to his meeting unharmed. I gotta say, now that the "Unknown Soldier" series is "written" by Frank Robbins and "illustrated" by Jack Sparling, my interest in this series went from zero to . . . um . . . less than zero.
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| "A Cocktail for Molotov!" |
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| Who cares about a guy in bandages? |
"Decision!" is an interesting short-short about James Bonham's role in the fall of the Alamo. It's got very early, very crude Walt Simonson (it's tough to spot any of the artist's style here) art but then Walt wasn't given very much breathing room in three pages. "The Thousand-Stitch Belt" is a USS Stevens entry that's a bit different in that the bulk of the four pages takes place on land. It's a lot like one of those Big Bob tales about the similarities between enemies.
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| Remember the Simonson |
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| Ken Barr |
G.I. Combat 163
"A Crew Divided!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman
"Just a Shot Away!"
Story by Doug Moench
Art by Ken Barr
Days after burying their fallen brother, Arch, tensions are still running high between the men of the Jeb Stuart, particularly between Slim and Arch's "replacement," Gus. Arch isn't happy with anything Gus is doing, least of all using Arch's clothes, and he's letting Gus know every chance he can. The kettle is about to boil just as the tank is attacked by a German fighter plane and the distraction is probably good for the men. Nuisance taken care of, the boys suddenly have a more serious problem at hand: Rick's busted wing needs mending and may be infected, which is probably why he passes out. Gus picks him up and offers to hoof it to a nearby village to look for a doc. Minutes later, Jeb and Slim are approached by a strange group of men, carrying firearms.
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| "A Crew Divided!" |
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| "A Crew Divided!" |
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| "A Crew Divided" |
"You're like some folks in the States . . . ready to go at one another 'cause you maybe don't look or believe the same. Never mind that while you two do that, somebody else usually wins . . . like those Nazis in your village! That's my speech. Now you can either listen and start pullin' together . . . or I'll blow the tank sky high so nobody gets it! Understand . . .?!"
Sir Paul and Stevie couldn't have put it more succinctly. The business between the two factions within the village is handled quite well. Both sides have their beliefs but they're too pig-headed to put those beliefs aside for a day and win back what they most love. Even in the end, after the dust settles, neither side will shake hands as Gus and Slim eventually do but, rather, get right back into the nasty political business they were attending to before the pesky war broke out. As for the art, this is bad Sam, really bad Sam. Some backgrounds are incomplete, character faces have no consistency (Gus, in particular suffers a cruel fate at the hands of Glanzman), and a lot of it just looks plain rushed.
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| "Just a Shot Away!" |
Jack: It's a chore slogging through bad comics like this and the art by Sparling and Glanzman is hard to take. Sorry, Peter, but Goodwin's story is a forced lesson in how we all should get along. The art is dreadful. Moench's story is even worse, overwritten and pompous, but at least we have Ken Barr's art to help us along to the end. I like Barr's work; it looks like something you'd see on a 1970s paperback cover.
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| Dominguez |
"More Dead Than Alive!"
Story by Arnold Drake
Art by Alfredo Alcala
"The Conquerors"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alex Nino
"Evil Eye"
Story by Arnold Drake
Art by Alex Nino
Peter: That replacement GI, Stacey, keeps getting blown to hell but, luckily, the docs keep patching him up and sending him back to the line. His comrades start noticing funny things, like the fact that he's got a tattoo on his arm just like one of their fallen friends. Then, when Stacey's legs get blown off, he comes back not only with two good legs but with the same mole as another of their dead. Turns out, one of the docs, Martel, is conducting Frankenstein-like experiments on corpses, transplanting limbs from the newly-dead and then sending the super soldier back out to war. When Stacey gets his lungs blown out, the mad scientist explains that she's got no donors ready and that he'll die. This sends Stacey into a psychopathic frenzy and he throttles the doc. Before she's dead, one of her fellow mad scientists shoots Stacey and saves Martel by giving her Stacey's body. "More Dead Than Alive!" is nothing new, just limbs transplanted from other stories, but the art is great and that panel of Martel with her new body is pretty queasy. Hard to believe the CCA let that one through as tight-fisted as they were.
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| This will lead to some interesting discussions. |
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| "The Conquerors" |
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| "Evil Eye" |
Jack: That Nino art on "Evil Eye" is gorgeous and the tale is a grim one. I have not read nearly as many comic books as you have, Peter, so I did not see the end of "The Conquerors" coming in advance. Like the story that followed it, this one also had terrific art by Alex Nino. I prefer his work in this issue over that of Alcala, who drew only the first of the three stories, but it's fine as well. That first story, with the transplants, went from bad to worse and that panel at the end really shows the writer going off the rails.
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| Heath |
"Island of Armored Giants!"
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #90, May 1960)
"Cliff-Hanger!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #50, October 1956)
"A Stripe for St. Lo!"
(Reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #83, July 1959)
Jack: When they were kids in school, Vic Anderson was bullied by Billy Douglas because he couldn't do chin-ups or climb a rope in gym class. The boys stayed together in the Army and the bullying continued through basic training and all the way up to the landing on D-Day. Suddenly, sick of being laughed at, Vic has a shot of adrenalin. He climbs a rope up the side of a cliff on his own, throws a grenade, and destroys a Nazi machine-gun nest. Who's laughing now?
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| "Cliff-Hanger!" |
I thought "Island of Armored Giants!" was awful the first time we read it, but it is notable as the kickoff to the Land That Time Forgot series. At least Mort Drucker elevates "A Stripe for St. Lo!" into a decent read.
Peter: The only story new to us is the four-pager, "Cliff-Hanger," a by-the-numbers snoozer that Haney probably whipped up in between good scripts, just because they needed to fill those four pages. It hits all the same old notes: the guy who really wasn't a good athlete in college, the greenie who takes crap from his fellow GIs, the finale where our bumbling hero really does become a hero, and that awful Ross Andru art. The only thing I thought worthwhile about this drek was the moment when poor, bullied Vic Anderson lets loose with his MG. For a second, it almost appears as though Vic is saying "Enough of the ribbing, take this you sonsabitches!!!" But, alas, it was not so. More interesting is the one-page Kanigher tribute (reprinted below), a checklist of some of Big Bob's creations.
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| Next Week . . . Peter tries to explain to his therapist why he and Jack disagree about Psychoanalysis |
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