DC War Comics -- Part Two

This week I continue with a brief history of DC War Comics ...

Despite the shift away from superheroes and soldiers in the late 1940s, the fervor for war comics did not die; rather, it was shuffled to the back burner – overlooked actually – but not for long. War stories were selling. 

The Entertaining Comics group (or just EC) introduced two titles in 1950 and 1951 with enough success to ring the bell. Two-Fisted Tales began in December 1950, spinning off from the horror title Haunt of Fear (which itself replaced a western titled Gunfighter) – clearly EC was searching for an audience. Frontline Combat was introduced in August 1951 as a totally new book. These war comics were gruesome with high body counts. They tended to focus on the Korean War but included adventures from earlier conflicts including WW2. They enjoyed short runs (24 and 15 issues respectively) ending in the mid-1950s.

Intent on catching this wave, the DC Comics war machine started rolling (and flying) in late 1952 with their most prolific writer/editor, Robert Kanigher, calling the shots. Our Army at War (OAAW) hit the newsstands in August 1952, followed by a retitled Star Spangled War Stories (SSWS) in the same month – the latter was formerly an adventure book named Star Spangled Comics featuring Batman and Robin (mostly Robin) among others.

Next in the lineup was Johnny Cloud’s book. The revamped All American Western was retitled to All American Men of War (AAMOW) in August 1952. All told, DC had three new war titles (OAAW, SSWS, and AAMOW) by the end of the year, all with a primary focus on WW2.

In October 1954, Our Fighting Forces (OFF) was added to the fray. And two years later, DC acquired GI Combat (GIC) – a Quality Comics publication that began in October 1952. With these two additions, the Big Five as the war comic group is affectionately known was complete – quite a turnaround as DC did not have a single book devoted to war (and titled as such) before 1952.

Next up ... The Big Five and the resurgence of the Serial Warrior ...

Image Credit:

AAMOW#8 (December-January 1953-54); Cover Art: I.Novick (P) & Giella (I); Writer: D.Kahn.

Sgt. Storm Cloud TM DC Comics.

A short history of DC War Comics -- Part One

For the last two weeks, we explored the pulp fiction of G-8 and His Battle Aces. Today, we move on to the DC War Comics ... our goal is to see wherein Johnny Cloud, the Navajo Ace, fits into the timeline. As we shall see, Cloud arrived late, and his tenure was short at just over six years (not counting the Losers series).

Unlike the pulp fiction of the 1930s, comic books began as compilations of newspaper strips with non-descript titles such as New Fun and More Fun. One of the first themed books was Detective Comics, launched in March 1937 and featuring longer stories of up to 13 pages.

Comic books went big-time after the June 1938 publication of Action Comics featuring Superman – this issue marked the beginning of the Golden Age that lasted until the mid-1950s. The Silver Age followed and lasted until about 1968. Bronze was next. The metallic monikers reflect age, value, and collector popularity.

The transition from pulps to comics shows how the power of images captured the imaginations of readers in new ways. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. How about sixty of them linked together to tell a story!

With comics, the art took center stage, and although a thousand words per panel might be an exaggeration, the images were potent in ways that words fail: You have to see Superman lifting a car over his head to believe it! Same with Cloud: You have to see him cling to tail of a Stuka to get how amazing he is!

Superheroes ruled comic book pages at first. Certainly, their bright costumes were fashioned for comics. Fighting crime was the mission with Superman and Batman beating-up gangsters and thugs month after month. But with the rise of Nazi Germany, coupled with Japanese aggression in Asia, the superheroes joined the hunt for spies and terrorists in America. Once the war was in full swing, soldiers and fighter pilots joined the fray.

The stage was set for war comics. All American Comics (AAC) introduced flying ace Hop Harrigan in its first issue dated April 1939 – he was a daring flyer who with Tank Tinker, the world’s best mechanic, and Prop Wash, his mentor and friend, banded together to fight crime. During the war, they joined the Air Force to fight in the Pacific. In 1941, Hop donned a costume and became a superhero called the Guardian Angel. After the war, Hop and his crew went back to chasing bad guys.

Another hero of the skies was Blackhawk introduced in Military Comics in August 1941. Blackhawk was a Polish-American pilot with a squadron of crack-shot fighters, operating from an island off the coast of France. Blackhawk looked the part: broad shoulders filling a double-breasted uniform befit with menacing hawk figures. During the war, Blackhawk battled the evil, yet inept, Baron von Tepp who was emblematic of Nazi Germany. After the war, Blackhawk fought against an endless parade of costumed villains such as Grin the Grabber, Killer Shark, Firebug, and Hoopster – I dare say that Blackhawk had a rogue’s gallery larger than Batman’s!

All this mayhem brings us well into the postwar period when superheroes along with their wartime compatriots like Hop and Blackhawk faded in popularity – Hop Harrigan last appeared in 1948 whereas Blackhawk soldiered on with his own title until the late 1960s. Either way, it appeared that war comics were out and domestic genres were in, and what’s more domestic than romance for the tenderhearted and westerns for the six-gun crowd?

Still, superheroes in tights chased bank robbers, mainly Superman and Batman (and yes, Blackhawk too), but their aura had dimmed. With AAC as the gasping canary, Green Lantern lost his cover spot in August 1948 to the gun-slinging cowboy Johnny Thunder. Three months later AAC was retitled as All-American Western (AAW).

Were the war stories over? No. They were about to explode! Sgt. Rock and Easy Company were just over the horizon.

For the next few weeks I take some blog breaks ... see you in the New Year!

Image Credit:

OAAW#141 (April 1962): Cover Art: J. Kubert; Writer: R. Kanigher.

Sgt. Rock TM DC Comics

Pulp Fiction: G-8 and His Battle Aces -- Part Two.

Last week I described how my Dad started off reading G-8 and His Battle Aces -- a pulp fiction series that predated the War Comic boom. And so, I purchased a G-8 reprint: Patrol of the Cloud Crusher (June 1936) -- my hope being that this was one of the issues he read. The timing was right on, as Dad would have been nine or ten ... or later, since he relied on hand-me-downs from other kids who (unlike him) had a dime to spare.

The saga starts with a mysterious mechanic visiting airfields and rubbing grease on Allied aircraft. Weird. G-8 thought so too. As it turned out, the grease was an attractant, a pheromone. But for what end? The answer flashed over the radio: A flight of British SE5s … decimated! 

A giant hand sprung out from a cloud and grabbed one, then two, and finally three of the biplanes, and crushed them into splinters. There were no survivors. What on earth?

G-8 and his comrades – Nippy Weston and Bull Martin – got to work, facing death, not only from the barbaric hands, but also from the machinations of Herr Doktor Kreuger. It was he who developed the ointment of death that attracted the giant hands and made them grab. And his plan was devious: “I have many giant arms, “he boasted, “… that will pluck planes out of the air and crush them.” 

G-8 was beginning to realize that the grease was, by some odd chemistry, a source of nutrients, a food. These so-called hands were not hands at all. They were mussels – huge, primeval mollusks that survived in a cave once occupied by Neanderthals. Kreuger had found that they morph into a shape resembling a hand whenever food was nearby. In this case, the food was mixed with grease. So how do you stop them?

It was discovered that alum (a sulfate of aluminum) smothers the mussels much like insecticide kills flies. And so, the Allied pilots filled their guns with alum-coated bullets and attacked. The cave was bombed, and the few remaining hands were shot and killed as they frantically grabbed at the air. The story ended with G-8, Nippy, and Bull eating scallops for breakfast (a type of mussel) – “a fitting dish” Nippy quipped.

 And so, I was Dad for a few days, late fall, early twilight, huddled in my easy chair, reading G-8 – a communion of sorts. 

I guess what is so intriguing, is how I followed his path without knowing there was a path. I had my own airplane period in the mid-1960s, and it was filled with Monogram P-51s, Johnny Cloud adventures, and WW2 books. I didn’t become a pilot, but Dad did, and that’s enough for a lifetime of stories. And now we have this one: G-8’s tangle with the airplane-crushing hands!

Next time ... The War Comics!

A Brief History of War Comics ... but first, some Pulp Fiction: G-8 and His Battle Aces!

For the next few weeks, I will provide a thumbnail history of DC War Comics. This will help us appreciate wherein Johnny Cloud falls (no pun intended, as he did jump out of his burning P-51 many times).

First off, I will start with slight detour. Part tribute to my Dad (who passed away a few weeks ago -- I am totally crushed) and part set-up for the Golden Age of DC War Comics that began with flying aces such as Hop Harrigan who began his adventures in April 1939.

Here is Dad.

It was 1936, late fall, early twilight. With his chores done, the evening found Dad curled up behind the stove, atop the coal box, reading pulp fiction lit by a kerosene lamp. He was nine. And like me, he was engrossed with a fighter pilot. Dad’s hero was known only as G-8 – his true identity was never revealed!

G-8 and His Battle Aces flew from October 1933 through June 1944. In all, Robert Hogan penned over a hundred stories. G-8 was a master spy who commanded a small squadron of biplanes in the Great War, but he was up against more than just German aces. That would be too easy. Instead, G-8 faced fantastical creations from the Kaiser’s mad scientists – for example, Dr. Gurnig produced a remote-controlled flying head with a single eye that shot lethal X-rays at Allied fighters.

And if that wasn’t enough, G-8 battled supernatural beings, including Martians, a giant plane-eating spider, even a huge skeleton. Science fiction. And airplanes. Dad was captivated, but it was the cover-art that drew him in. This was when he started drawing airplanes, building wings out of balsa, and dreaming about soaring through the skies. His friends called him “airplane crazy.” 

This is Dad’s origin story – every superhero has one.

Dad liked to remind me that he was born in the year that Charles Lindberg crossed the Atlantic – 1927. So, it was only natural for him to be airplane crazy. Just as G-8’s cover art grabbed his eye, Johnny Cloud grabbed mine. So, I decided to probe his history, so I purchased a G-8 reprint: Patrol of the Cloud Crusher (June 1936). Maybe he read this one – I took a chance.

I'll tell you the story next time ... very strange, and very 1930s!