Writer Robert Kanigher was particularly good at coming up with concepts for fantastic adventure stories that weren’t quite superheroes.
“With legendary artist Joe Kubert, he created Sgt. Rock and Easy Co., and would write the bulk of their adventures until his retirement,” observed comics historian Chris Sims. “His stories were marked by action and a weariness of combat that made his characters seem human, even while they were battling Nazi supermen with metal fists and shooting down airplanes with handguns. But while Rock might've had that glow of realism to it, war comics also provided the jumping off point for some of his stranger creations: The War That Time Forgot, in which soldiers battled against an island of dinosaurs (awesome) and The Creature Commandos, in which a crack team of monsters, including a vampire, a werewolf, a Medusa, and a Frankenstein named Lucky were sent to assassinate Hitler (super awesome).”
I was intrigued by Kanigher’s Haunted Tank feature, which provided the inhabitants of a World War II M3 Stuart tank with an invisible assist from the machine’s namesake, beginning in G.I. Combat 86 (May 1961).
“The Haunted Tank was actually a series of tanks commanded by Lt. Jeb Stuart,” noted the DC Comics Encyclopedia. “The spirit of Alexander the Great assigned the spirit of Confederate Gen. James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart to become the ghostly guardian of a Stuart M3 tank in Northern Africa.”
“The Haunted Tank is best remembered for the (art) work of Russ Heath and the remarkable run of Sam Glanzman, who worked on 134 consecutive episodes, from #154 until its demise,” Mike Conroy noted.
The feature’s 26-year run finally finished in 1987 when G.I. Combat ended with issue 288.
On reflection, Stuart’s bearded ghost appeared a little old to me. After all, the flamboyant Virginian died at tender age of 31, having been mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern in 1864.
Mark Davis wrote:
ReplyDeleteExcellent blog entry, sir. Thank you.
Bob Doncaster wrote:
ReplyDeleteWar is hell but the art was great.
Nicholas Burns wrote:
ReplyDeleteWhat kid could resist 'army men vs dinosaurs', or any other kind of 'war stories', since so many of our fathers fought in the war but wouldn't (or couldn't) talk about it? Oddly enough, mainstream 60s comics couldn't and didn't tell us what war was really like either. Due to the Comics Code, Kanigher and many others devised heavily romanticized and fantasized versions of war, and history in general (no pun intended). That said, the spirit of Major General J.E.B. Stuart has a big white beard because he's a ghost, not because he's old. Those whiskers are historically accurate, as things usually are when drawn by the great Russ Heath. If anything, Heath 'toned down' Stuart's florid 'stache! 👨
Cheryl Spoehr wrote:
ReplyDeleteMy childhood was drowning in war stories. All night, on television, my brother and father choose all that war series... and given three networks, there was at least one war story on the air each night... ugh....my brother had a plastic armory, from model kits thru all the spring-powered more or less life-size weapons..ugh... Dad kept telling us if we were good he would give us a real treat, military boarding school.... he really thought that was a treat,a joy.....ugh.... I was sure I had Daredevil one, but some grabby boy took it off the counter while I was paying for it and put G.I.Combat in its place...ugh....eventually,out of curiosity ,I tried the 80 page war giant.....only series I liked was (don't tell Smiley Cat) Gunnar,Sarge,and Pooch....but no way would I buy war comics for that series....and the Haunted Tank,wow,I saw that as the worst....wound up with some war comics I had not bought,no idea how...and there is that tank again! Can't explain why,but it really annoyed me. I might buy the occasional "War that Time Forgot" story deliberately, but would never go near the Haunted Tank if I could avoid it. No idea why,it just annoyed me.....
Johnny Williams wrote:
ReplyDeleteDan, my favorite in the genres you mentioned in the article were the - War That Time Forgot stories about Dinosaur Island.