Total War is a Gold Key comic which like most of the stuff of Gold Key was well crafted. Underneath the George Wilson painted covers the reader will find some prime Wally Wood studio artwork. This stuff was done at the same time more or less as the THUNDER Agents material for Tower Comics and it's exceedingly similar in tone and content. The whole world comes under mysterious attack by a well-armed secret army and the M.A.R.S. unit is mobilized to meet that threat.
M.A.R.S. stands for Marine Attack Rescue Service. During the 60's it was di reiqueur for teams to have clever acronyms for proper dramatic purposes. The team we follow in the first two issues titled Total War is made of four men who bravely lead the counter attacks against the enigmatic new enemies. The four men are Lt. Adams (jet pilot - yellow), Cpl. Stacey (weapons expert - blue), Sgt. Styker (demolitions - red) and Sgt. Hiro (frogman - green). All four have multiple talents and are neatly color coded for our reading comfort.
The enemy they remains a mystery in the issues done by the Wood studio, though the name of the comic itself is changed to M.A.R.S. Patrol - Total War with the third issue. The series continues for several more episodes with other artists but those I don't have.
Dark Horse collected up the three Wally Wood issues some years back and I keep them right next to my THUNDER Agents reprints. They read to me like a somewhat more realistic variation of the THUNDER Agents premise and in some ways a superior one. The notion of a world under savage attack from an enemy it can barely understand was part of Mars Attacks and perhaps Wally Wood was inspired by that word to make this and by this to make the THUNDER Agents. It's an intriguing notion if there's little evidence to support it.
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I have really been enjoying this look at one of my favorite aetists.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have also been inspired by the Operator #5 pulps of the 30's, which Wood may have read as a kid, particularly the insane 13 issue Purple Invasion series. The reveal of who the invaders were in the comic was a mistake, in my opinion. It was a lot more suspenseful not knowing.
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