Blazing Combat Three!

Blazing Combat was already a casualty of the war on truth telling when the third issue hit the stands. Despite the fact its commercial fate was sealed by the decision of many in the military and in its periphery organizations to not stock the title and present it for sale. But that didn't make the stories written by editor Archie Goodwin any less good.

This issue features the "Combat Quiz", a regular feature in all four issues of the magazine on the inside front cover. This installment was drawn by Angelo Torres.

"Special Forces" leads off the issue and is drawn by Joe Orlando, though I see the influence if not hand of Jerry Grandenetti in this one. It's a tale of Vietnam and how the war was fought tooth and nail in the rice paddies by specially trained troops against a deadly enemy.

"Scavengers" is a tale of Sherman's infamous "March to the Sea" and shows how soldiers become pillagers and looters and what they do to save their honor. 

"U-Boat" is a story drawn by Gene Colan and takes us to World War II and the Atlantic Ocean prowled by deadly "Underseaboats" better known as "U-Boats". These Nazi craft tear up the seas with their stealthy attacks and in this instance one man falls prey to a admiration for professionalism which is deadly to his allies.

"Survival" is one of the strangest stories in Blazing Combat as it showcases a world of the future battles, or at least the aftermath of same. We meet a man who works and fights diligently to survive, but who perhaps forgets why his survival matters. It's an Alex Toth masterpiece.

The great  Wally Wood joins the rosters of fine artists in the magazine when he contributes "The Battle of Britain" about the Royal Air Force's desperate struggle in the skies to forestall a Nazi invasion. Victory is counted in many ways we learn in this story.

"Water Hole" is a Goodwin story set in the American west with cavalry troops trying to corral a crafty Native American enemy. Our focus is on one young man who finds himself in a confrontation he never anticipated. This story is exquisitely drawn by Gray Morrow.

And finally "Souvenirs" masterfully drawn by John Severin finishes up the issue. This is a tale of a soldier who forgets his main mission, but somehow ends up doing the right thing anyway. Or at least his colleagues think so.

There is only one more issue of Blazing Combat to go and that's next week.

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Blazing Combat Two!

Blazing Combat has always been considered a critical success and with the talent involved it's hard to see how it couldn't be. These are legendary artists assembled to put together both grand and small tales of war and service and bravery and other things too. Archie Goodwin gives us a broad spectrum of man at war with stories ranging from the American Revolution to the then current struggle in Vietnam. And it's that latter story in the second issue set in the land that America chose to stand up to worldwide Communism that the trouble for Blazing Combat really began. 

"Landscape" with art by Joe Orlando tales the story of war from the perspective of a villager caught between the armies that seek to slay one another in the name of their respective ideologies. And from where that old farmer sits the destruction that comes from the infiltration of the Vietcong or the flames of the American troops that come to seek them out is not really any different. It's this story which maybe suggests that American troops might've burned out a native village that put the American Legion and the U.S. Military on notice that Blazing Combat was not a magazine that was reliably tooting the patriotic trumpet.

On the opposite end of things is the second story featuring lush art by Reed Crandall which takes us to the American Revolution and shows how soldiers were unhappy with the classic style of war fought in Europe and instead embraced a new more aggressive approach led by the most surprising of war heroes.

"MIG Alley" tells us the story of fighter pilots trying to keep their nerve as they face down their Korean counterparts in an air war that is faster and more deadly than any to that point. One man is supremely confident and he is justified in that confidence until he's not. It's a dandy tale by Goodwin and Al McWilliams on the art chores.

Joe Orlando is up again drawing a Goodwin story about the Spanish-American War and the raw nature of combat and how fighting it "Face to Face" can change the way one sees the enterprise. The glamour of war fades when fear and death are looked square in the eye.

Al Williamson and Angelo Torres draw a handsome tale about brutal tank warfare which puts the reader in the seat of a tank which runs into the Panzers of Rommel in the deserts of North Africa. It's a sobering encounter as tables turn and then turn again.

Alex Toth is generally given a co-writing credit with Archie Goodwin on "Lone Hawk", a story of World War I flying aces which celebrates the ebullient bravery of one Billy Bishop as he strikes deadly streaks across the skies of Europe and all the while heroes die. Nifty twist in this one indeed.

The "Combat Quiz" in this issue was illustrated by Angel Torres.

"Holding Action" is a tale drawn by John Severin set in the Korean War and as Blazing Combat tales do so very very well puts the reader into the trench alongside the soldier. This time a soldier must confront his fear and what that transforms him into is scarier still. 

Archie Goodwin's tales in Blazing Combat seem to have a common bond and that is that war is fought by and around real human beings who are changed by the experience. Goodwin and his excellent cadre of artists make us experience those changes, make us feel, if only for a moment and in the most ephemeral of ways, the costs of waging war. It's no wonder the war makers of this country were bothered by this little comic book magazine. The powers that were started to boycott the magazine, in hopes of choking it out of existence, but not before two more issues were created. 

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Blazing Combat One!

James Warren had a surprise hit when he joined forces with Forry Ackerman and created Famous Monsters of Filmland. That success led Warren to see if he might not be able to recreate some of the great success of EC Comics which had been driven from the newsstands many years before because of general outrage at their most extreme content with little regard for their more literary aspects. He copied their horror format with Creepy and kept it free of the Comics Code by making it a true-blue magazine, albeit black and white. 

Creepy was also a success and that meant more needed to be done perhaps. And Warren liked EC's Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales, two war comics edited by Harvey Kurtzman with a degree of sophistication above the normal ultra-patriotic blather of other war mags. So came into being Blazing Combat, a magazine about war but with a more nuanced story. That story would be written almost exclusively by the late great Archie Goodwin. Due to circumstances beyond the control of Warren and his company the magazine was not a financial success, but it has always been deemed a critical one. On Saturdays in March the Dojo will be taking an issue by issue look at the four mags which comprise the full run. Today we begin with the debut issue.

Beneath a highly energetic Frank Frazetta cover, the first story drawn by Joe Orlando in the mag was titled "Viet-Cong!" and immediately we see that the stories here will be more timely and more suspect of all aspects of waging war. We meet an American soldier who is assigned to advise a South Vietnamese troop as they enter the villages of the country and ferret out the Viet-Cong. Their methods are brutal and the American has reservations about what the United States might be doing. Radical stuff in the mid-60's!

The second story is titled "Aftermath" and was drawn by Angelo Torres. This set more safely in the past of the American Civil War and shows two soldiers from both sides demonstrating humanity and savagery as the war demands.

The third story is titled "Flying Tigers" and is drawn by veteran war artist George Evans and tells how this famous entourage made their bones and became a legit force under General Claire Chenault.

"Long View" is beautifully illustrated by Gray Morrow and takes us to World War II in the Pacific Theater and shows the strain and stress of one squad as they have to perform a deadly mission for the good of the overall effort. This one is rife with emotion and speaks to the brutal nature of warfare.

"Cantigny" drawn by Reed Crandall is set in World War I and features a soldier who is going home but who is a little disappointed he's not even seen the enemy. Of course during the story he does just that.

There's a one-page "Combat Quiz" drawn by Alex Toth followed by the American Revolutionary yarn about the unpredictable battlefield success of "Mad" Anthony Wayne. This one was drawn by Tex Blaisdell with help from others.

The mag closes out with another WWII story drawn by John Severin, an artist who aside from DC's Joe Kubert is likely more associated with the genre than any other. In this story of a Sergeant who tackles battle with a brutality which is perhaps unjustified in the end.

War is not some happy-go-lucky lark as seen in Marvel's Sgt.Fury comics or even dark fables of humanity as seen sometimes in DC's later war books, but here we bet a sense of the immediacy of war and the fragmenting of the human spirit it causes. There's a sense of reality here that is not evident from others, and that reality makes the stories more powerful.

More Blazing Combat next week.

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The All New Super Friends Hour 1977-1978!

When the Super Friends finally returned to television with new episodes, they were of a somewhat different character. First and foremost, the pacing was quickened as these were not hour-long single stories, but an essemble of shorter tales. Typically an episode of what was now called The All New Super Friends Hour began with a shorter story featuring one of the four mainstays (Superman, Batman, Aquaman and Wonder Woman) teaming with a lesser known hero such as Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Green Lantern, Flash or a few times even Rima the Jungle Girl. Then we had a cautionary tale for youngsters featuring the Wonder Twins (more later).  Then a longer epic tale with most of the team which often had wild fantasy elements and lastly a final tale again with a few members.

The biggest change was the removal of Wendy and Marvin and Wonder Dog (never addressed on the TV show but explained in the comic book) and the addition of Zan and Jayna the Wonder Twins with their monkey Gleek. They were aliens from a planet called Exxor and when they touched and said a key phrase, they changed. Zan could be any form of water, including countless things made of ice. He seemed also not to be limited by volume. Jayna turned into animals and they were almost exclusively Earth creatures. They looked alike and rarely was one seen without the other. Gleek was comedy relief and better at it than hapless Wonder Dog.

This version of the Super Friends was snappy and played well to an audience which with each passing year was losing more and more attention span. These are a great deal of fun to watch, but the stiff formula loses its edge by season's end.

But The Super Friends had at long last become a part of DC's publishing schedule as well, with talents like writer E. Nelson Bridwell, Ric Estrada, Ernie Chan helping to launch the book. Later Ramona Fradon came on as regular artist and gave this title a handsome flavor all its own, a worthy addition to the DC line-up in a time when the company needed friends of all kinds, super and other wise.

NOTE: I represent this post here at the new Dojo for the sake of completion as this month will showcase the rest of the Super Friends shows reviewed more or less.

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Super Friends 1973 -1974!

In 1973 I was truth told probably too old for the Saturday cartoons, but I didn't let that stop me from enjoying the Super Friends. I was always annoyed that my beloved Justice League of America didn't get much of a billing in this show and instead went by the somewhat insipid title of Super Friends, but still and all in those ancient days, getting any superheroes in most any format in most any medium was a treat to be savored. So I choked down my concerns and watched the hour-long show that teamed up Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman. Despite this being a Hanna--Barbera show, aside from Wonder Woman all of these heroes had pedigrees on Saturday morning thanks to Filmation studios. Frankly I assume that's pretty much the only reason Aquaman was part of the gig. As much as I liked the Sea King, he can be a hard sell.

I mentioned that this was a Hanna-Barbera show and that is most likely why we are introduced to Wendy, Marvin and (gulp) Wonder Dog. Now since the character designer of this show was Alex Toth, the look was often pretty sleek and that sure applied to Wendy, who I always numbered among the animated hotties of Saturday morning. Marvin though hearkened back to other Hanna-Barbera types mostly notable Shaggy of Scooby-Doo fame and his relationship with the weirdly anthropomorphic Wonder Dog was certainly in that vein. H-B had that stuff in most of their shows in the 70's and even the Super Friends were not spared.

Watching these shows again after so many years, I find I don't dislike Marvin as much I once did and his hijinks with Wonder Dog are okay, and they work to fill up the long running time of the show. And that's the biggest dig at the show, the pacing. The Super Friends would become aware of a threat, most often by way of the kids and their dog and then fumble around to confront it, often spending time in offbeat denials. As most folks know, the threats were rarely if ever from super-villains, but mostly from over zealous scientists or the like trying to help the world confront some problem or other like pollution or over-population.

Television is all about formulas and they found one here that worked. The addition of another DC characters such as Green Arrow, Plastic Man or The Flash added some spice and made you want more. The Hall of Justice was an imposing building, apparently inspired by the Union Terminal in Cincinnati, so oddly whenever I am traveling that direction I get to see the "Hall of Justice" and it makes me wonder.

The first season of Super Friends has real charm and that no doubt accounts for the way it found a way into the hearts and memories of so many youngsters (and even a few oldsters) from that time. And it was just the beginning for the team, but it would be some years before that would happen.

NOTE: I represent this post here at the new Dojo for the sake of completion as this month will showcase the rest of the Super Friends shows reviewed more or less.

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