The Art Of Violence!

This Starlin-Milgrom page knocks me out! It's from the earliest days of Master of Kung-Fu when it was still officially known as Marvel Special Edition, explaining why that MoKF number one you've been searching is so hard to find.

Attempting to translate martial arts action to the comics page is an ongoing effort in comics, as the classic page above by the late great Frank McLaughlin shows all too well.

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D-Day Two!

Today is D-Day. June 6, 1944 is of course famously known now as "D-Day", the day the assembled Allies of Europe launched the ultimately successful counter attacks on the beaches of Normandy, France against the Nazi war machine. The cost of that day is remembered still and is seen as one of the most significant events in the history of the 20th Century.  But "D-Day" merely means "Day-Day", the day of the attack and can apply to any military engagement. Charlton comic took advantage of that to launch their own D-Day, a war comic book nestled comfortable among the ranks of their many others. The second issue of D-Day sports a Dick Giordano cover, but beneath that handsome art is a tour de force for the great Wally Wood. He and his studio supply all the art for this issue, four stories that tell of signficant D-Days as well as the one celebrated today. 

The first story of a "D-Day" is titled "Lone Defender" and focuses on the air war over Guadalcanal in 1942. The title says it all as one flyer using a range of tactics fights alone to fend off a Japanese force. That notion of a single man making a huge difference is a common theme which links most of the stories in this comic. 

"The Underwater Avenger" begins two days before the famous landing on the beaches of Normandy and tells of a single frogman and the difference he made preparing for the momentous invasion. 

"D-Day for the Fighting Airborne" is set on the famous day and focuses on a single paratrooper who comes down apart from his unit and starts out immediately to rejoin them. In the course of that odyssey to find his comrades he does much damage to the Nazi war effort. 

Finally there's "Iwo Jima", a story set on that notorious island, but this time showcasing how the teamwork of two soldiers is effective in fending off the Japanese enemy. 

These stories along with many more Wood war and action comics were gathered and reprinted in Vanguard's Dare-Devil Aces. If you'd like to read all of these vintage classics by Wally Wood's team just check out this link. Whether the idea of a lone soldier making such a difference was intentional for this comic I cannot say, but it seems likely that it was. Wally Wood is the very definition of a maverick and it would only make sense he'd celebrate warriors of a similar stripe. 

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Never Again!

The face of the world-weary soldier on the cover of the debut issue of Never Again says more almost than the stories inside. Ross Andru and his longtime associate Mike Esposito crafted a masterpiece of mood with this image worth well more than a thousand words. Each issue features two stories, each story narrated by the ghostly WWI-era "Unknown Soldier".

The first issue has a tale called "The Beginning of the End" about Indian wars in the United States and the attempt by Chief Joseph and his tribe's to escape into Canada and the U.S. Cavalry's efforts to capture them before that happened. The second story titled "Battle of the Bows!" reaches back to the One Hundred Years War and follows two lowly archers as they try to make sense of the larger strategy which will hopefully end the fighting at long last. Both stories are drawn by Bob Forgione.

Forgione is also the artist of both stories in the second issue. The first is titled "Career Man" and focuses on a stalwart sailor who has been serving since WWI and now finds himself on the edge of a new conflict of sorts in the Cold War of the late 50's. It's a pretty compelling tale of how life and war just seems to tumble along. The second tale is titled "Two Men in the Sky" and gives alternate perspectives of two WWI flyers -- one an American and the other German. It's an interesting way to show that war is something that happens to most people, that they are swept up in it.

Both issues are pretty good. The first one is numbered one and weirdly is numbered eight. That makes no sense but it is a Charlton comic.  Never Again was an unusual comic, not unique, but different.

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Children Of Doom!

"Children of Doom" is a story I've examined before at the original Dojo,but this time I'm focusing on it as an atomic fable. The yarn of how the story was composed is interesting in itself as it was put together quickly when a scheduled story for Charlton Premiere failed to appear and that Denny O'Neil (under his Charlton pen name of "Sergius O'Shaunessy") wrote it quick and artist Pat Boyette (who typically did pencils, inks and letters for his jobs) handled the rest. It's weird and oddly compelling, even if it doesn't totally make sense all the time. 

We begin at the end with a story told in flashback of how an atomic Doomsday device was made to scare mankind into peace. But a tinpot dictator used other technology to create massive firestorms which were the targets of missiles from space which caused the firestorm to overspread the entire planet. It resulted in mutations of three kinds -- firestarters, blind soothsayers, and mysterious others who stay hidden from the mass of humanity who survive but just barely.

The astronauts who fired the missiles think they can get their ship to Venus where they think they might survive and there they encountered a mutated human, one of the mysterious hidden variety who is apparently able to transport himself across space, and they bring him back to Earth.

But all that folderal activates the Doomsday device and only the weird powers of the mysterious and shunned mutants can save the day for the rest of humanity which hangs on by a thread as the story winds up. It's not a happy tale, it's not really a sad tale, it's an enigmatic fable which does and doesn't make sense at the same time. 

But one thing it is for certain and that's a parable preaching against the dangers of war and particularly atomic war, as if that needed preaching against. But there we are. This story is widely reprinted but I read it this last time in The Unknown Anti-War Comics from Yoe Books. 

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The Sensei Has Withdrawn!

Francis X. McLaughlin, better known in comics as Frank has passed away. The man who created Judomaster and Rip Jagger has folded his judogi for the final time. Of all the Charlton "Action Heroes" Judomaster was always my favorite. 

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Perhaps it was the World War II setting with Rip Jagger, a mere soldier becoming a fighting symbol. He was like Captain America in many ways, but he didn't have a super soldier serum and he didn't wear the colors of his homeland, rather he sported an outfit given him by the men who trained him in the martial arts and prepared him to battle the enemy in the Pacific for the good of all mankind. Or perhaps it was that despite the WWII setting Judomaster had the most modern look of any of the "Action Heroes" who flourished under editor Dick Giordano, McLaughlin's lontime associate.

McLaughlin was one of the most important inkers in the field of comics in the late Silver and early Bronze Ages. His work was instantly recognizable as his taught dark lines brought order from sometimes chaos on the comics page. His long run with Dick Dillin and others on the Justice League of America remains at the top of my list of mighty artistic accomplishments. But given that this very blog was inspired by his greatest creation, it will always be Judomaster who comes to mind first when the name Frank McLaughlin is mentioned. Rest in peace Sensei. 

Here are the covers of the original Judomaster run at Charlton Comics. 

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The Pages Of War!

"War,uh yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

Edwin Starr was right of course, but let's look at it another way. What is war good for? It made for some damn fine comic books over the decades. March derives its very name from the ancient god of war "Mars", so it's fitting that this month at the Dojo we look at some finest war comics from across the broad spectrum of what the genre has produced. 

At the center will be the best YOe Book yet -- We Spoke Out - Comic Books and the Holocaust. This is a fascinating overview of how the horrific event that transformed the latter half of the twentieth century was seen in comics. There are stories here from the 50's through the modern age, and reflect a broad spectrum of how an attempted genocide created heroes and villains and more. I'll be taking a comic by comic look (as does the book itself) and that means comics from Marvel, EC, DC, Warren, and more. Expect the expected and the unexpected as well as we have classic war yarns and superhero jaunts and other stories besides. 

This seemed also a grand time to fish out that copy of Yossel, April 19, 1943 by Joe Kubert that's been nestled in my collection for years waiting its turn on the night table. This is a highly personal story by perhaps the finest war artist of all time. There are some other Kubert stories I'd like to get as well, to but time will tell.

The Unknown Anti-War Comics features comic books from the defunct and fondly remembered Charlton Comics. The stories might not be as heavy as those in the tomes above, but maybe they are of value nonetheless.

Another weird one is Nuke' Em Classic Cold War Comics Celebrating the End of the World from Hermes Press. This one reprints just two vintage early 50's series - Atomic War and World War III from the little comic house Ace. If these comics are right, we're lucky to be here.

The weekend tent pole reviews will be a of Warren Magazines critically acclaimed Blazing Combat. War comics were once big business, but only if you could get them into military base PX's and this is one comic book magazine that raised the ire of the military brass when they caught wind of its less than gung-ho attitudes about the Vietnam War, then blazing at full tilt on the Asian continent and in the politics of the United States. There are some of the finest war stories ever in these pages and I'm eager to read them all over again.

So that's it (and maybe a few other things as time permits and circumstances demand but it's a packed house), war, war and more war. But tales of war are rarely about war, but about the peace which always seems to brief and so fragile. Join me.

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Bon Voyage Captain Cosmos!

Captain Cosmos has stood his final watch my friends. The Last Starveyer has left this planet Earth behind for good alas. Nicola Cuti has passed away after a long bout with cancer.

The creator of Captain Cosmos - the Last Starveyer and Moonchild the Starbabes and scores of other entertaining comic book characters, Nicola Cuti worked as an editor and writer and artist for Warren, Charlton, DC, and more through the many decades of his career. He has a story in the most recent issue of The Creeps magazine titled "Bug-Eyed Monster" and it was his role as an Associate Editor which finally got me to give that mag a chance. Nick Cuti had career and life which seemed filled with enthusiasm for the comics and characters he loved.

His most famous creation was E-Man who he fashioned with artist Joe Staton long ago at the now gone but hardly forgotten Charlton Comics shop where Nick was an Assistant Editor to George Wildman.

E-Man stares down on me at this very moment, the delightful poster used to promote the character was added to my walls many years ago and has always had the most prominent and important position. For the umpteenth time on a blog a mine, but the first time at my "Other Blog" here are the covers for the original E-Man run.

The ten original issues of that magnificent comic book are perhaps the most influential in my life. I remember reading the sixth issue (the first I found) as if it were yesterday afternoon. You cared about the characters, even the baddies and no romance was more potent or real than that between Alec Tronn and Nova Kane.

Michael Mauser was a stroke of comic genius all by himself. The humor and adventure and sheer humanity evident in those comics is superior to any other comic I've chanced upon in decades of reading.  Some books came close, but none ever blended those elements so  harmoniously or with such aplomb.

I might well have more to say about Nick, the only one of my favorite writers I ever got to correspond with, but now his Captain Cosmos videos are just the thing to remember him by -- I'll dig that out. And then it's to reading some of that original E-Man yet again to warm my heart. Thanks again Nick and bon voyage Captain Cosmos.

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