The Fourth Death!

"The Fourth Death" was written by Robert Kanigher, an editor and writer at DC for many years. He was especially well known for his tales of war, those often illustrated by the likes of Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, and Jerry Grandenetti. It is the spirit of Grandenetti that the art of Ric Estrada most reminds me, not quite as liquid but still filled with a kinetic potency artists of prettier images often sacrifice.

Tucked away in the many pages of Sgt.Rock Spectacular #13 this is a story of cold blooded revenge. This is another story of the death camps and in this one the commandant is a particular sadistic individual who seems to gain a great satisfaction in the destruction of his charges. Commandant Aufbach is eager to get his  hands on an escaped prisoner named Baumer and drives his troop relentlessly to find the man who has blotted his record. Find him he does and he wishes he hadn't . Features one of the best final pages in this collection.

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Walls Of Blood!

Blitzkrieg was a different comic book, one which focused on World War II through the lens of the Nazis themselves. The goal was not to be sympathetic to the Reich, but to find new angles to tell stories which had been told in one form or another for decades. In the second issues the focus was on the Warsaw ghetto uprising when the Jewish population which was persistently being shipped to death camps rose up and waged guerilla war for some weeks against the might of the Nazi war machine. 

What I found most striking about this story written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Ric Estrada is how much the story reminded me of the later Joe Kubert masterpiece Yossel, a work which I will get to here in due course. There are a number of structural similarities including most interestingly an escapee who describes for the Jews of the ghetto the horrors of the death camps. Also the hero here is a young boy. Kubert drew a magnificent cover which captures the tension of any uprising of just how it's best to used violence effectively. 

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Mark Our Graves!

Who doesn't love The Losers? Well I guess lots of people or they wouldn't be the Losers, a truly ragtag ensemble of characters who fought together in World War II after losing their own individual features. Captain Storm (a sailor), Captain Johnny Cloud (a flyer) and Gunner and Sarge (two grunts) are a quartet who find danger in all the theaters of the war eventually as their series tumbled along between the covers of Our Fighting Forces. Even the great Jack Kirby took a stab a the book at one point. But here the great John Severin is the artist and Robert Kanigher was the writer of a tale which hooked the Losers up with some fighters from the Jewish Brigade. This was  a special team of fighters put together to not only fight in the name of those who were defenseless behind the Nazi lines, but would go on to for the basis for the Israeli army. 

This story follows the Losers and the Jewish soldiers who take time to practice the faith which was being persecuted and at the same time blowing up a Nazi weapons depot. Seeing those Stars of David representing not just two brave warriors but also the millions who were expunged by the evil of the Third Reich. 

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