In fact, next to romance, war may've been the longest-lasting of the "other" genres competing with the superhero books.
And one of the most popular funnybook war heroes of all was Sgt. Rock--a fearless, tough talkin', unshaven, cigarette-smokin', vaguely Humphrey Bogart-ish guy who led his Easy Company through countless skirmishes in the European Theater during World War II.
DC's new "Sgt. Rock's Combat Tales" is a 128-page collection of some of Rock's earliest adventures along with a few other war tales originally published in DC's Star-Spangled War Stories, G.I. Combat and Our Army at War between 1958 and 1960. And it's all pretty entertaining stuff, albeit very much apiece of its times.
Whereas Harvey Kurtzman's EC war comics of the 1950s and many of Marvel and DC's 1960s and 70s war comics dared to take a critical "war-is-hell" look at combat, these early "Rock" tales are more in the spirit of "war is an excellent opportunity to show everyone what a big man you are."
Which makes a certain amount of sense given when they were originally published. It was a heckuva lot easier to look back on World War II with black-and-white, right-vs.-wrong vision than it was post Korea, let alone during and after Vietnam. But the relentless machismo of the scripts (all credited to Robert Kanigher) is hard to take after a while.
Throughout his 13-page stories, Kanigher latches onto a theme or phrase and runs with it, hard. There's the original Rock story, where the soldier is portrayed initially as a boxer--not a great one, but a tough one that never gives up, never falls down. "C'mon and fight!" he's shown shouting at his opponents in the ring. And, when he reaches the battlefield, he shouts the same thing repeatedly at his enemies in combat. We get the point: He's tough.
Another story tells the story of a tough-as-nails drill sergeant who drives his recruits nuts, but who they know is responsible for having taught them the skills that need to survive. And there's another about "gun jockeys"--air, ground and naval gunners who all readily admit, and are proud of the fact, that they are merely walking trigger fingers in the larger war. "I'm just a gun jockey," they all tell us, talking directly to the reader out of the comic book panels. It's all a bit silly in its over-the-top manliness.
But what more than redeems it all is the fine artwork. In terms of sophistication and execution the drawings are miles and miles ahead of the scripts. Most of the stories are illustrated by Joe Kubert, very much in his prime but with years and years of great work still ahead of him. The storytelling smooth and straight-forward. The figures, clothing, weapons and machinery all natural-looking and realistic. Russ Heath turns in a typically well- and slickly-drawn scuba diver tale and the balance of the artwork is by Irv Novick and Jerry Grandenetti. All great-to-look-at stuff.
The only pity is, the artwork's pretty darn small. The book is published in a pseudo-manga "digest" format. And while the color and print quality is excellent, shrinking the drawings down did them a disservice. I'm curious to know what DC was thinking when it opted to go with this format.
If the publisher was hoping to generate some material to compete with manga, this "digest" is a bit on the skinny side, especially given the $9.99 price tag. And, as mentioned, the content is extremely dated. I can't imagine a young reader gravitating toward it.
Which leaves an older reader (like me!) thankful to see some of this stuff back in print, but wondering if a standard-size trade paperback would've been a better way to go.
I'd love to see more, but I'm skeptical "Combat Tales" will be much of a sales success.
What I'd like to see is some war comics in DC's new "Showcase Presents" series of big, black-and-white reprints. The stories would lack color, but the art would be the appropriate size. And Kubert looks pretty great in black and white.
And, of course, maybe we'll see some more "Sgt. Rock" in expensive, color, hardcover Archives format again soon.
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