Air Fighters Comics Vol. 1 #12
(1) Airboy - Misery - No credits confirmed, but thought to have been drawn by Fred Kida
Misery is defined as The Keeper of "The Air Tomb" and Master of "The Black Hole of Calcutta". I assume that "The Air Tomb" is the portion of The Sky where pilots and their planes meet their doom (having unlucky and unexpected accidents caused by the Misery - just for his pleasure). I guess that Misery is NOT Mr. Death or The Devil, because his "realm" as specified here, is NOT The Earth, or The Universe, or The Underworld, but rather only a specific small portion of those places. So he must be just a Henchman (possibly the Top, or highest ranked assistant of Mr. Death, or The Devil. But not really defining exactly who he is, and what his "powers" and areas of authority are, is an error by the author and hurts understanding of the story, whose purpose and value in being told, is cloudy. So Airboy dies and comes back to life again. Is THIS story Airboy's official "Origin Story"?
As stated above by several posters, The Author's lack of researching what he is writing about and obviously knows little about is worthy of being ridiculed. Calcutta is in the flat area of West Bengal, straddling both sides of The Hooghly River near where it approaches The Indian Ocean's coast. It is not only NOT high in The Mountains, but actually almost as far away from the mountains in the southerly direction, as it can possibly be. The old adage, "one should not talk about what he does not know in the manner of an authority" clearly holds in this case. And, there are no high cliffs in The City of Calcutta from which to jump off (as shown in the scene starring Pierre Duray). I conducted an Internet search for Pierre Duray, and found only references to the Airboy comic book series. So, I assume that this story's author looked up the inventor who built and tested the birdlike wings that a man used like a glider, to jump off high places to see if a man could fly like a bird. I found that Arthur Duray, a Belgian aviator, and airplane tester, was chosen during the early years of The 20th Century, to test the motorised "birdlike wings" machine (seen in a famous slapstick comedy short film on Man's early attempts at flight). So, the author of this story invented a 200 years earlier ancestor of the real Duray, as the first man since Icarus to test birdlike wings to show that Man can fly. I find it interesting that the author didn't specify to the colourists that the native Bengalis shown in the Duray scenes should have very dark brown skin. They are shown with European facial features and pinkish skin. Even Albinos from Europe, always covering nothing but the area of a modern men's swimsuit, would have bright red skin from sunburn, and blondes (who can tan) would have a very dark tan, indeed. This author must have seen too many American or British films in which "caucasian" non-Indians portrayed Indian natives.
I'm not sure what the author had in mind for the meaning of Duray's comment about "The Air Tomb" rock formation that looks like a 1940s or 1950s modern airplane(which would have meant nothing to Duray in 1738). The whole concept of this story is about as far away from being well thought out as it could possibly have been. This shows us how very desperate comic book editors were for stories to put in their books in the early days of the comic book industry, when everyone was jumping on the bandwagon trying to take advantage of the new demand built up from the success of Superman and Batman.
Paw's point about The American writers and editors' lack of knowledge of the distinction between Great Britain and British and England and English is well taken, as the author refers to an "English airfield". There was no separate armed services airfield administered by a solely English armed service. It was a British military airfield, located in England. Airboy is on the job there. He speaks with an American accent (wording and phrasing). Was he supposed to be n American volunteer in The RAF? Or was he supposed to be a Brit, and his speech is translated to American idiom so that the American readers can understand what he says or thinks?
Misery turns up to claim RAF planes and their pilots, in the name of "The Curse of Pierre Duray". So, Duray's curse must have been a pact made with Mr. Death, or The Devil, for one of them to send his henchman, Misery, to see that that pact's agreement is carried out. EVERY RAF plane goes down except Airboy's.
Airboy looks like a teenager (suspiciously of similar age to this comic book series' largest market segment). We have to assume that he was desirous of adventure, and too young to qualify for his own country's armed forces, which were not involved in a war in 1940, in any case, so he volunteered for The UK's RAF, who was losing pilots at such a high pace that they were so desperate to get every recruit possible, they ignored enforcement of the age restrictions.
Just about the silliest element of this story so far (and there are a LOT of such elements) is the hand-written note from Misery to Airboy, found on a crashed RAF plane (which, apparently, Airboy was destined to find while he explores a crash scene, NOT to find a living pilot whose life he may be able to save, but rather, to find out why ALL the RAF planes (but his) have been downed and crashed, and no German plane was even disabled). This whole story, so far, is unbelievably poorly thought out. With that in mind, let us consider that "The Black Hole of Calcutta" was the legendary prisoner holding cell (tank) inside British Fort William, a 14 by 18 foot room in which in 1756, The Nawab of Bengal crammed his 146 British prisoners upon capturing that fort. All but 23 of them were reported to have died of suffocation their first night spent there. The author's "Black Hole of Calcutta", is a volcano caldera (crater opening) ostensibly at least as high as the upper foothills of The Himalaya Mountains, nowhere near the City of Calcutta. There is no sign of any town or city, or even stray homes, or buildings of any kind in the scenes showing the author's "Black Hole". It would be difficult to think of how an immortal being Devil's Henchman, or Demon, like "Misery" would have been in charge of a single room inside a British fort in India. Why would a Demon charged with ending the lives of the best ace military fighter pilots in The World choose that small room inside a government building to do away with The World's best fighter pilots??? Why does such a Demon need to take pilots fighting in The Battle of Britain all the way over thousands of miles to West Bengal, to kill them, after making them crash near England? After Misery gets into the cockpit of Airboy's plane, to use it to capture other great Human pilots (why does he need it? - he was capturing them all, without a plane). Airboy, not yet dead from breathing the volcano's toxic gasses, uses his radio controls to call the plane to his location. In the background, flying over the caldera, we see a Pteradactyl and some vampire bats. The author is tossing wayyyyy too many different, totally unrelated, impossible contradictory things into this story. It has no single, logical trajectory. The plane lands in the caldera, and Airboy wins a fist and kick fight with Misery, and as the volcano starts erupting, grabs onto the wheels of his plane, as it takes off on its own volition, (ostensibly due to its fear of being melted by the hot lava. The episode ends with Airboy wondering about Misery, and with a coming attraction description of the next episode in which he meets "The 4 Horosemen". Will the be the legendary 4 Horsemen of The Apocalypse? - or Knute Rockne's 4 -man backfield of Notre Dame University's legendary football team? Stay tuned!
(2) Skywolf - The Crow vs. Skywolf - Drawn by Dan Berry
Nazi arch-villain, Baron Krau leaves a hostage of an anti-Nazi underground leader in The Sahara Desert territory of France, which can only be mistaken for being a legal part of Metropolitan France (which it was NOT, as only the Mediterranean section of Algeria was, and the Saharan portions were designated as overseas territories. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that this author didn't think that there were deserts in European France. If he or she were the same author as that of the Airboy story, I COULD believe that. Sky wolf's planes spot a woman lying in the sand, pick her up and fly her to England. Sky Wolf, who wears a real wolf's head hat, apparently is not only an Allied WWII pilot, also seems to be a spy. He and his mute Polish colleague "Turtle", are dropped over central Berlin in a glider. They are attacked by 6 German soldiers, but the 2 Allies defeat all 6. The "Good Guys" always win! Sky Wolf and Turtle soon are looking through Baron Krau's headquarters, watch the rescued woman's German anti-Nazi Underground leader husband, Albrecht, murdered by Krau's right-hand-man, "The Butcher". He and Turtle beat up the four guards, and Sky Wolf sees the radio man sending a message, and knocks him unconsciousBut the message got to Krau in his castle. A sentient crow??? delivers a challenge invitation from Baron Krau to Sky Wolf for an "Air Duel" between them. I know of talking parrots and magpies with large vocabularies. But they don't think. And I haven't heard of anyone teaching a crow to mimic Human speech. Sky Wolf's 4 planes take up the dogfight challenge, but, of course the lying, cheating Nazis send 100 of their planes. "That isn't Cricket!" as they say.
Of course, the 4 allied planes win the battle against hundreds. Sky Wolf shoots down The Baron's plane. And ALL the German planes leave, when they see that their leader has been killed. If only such an occurrence had been true and happened often. I might have a LOT more relatives than I do now.
(3) Private Skinny McGinty - The promotion of Private McGinty - Drawn by Tony Dipreta
The art style tells me this will be inane attempts at comedy. I'm not looking forward to this experience. And I guessed right. It is a very silly story of the typical airheaded recruit, who gets mistaken for an officer, and succeeds just by "dumb luck". Most of the jokes were very expected, and not funny. A waste of story space, although Airboy wasn't worth adding pages. It already is too disjointed and silly to waste more space that could be used for a better, more interesting and entertaining story.
(4) Iron Ace - The Leper - Drawn by Bill Fraccio
The Iron Ace wears a suit of metal armour that looks like the heavy, clunky armour of The Middle Ages. My experience sitting in a 2-seater airplane with the Sun shining directly on us was being very hot, even wearing just jeans and a cotton T-shirt. I can imagine how hot it would be in that plane's cockpit, in direct sunlight, in The Tropics (as they are in this story). The pilot might die from heat prostration (especially if the suit of armour is almost pure iron.
Why does The Leper have a green face with yellow spots? Even if leprosy would result in skin having a slight greenish tinge, it wouldn't be dark and solid forest green, with solidly bordered bright yellow spots, making the person look like a painted circus clown. And would that disease give its victims sharp canine teeth as a special bonus? So, The Iron Ace arrives on the scene because he was tracking the movements of The Leper's submarine. The Leper has a folded up, compact airplane stored inside his giant submarine. He takes it on deck to fly off to have a dogfight with Iron Ace. But Iron Ace maneuvers his plane to keep out of range of The Leper, and The Leper leaves. Iron Ace takes a speedboat out to the sub and boards it. The Leper jumps on him. The Iron Ace, carrying a bag of sulphur, knowing it will destroy flesh in open leprosy wounds, pours it on The Leper, who dives into the sea in much pain. This story ends without explaining whether or not The Leper dies. Likely not. The water washed the sulphur off, sand The Leper will be back in a future story. This was a disappointing quick ending that didn't resolve the story's questions. The Leper would have his sulphur damaged area treated, and continue his attack on The US held island. So, this story was just a "slice of life", showing a day in thePacific Theatre of WWII, when American Iron Ace fought The Japanese Leper, and The Regular Japanese Navy's attack on a US held pacific island's installation was interrupted.
(5) Bald Eagle - Bomber Graveyard in The Atlantic - uncredited, but suspected to have been drawn by John Cassone
The Bomber Graveyard of The North Atlantic is in the area nearest to The East Coast of The USA of the shuttle route of bomber planes to The European and North African Theatres, and suddenly, EVERY Allied plane is being downed and crashed by a mysterious enemy, coming from "nowhere". US Army Air Corps higherups feel that it is impossible for enemy aircraft to operate so close to The US coast. They bring in Jack Gatling, ("The Bald Eagle"), to discover how the Allied planes are being destroyed, and stop it from happening, by having him act as an aerial convoy accompanying (slightly behind and above) and guarding each plane on its trip. On his first trip, The Bald Eagle sees his assigned bomber dive into the ocean, when no other plane or enemy boat was in sight. The Bald Eagle's plane, on automatic pilot, keeps flying while he hears loud music. The loud music knocked him unconscious. The Bald Eagle flies to The Coast, to refuel and inform his superiors what had happened. He bumps into an old man playing a flute, the same tune that caused the pilots to lose their consciousness, and felt a hard metal object on the man's back. He jumps on the man, tears off his jacket, hears the man swear in German, and sees a radio strapped to his back. The man hits him and runs away. At the man's house, The Eagle sees the German's plane take off. So, he runs to his own much faster plane and takes off and quickly catches up, and The Bald Eagle shoots the plane out of the sky, into the ocean. The German parachuted out, and The Bald Eagle retrieves him as a prisoner. He turns the German over to his Bomber Shuttle Commander for questioning, and the destruction of the bombers is over. This story had a clever plot idea, and was worth reading.
(6) The Black Angel - drawn by John Cassone
This is a well thought out, well-plotted spy/underground story about The WWII occupation of Jugoslavia (Serbia) by The Germans, and The Chetniks freedom fighters, who kidnap the occupation general and simulate a (false) cholera epidemic to free a captured scientist forced to spread cholera among the local population, to avenge underground activities against The Nazis, to discourage further such activities. The Black Angel and her associates make The Germans think the epidemic was spread, and even reached their own troops, causing a panic among The Germans and saving the local population. An interesting story and well carried out in the well-paced plot with high-quality drawing, good action. It held my interest all the way. I liked this story best of this book.
(7) The Flying Dutchman vs. Dr. Roulette and his Wheel of Death - drawn by Bob Fujitani
A Dutch WWII Underground fighter, who delivers boats to The Norwegian Underground in their fjords, is captured, along with a few Norwegian patriots by German Agent, Dr. Roulette, who has temporarily been sinking the boats sent from England to Norway. He murders his captives by giving them transfusions of his own poisoned blood (from his deadly blood disease). The Dutchman escapes, vowing to return to Roulette's Junk to kill the villain and his crew. Later, The Dutchman flies above Roulette's junk, shot at by Roulette's portable anti-aircraft guns. The Dutchman drops two explosives cans onto the junk, blowing it to smithereens. But, before he died, Roulette hit the tail of The Dutchman's plane, sending it down to The Sea. The plane crashes, nose first into the water with The Dutchman sitting above the cockpit, hoping to be rescued by the Norwegian Underground men who had were in a rowboat they used to abandon the boat Roulette had sunk. They rescue him to continue the fight against The Axis Powers. Not a bad story, but not as good as "The Black Angel", tainted for me by the silly, unnecessary addition of the peculiar, eccentric villain and his silly, cruel and irrational way of disposing of his victims, which adds nothing that helps the story (but rather changes its genre to fantasy, as opposed to straight war/combat).
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Topic: Reading Group #361 - Halloween-ish (Read 981 times)
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