[MarkWarner]

I am afraid I am running late and in a minute will be running for a train (an afternoon jolly to Hastings). So I'll be brief!

We are well overdue a war comic and luckily I have just had this suggestion appear:

"Battle Fire 1 newly uploaded, by 1st time contributor cromda1"

I have had a look and it is a great first contribution. So here it is https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=69131, and the story we are concentrating on is the first one "Line Officer".

Happy reading and HOLD THE TRAIN!!!

[narfstar]

This issue looks to be all Eugene Hughes art. It is not signed which always makes me wonder. Hughes seems to have loved signing his work. I wonder if the unsigned may have had a different inker. Some of the signed pieces seem to have more detail. Of course doing a whole issue could mean that Hughes was just rushed.

Now as far as the story goes, every Lt is told to respect the opinion of the Top Sgt. Not all do but the smart ones did. It was also most common for the Sgt to actually give the commands to the men from the Lt. Even though there were lots of flaws I enjoyed the little surprise twist at the end. For that reason I give it a thumbs up. BTW: I like Hughes art on war comics. It is not the prettiest but war was not pretty.

[John Kerry]

I actually read this one when I noticed it on the Latest Comics sidebar. I had figured out that the Lt. wasn't really the officer they were expecting, but I certainly didn't expect to find out he had been a dentist behind he lines. I loved his rationale for one of his plans, that it worked in a movie he saw so why shouldn't it work now. I can think of several reasons why it shouldn't but of course it does. The other two stories were competent and enjoyable to read. The art was good. It didn't detract from the stories but rather complemented them. No war isn't pretty in real life and this book showed that. I am not familiar with Stanley Morse produced comics but if their other products are like this I shall have to give them a try. Looking at the list I do note they sure liked to use the word 'battle' in a title if they could.

[SuperScrounge]

Video Vic & Mini-Gym ads - So a guy can't get a girl or a promotion until he works out? What would the female counterpart to these ads be? Padded bras? 

Line Officer - Not bad.

The Gambler - A bit rushed.

The Big Birds - Okay, but nothing special.

Buddha Smiled - Ehhhh... not a terrible idea, but not as well done as it could have been.

Patrol! - Not bad.

Coward - Okay, although the father/son moment really came out of the blue.

Storywise this was a weak issue with Line Officer and Patrol! being the two strongest stories. Okay to read once, but not something to reread.

[crashryan]

As much as other readers dislike Westerns, I dislike war comics. I'll try to give it a fair reading.

The first thing that strikes me is how strongly Harvey Kurtzman's EC war comics affected the industry. The narrative style, titles, splash page caption technique...you find it everywhere from Atlas Comics to Stanley Morse. However writers don't always live up to their models. These stories are familiar cliches: coward proves himself, new commander proves himself, rivals come to appreciate each other, Buddha proves himself (just kidding). Easily read, immediately forgotten.

The artwork reminds me of Charlton war comics: serviceable art with minimum attention paid to setting, hardware, or composition. Generic, like the stories. In the Buddha story I wasn't sure until the Commies showed up whether it was set in Korea or WWII.

The ads are more interesting than the stories. Joe Bonomo was a movie stuntman (he doubled for Lon Chaney in the silents) who entered the body-building biz when his career dried up. What confuses me about this slice-of-life comic is how Vic goes from self-improving shop worker to television wrestler. (He is a wrestler, right, not a boxer?) Somehow his buddy Tim sets Vic up with "Casey over at the arena" even though Vic has no experience or training. Just a fantastic body. Maybe that's all it takes.

The Mini-Gym ad is even stranger. The boss won't promote Tom because he can't beat up workers on the shop floor. After working out and turning into Captain Marvel, Tom socks a worker and becomes a supervisor.

I owned one of those "rocket radios." It was a basic cat-whisker crystal set and picked up the stronger AM stations. It's fascinating how crystal radios work without batteries.

SuperScrounge: you're probably right, for women key to success would probably be a torpedo bra. It's funny how many comics from this period (not this particular one) offer products to help women become sexy by gaining weight. Try selling Wate-On to women today!

[Morgus]

Crashryan, the art at times reminded me of Kurtzman's  artwork style as well as his writing and editorial style. The scripts were the usual war comic scripts, but I didn't see the dentist angle coming.Had to check twice to make sure it WASN'T a Charlton war comic. Good to know about Joe Bonomo. Kind of wondered, though, what the girl in slacks MEANT when she remarked she liked a guy who could dish it out as well as take it. The more I think about that line, the weirder for it's time period it gets. Superscrounge, you read my mind.  I was looking for the torpedo bra in the music tutorial ad. But, amazingly, it was her ability to play the piano that made her popular with everyone, not a balcony you can play Shakespeare off of.
My uncle had a whole raft of war comics we could dig out during Summer break so this brought out a lot of memories. We never took them really seriously.  I wonder what kids in the middle of the Korean war thought of them.

[The Australian Panther]

I like Eugene Hughes' covers so much I have downloaded several of them and have considered making a collection of them.  In comparison, the art in the stories disappoints. Oh, it tells the story well, just doesn't please the eye.Not finished well at all.
Morgus, I remember  reading Korean War comics at the end of the fifties. I  remember lots of stories about American Jet Pilots fighting MIGS. I now think a lot of the creators of these comics were veterans of one kind or another of the Second World War which accounts I think for the fact that they were generally gritty and to a young kid, believable.

[EHowie60]

Korean War comics are interesting. Often, they could be a good deal grittier than World War II comics, and the art reflects that.

Line Officer: ever notice how the new officer is always clean shaven when no one else is? The sequence of sarge crawling towards the machine gun seemed weird to me; then I realized that was because there were no sound effects. Wonder if that was a choice or an omission. I do like the little twist; no wonder he was so reluctant to take command.

The Big Birds: Sorta predictable. Of course the fighter guy is gonna change his mind.

The Buddha Smiles: I sorta like the perspective. And it's almost contemplative how the wars come and go but the statue remains (even if the word "idol" is just plain wrong).

Coward: Again predictable. Interesting quote on P. 32 though. I can't imagine a soldier in a World War II comic knocking off a "Jap" with a "Sorry, pal". The twist doesn't make much sense though. I don't think they'd put a father in command of his son in the Army, right?

All in all this was an ok book. Lots of predictability in the plots.

[josemas]

The ads are more interesting than the stories. Joe Bonomo was a movie stuntman (he doubled for Lon Chaney in the silents) who entered the body-building biz when his career dried up.

Joe Bonomo was more than just a stuntman in motion pictures.   He did quite a number of supporting roles in the the 1920s and 30s.  He also played the occasional lead role such as those in the cliffhangers Perils of the Wild (1925) and The Chinatown Mystery (1928).  His self published. well illustrated autobiography, The Strongman, is a fun read and copies can still be found available on Amazon inexpensively.

[paw broon]

I don't like most war comics and this one hasn't done anything to change my mind.  The story seems predictable and the art isn't great, indeed I find it crude in places.  But the finale when the platoon is sailing down in the junks totally confused me.  They're a fair bit out in the river and in the rest of the story there's no sign of bazookas or grenade launchers, yet they blow the supply base to smithereens. That's a strong pitching arm to get a grenade that far.
A friend is a big fan and expert on Commando comics, the British digest title by DC Thomson and he's always going on about how good the stories are. Mind, he's ex military.  But I can't get into them.

[narfstar]

I collect oddball SA as my main endeavor. That means I had to get the two issues of Battle Heroes from 1966 by Stanley Morris. I did not know they reprinted stories from a company that had not published in ten years. They then made a brief comeback in 69-70 trying the black and white horror market that Warren had conquered.  They had a stock of horror comics just ripe for reprinting so the cost would have been minimal.

[MarkWarner]

I have a confession to make. Half-way through reading this I decided to have a nap. I  am not a midday snoozer , but I am afraid that is the effect the book had on me.

From what I remember as kid I was never very keen on military stuff. John Wayne should wear a stetson, not  a metal helmet in my book. A view unchanged over the years.

I once worked for a retired Major who ran his business with military precision. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I am sure I'd hate military life and it would hate me.

Verdict: A fail. I found it repetitive and tedious. BUT  don't listen to me on this one as I am prejudiced. I doubt ANY war comic would get my vote

[Morgus]

Hey, Narfstar, what's SA, let alone oddball SA? Any examples we can see on the site?

[narfstar]

Sorry for the confusion. I just use SA for Silver Age and GA for Golden Age

[Morgus]

LOL! I must have gone through every damn short form in the book except that obvious one. Duh.

[Morgus]

Hey Narfstar, as long as we are talking about oddball SA, are there any on the site we should be looking at that are favourites of yours? I know there's a lot here from the ODDBALL COMICS collector card set, but are there any that are under the radar we might dig?

[narfstar]

Give Gold Medal and Topps Comics a shot.

[Croz]

I found this to not be that bad for a war story. When I was in the Air Force we use to say the only difference between and Airmen Basic (entry level enlisted) and a Butter Bar (1st Lt. like the one in the story) is four years of college. They are both pretty skittish and full of dumb ideas! Anyways, I thought it was pretty good, the art was typical for the time period and subject matter. However, it seems I have read this similar type story in another war mag, I just can't remember where.....

Croz...

[Kracalactaka]

Croz,

your military memory must be fuzzy

a butterbar is a 2nd Lt (the lowest rank of commissioned officer in the US military) called so because the gold bar resembles a stick of butter.

as Veteran who served in both the USMC and the US Army I'm pretty sure of that.

and in my current civilian job, I work with the USAF and recently had privilege of pinning on the new rank insignia of a fine young man who was promoted from 2ndLt to 1stLt.

Krac

[Morgus]

Croz, Steve Allen used to say that there were only 9 jokes...everything was just a variation of one of those big categories.
I get the same feeling with war stores.
I'm wondering how far back we could go with that story, probably to the Peloponnesian War, if we tried.

[narfstar]

Krac I am also an Army vet and you are right. I think his mistake was thinking in terms of 1st Lt being the first step of Lt. But they actually started out at the lowest rank being second Lt then promoted to 1st.

[John Kerry]

I always presumed you went from 1st to 2nd so I have learned something.

[narfstar]

That is what we are here for John