Our Fighting Forces #124 (On Sale: January 8, 1970) has a
Losers cover by
Joe Kubert.
This issue begins with
The Losers in "Losers Take All" by
Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and
Mike Esposito. The Losers sneak in through Nazi-occupied France to another, unnamed Nazi-occupied country to rescue a king from the hands of the Nazis. There is a modicum of action along their way to the castle where the king is being held, but they eventually make it. There they find that the king is only a child.
As the Nazis storm the castle ("Have good time stormin' the castle!"), the Losers escape with the boy-king by making parachutes out of the royal curtains ("No, not the curtains!"). After blowing up a statue of Hitler in the town plaza the Losers turn the boy over to Allied forces. I'm not quite sure I see the purpose in this story existing, but I feel that way after reading many Kanigher books.
There is a nice two-page
Battle Album on the
"Killer Flying Fish of the North Atlantic" by
Ken Barr.
We end with the "find' of the issue:
"Parable" by
Jerry DeFuccio and
John Severin. This is the first of five war stories that
Jerry DeFuccio would write for DC and it is wonderful in its richness of character and place. This may be due to Jerry's tenure at EC Comics where he was an assistant editor and researcher for
Harvey Kurtzman's war books,
Frontline Combat and
Two-Fisted Tales, books for which Jerry also wrote stories
. But Jerry is mainly known for his long career as a writer at
Mad Magazine, where was was also an associate editor for 25 years. Jerry DeFuccio died of cancer in August, 2001.
The
"Parable" takes place in British-occupied Kandahar Afghanistan in the 1880s and tells the tale of one Private Shelley, a tightrope walker turned British soldier who fell in love with Afghanistan and after his discharge went to live with one of the local tribes. There he made the tribesmen's lives better, lowering the infant mortality rate and turning the men to a more peaceful way of life. But they believed that Shelley was a saint and as such would serve them better in paradise looking after their black souls, so one day they gutted him and left him on the side of the road for dead while they rushed home to pray for his released spirit in paradise.
But he wasn't quite dead yet and a British patrol finds him and brings him to their fort, where none of them recognize him since his appearance had changed so much since joining the tribe. When they ask him through a translator if his wound is deep he answers with a quote from Romeo and Juliet, "Tis not deep as a well nor wide as a church-door" and they realize that he is an Englishman. As one of the men put it, "He died as an Englishman...without denying his people of the Hindu-Kush!" This story was reprinted in
Sgt. Rock Special #3.
This story also marked the first work at DC by
John Severin since 1958, his first work with the company being in 1948 on a
Boy Commandos story. Severin has had four good runs at DC, the first in 1957-1958 doing war stories. The second begins with this story and continues a year from now when he takes over the reigns of the
Losers from 1971-1974. The third begins in late 1980 and really picks up steam in 1981 when he draws
Enemy Ace for two years. His fourth run began in 2000 and contains runs on
Desperadoes Quiet of the Grave, Caper, and
Bat Lash.
John Severin is well known for his stint at EC Comics working on
Two-Fisted Tales and of course as one of the five artists who began
Mad. When EC folded John worked for years at Atlas/Marvel and was well regarded as an inker for
Dick Ayers in
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and
Herb Trimpe on
The Incredible Hulk. In the 1970s he worked with his sister
Marie Severin on
King Kull.
Many people know
John Severin from his years of association with
Cracked Magazine, where he did countless movie and TV parodies and tons of covers.
Edited by
Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #127 (On Sale: July 9, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #125 (On Sale: March 3, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert
Our Fighting Forces #124 (On Sale: January 8, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.
This story also marked the first work at DC by John Severin since 1958, his first work with the company being in 1948 on a Boy Commandos story. Severin has had four good runs at DC, the first in 1957-1958 doing war stories. The second begins with this story and continues a year from now when he takes over the reigns of the Losers from 1971-1974. The third begins in late 1980 and really picks up steam in 1981 when he draws Enemy Ace for two years. His fourth run began in 2000 and contains runs on Desperadoes Quiet of the Grave, Caper, and Bat Lash.
Our Fighting Forces #123 (On Sale: November 6, 1969) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #122 (On Sale: September 11, 1969) has a cover by Joe Kubert. This is the last issue for Lt. Hunter and his Hellcats.
Our Fighting Forces #121 (On Sale: July 10, 1969) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #120 (On Sale: May 8, 1969) has another Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #118 (On Sale: January 9, 1969) features a Joe Kubert Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover.
Our Fighting Forces #117 (On Sale: November 12, 1968) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #116 (On Sale: September 12, 1968) has just a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.
Our Fighting Forces #115 (On Sale: July 11, 1968) has a rather uninspiring cover by Joe Kubert featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.
Our Fighting Forces #114 (On Sale: May 9, 1968) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert (Irv Novick having moved on to Batman and Wonder Woman duty).
Our Fighting Forces #113 (On Sale: March 14, 1968) has another nice Irv Novick cover featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.
Our Fighting Forces #112 (On Sale: January 11, 1968) has a fairly nice Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Irv Novick.
Our Fighting Forces #111 (On Sale: November 14, 1967) features a cover by Irv Novick featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.
Our Fighting Forces #110 (On Sale: September 19, 1967) has an interesting Irv Novick cover. Once again there seems to be a touch of Joe Kubert here and there in the inks.