Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert introduced Hans von Hammer, the Enemy Ace in 1965. It was excellent, but the WW I flying ace didn’t get his own series for three years. It’s the only war comic I’ve ever collected (in the form of two hardback archives). Here Joe Kubert gives the Hammer of Hell a heck of a cover for the second issue of his Star Spangled War Stories appearance
I think Kubert might have a definite future in comics art.
Russ Heath’s cover for G.I. Combat #130 isn’t as gripping but having Attila show up in a WW II book got me curious — was it symbolic (the Nazis are as bad as the Huns!) or something like the Viking Prince joining forces with Sgt. Rock? When I looked up the issue on Mike’s Amazing World I learned this was Attila’s third appearance in the series; just as General J.E.B. Stuart served as spirit guide to Jeb Stuart’s tank and its crew, Attila serves the same role for tank crews on the Nazi side. I had absolutely no awareness of this (Jeff, as a war comics fan, might) but no question it’s a natural development of the series premise. And the DC war books exist in the same continuity as their superhero books, so such weirdness is never impossible.
The Kubert cover is still cooler though.
#SFWApro.
Never saw that story, though I have it in my digital files (I am never gonna get through all of it). It makes sense, as much as anything with the war comics, to mirror the heroes. Not sure I would pick Atilla the Hun, though, as the Germans would have been more likely to claim someone like Charlemagne; or, on a more equivalent note, General Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, the commander of the Prussian forces at Waterloo. Kanigher was never much of a student of military history. The Germans saw the Huns as the Asian enemy of the East, part of the Russians and Slavs, which doesn’t exactly make Atilla a figure they would promote. Granted, Stuart was part of the Confederacy and therefore of a failed rebellion; but, his cavalry acumen is largely why he was used, for the Haunted Tank, since the armored corps were the modern equivalent.
I haven’t had a chance to really explore more of the Haunted Tanks annals; but, I’ve read a large chunk of Enemy Ace and that was some of Kanigher’s best writing, though it tends to get repetitive, if you read a lot of it, over a short period of time. It romanticizes too much of the fighting, even with the depiction of Von Hammer as a lone killer, haunted by the death he brings. You get this impression that Kanigher’s knowledge of such things is based on Hollywood and maybe a few novelists. Kubert, however, did his research and his planes are correct, just as his tanks and uniforms were generally. Heath also did his research.
The ebst is still Sam Glanzman, though, as he made sure to get everything right, no matter the side or the service. He’s about the only one who got the Navy correct, having been a Tin Can sailor. Nobody ever topped the USS Stevens stories he did, for naval stories.