So in the small stack of war comics that I’ve collected since last November, I have some books that I guess you’d consider the more “classic” type of war comics: books that center mostly around World War II and were published in either the Silver Age or Bronze Age by one of the major comic book companies (and one slightly less major one). They were all poor condition quarter-bin grabs that even if disappointing were going to at least be worth that little money spent.

We’re going to start with two books from Charlton, the company known for “Fightin’ [insert military branch here]” along with its “Action Heroes” characters that DC eventually purchased and introduced into its modern-day continuity via Crisis on Infinite Earths (I believe they were on Earth-4). The two books I have represent each of those types of publications, although the first one isn’t from Charlton but “Modern Comics,” which was a line that reprinted a bunch of classic Charlton books in the 1970s. I found just a little bit about that history on a random blog post and message boards that Google and the Internet Archive had saved and it’s an interesting trivia fact.

Anyway, said “Modern Comics” reprint is Judo Master #98, starring a hero that has an appearance during Crisis on Infinite Earths #6 where he fights Katana during the time when Psycho Pirate is controlling three worlds. Other than that, this is the only book of his that I’ve ever read. It’s the last issue of the series and has work by Frank McLaughlin and Dick Giordano, both of whom did some great work for DC in the 1970s and 1980s. Featuring two stories–a Judo Master adventure called “The Isle of Dragons” and a Sarge Steel story called “The Case of the Key West Caper.” The Sarge Steel stuff is fun in the action/adventure comics sort of mold, but it’s the Judo Master story belongs in a story like “The War That Time Forgot” or something similar that DC would have published. It’s entertaining enough but the definition of a “disposable” story in which you read it and then toss it.

Fightin’ Army #86 is part of the ongoing stories of “The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz”, and is an issue that was highlighted in TwoMorrows’ Our Artists At War book. It’s the work of one of the classic war comics creative teams of Will Franz and Sam Glanzman and is the story of an escape from a POW camp. I’d never read the Willy Schultz stories, but the cover intrigued me. But as much as the authors of Our Artists at War praised this book, I didn’t find it very memorable. Maybe it’s because I was coming in the middle of a serialized story, but even so, I’m not that interested in seeing what the rest of it entails. Still, the art is really good.

Moving on to Marvel, I have Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #53, which is titled “To the Bastions of Bavaria” and I really don’t need to give you a summary or a full review because just like the last issue of this title I looked at on this blog, it’s straight-up fun action. Sure, it’s not realistic and probably seems more “war superhero” than “war comics”, but I don’t think that you go into a Sgt. Fury comic thinking that you’re going to get deep introspection on the nature of war.

The same can be said with the two DC books that I read: Blackhawk #272 and The Brave and the Bold #108. The Blackhawk issue is the penultimate issue of the series and is a pretty solid “seductress/spy origin” story by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle with a backup story called “The Artist” by Evanier and Ken Steacy. “The Domino Principle”, which was that main story, was enjoyable as we found that one of the Blackhawk’s old girlfriends was a German woman who pledged her allegiance to Hitler and the Third Reich and allowed herself to be trained to be the perfect assassin; “The Artist” looks at the guy who painted portraits of scantily clad ladies on the sides of B-17 bombers. Both are well written and have gorgeous art, but knowing that DC’s about a year before the beginning of Crisis, I’m not surprised the book was on its last legs.

The Brave and the Bold by this point was hitting its stride in the Batman team-up era and is a story by the classic team of Bob Haney and Jim Aparo. In this case, Batman is teaming up with Sgt. Rock (the second such team-up after their first in issue #84 and they would team up twice more) for a story set in the post-war present. Batman takes a bullet for a kid and is rescued by a mysterious person–to whom he pledges his soul for some zany reason. Later on, he meets up with Sgt. Rock who is convinced that the person is actually Adolf Hitler, who survived the war, and whom Rock has been hunting obsessively since the war ended. The premise makes no sense and yet this book is endlessly entertaining. It’s also classic Aparo Batman and you can’t go wrong with that. I’m pretty sure that this one is available digitally and out of all of them, was my favorite book of the lot.

The verdict on all of these? I’m getting rid of the Charlton books and Blackhawk but holding on to Sgt. Fury and Brave and the Bold.