Four-Color Combat
Since the 1930s, comic books have graphically depicted America at war.
By Don Vaughan

During World War II, a Polish aviator known as Blackhawk lost his family when Germany invaded his homeland. Together with an international team of freedom fighters, Blackhawk fought the Nazi menace throughout the war and engaged in other adventures long after.

Many Americans followed Blackhawk's adventures - not in newspapers, movie theaters, or on the radio, but in the vividly imagined pages of comic books.

War stories, comic book staples from the beginning, have evolved dramatically over the years as they covered World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. They have ranged from fantasy-driven tales with invincible superheroes to more realistic accounts of the tragedy of human loss. They have served as propaganda to boost morale and as vehicles for social commentary or important issues of the day.

Where it all began

The comic book, a uniquely American art form, debuted in the early 1930s as a reprint vehicle for popular newspaper strips such as "Mutt and Jeff," "Hairbreadth Harry," and "Joe Palooka." Offering 68 pages of full-color fun for only a dime, the revolutionary medium was an instant hit. Soon publishers began looking for original material to fill their pages. A variety of genres flooded newsstands, including funny animals, jungle adventures, detective stories - and war.

As with the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, the earliest war comic books dealt primarily with aviators, who were considered more glamorous than mud-spattered grunts. One of the most popular early aviator titles was John L. Blummer's "Hop Harrigan," which first appeared in All-American Comics No. 1 and later became a long-running radio serial. Similarly themed comic books would soon follow, including Captain Midnight, Captain Aero, Captain Flight, Flying Cadet, Aviation Adventures and Model Building, True Aviation Comics Digest, Air Ace, and the popular Wings Comics.

Most of these comic books dealt with espionage on the home front and the developing war in Europe and Asia. Once American involvement in World War II seemed inevitable, comic book publishers capitalized on the villainy of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.

Fantasy versus reality

Few comic books published during the war years dealt realistically with combat. Most publishers preferred instead to treat the war with an element of fantasy, sending costumed spy smashers and invincible superheroes such as Captain America and Daredevil to lay a right hook across Hitler's deserving jaw. It was propaganda at its finest, and the American public - and servicemembers - couldn't get enough.

"World War II was such a grim part of everyday life that people were looking more for [escapist entertainment] than a reminder of what was happening overseas," observes comic book historian Mike Benton, author of The Comic Book in America: An Illustrated History (Taylor Publishing, 1989).

"Costumed superheroes were a comforting fantasy for the younger brothers and sisters of servicemembers [and the servicemembers themselves] because there was no doubt regarding the outcome of the battle - they were going to destroy the enemy."

Heyday of the war comic

With the end of World War II came the demise of most war-related titles. The popularity of the costumed superhero began to wane, and publishers turned to other genres in a desperate bid to retain reader interest.

But when the Korean War broke out, combat was once again on the front page of every newspaper in the world. War comics were suddenly in demand, and publishers began churning them out in remarkable numbers.

"Star Spangled Comics was changed to Star Spangled War Stories, and All-American Comics, which had been changed to All-American Western, was changed to All-American Men of War," notes Michael Uslan, author of America at War: The Best of dc War Comics (Simon & Schuster, 1979). "Publishers finally realized, based on sales figures, that they had something hot in war comics, and that triggered an explosion."

But the war comics of the 1950s were different from the fantasy-driven titles published during World War II. They were darker, more realistic, and less jingoistic. "One thing to keep in mind is that from the end of World War II to the early 1950s, comic books were just as much an adult medium as a children's medium," explains Benton. "Many of the readers were young males in their 20s who missed World War II but had a desire ... to see war portrayed in a realistic fashion. Comic books allowed them to do that."

A few titles of the early 1950s, particularly those published by Timely Comics (later known as Marvel Comics), trumpeted the glory of war. But for the most part, publishers emphasized the negative consequences of global conflict, particularly in terms of human loss.

"There was a certain naïveté to the superhero stories published during World War II, and that changed abruptly in the 1950s," says William Savage Jr., a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma at Norman and author of Comic Books and America: 1945–1954 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1990).

"The only explanation I can come up with is that enough people ... in the comic book industry had participated in World War II and emerged from it with firsthand knowledge of what war was really like," says Savage. "It was a 180-degree turn from the gung-ho optimism of the World War II period to an almost totally pessimistic view of the individual in a combat situation. In my opinion, the war comics published during the Korean War were really the only antiwar literature of the day."

Social relevance

Every major publisher offered a few war titles during the Korean War period, but leading the pack was dc Comics, the publisher of Our Army at War, gi Combat, and Our Fighting Forces, among others. The guiding force behind these books was editor/ writer Robert Kanigher, one of the most talented and prolific wordsmiths in comic book history. Though he never served in the military, Kanigher wrote realistic, incredibly evocative tales that appealed to military personnel and civilians alike.

Kanigher was a true innovator in the genre, and he eagerly used war comic books as a forum to address contemporary social issues. Shortly after news broke of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, for example, Kanigher wrote a story set in World War II titled "Head Count" that dealt with a similar atrocity. That story was later the focus of a New York Times Sunday Magazine article on the social relevance of comic books.

Kanigher introduced one of the genre's first recurring black characters, Jackie Johnson. "We took liberties with that character because, as everyone knows, the races were pretty much segregated during World War II," says Joe Kubert, who drew hundreds of war stories for dc Comics. "But [Kanigher] felt it was important, and I agreed with him. Reader response was very, very positive." Another of Kanigher's recurring characters, Rittmeister Hans Von Hammer, aka Enemy Ace, presented war from the enemy's perspective.

Kanigher's most enduring contribution to war comics, however, was breathing life into Sgt. Rock of Easy Company - one of the most popular and recognizable characters to arise from the genre. Created by writer Bob Haney, Sgt. Rock first appeared in April 1959 in Our Army at War No. 81. A rather ordinary soldier at first, he became a comic book icon that would last nearly 30 years.

"I think the credibility of the character is the most important reason for its longevity," says Kubert, who is working on a new Sgt. Rock graphic novel. "We used to get letters from guys in the Army who spoke of him as if he were their buddy. ... He was a character they could really relate to."

Kanigher used comic books to advance a sometimes not-so-subtle antiwar/pro-soldier agenda, but he wasn't alone. One of the most vociferous of the antiwar advocates was Harvey Kurtzman, the editor and primary writer of ec Comics' two action titles, Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales. Kurtzman's military experience had convinced him war was a bloody, wasteful, and ultimately futile endeavor. He used his titles to illustrate that point, and as a result produced some of the best-known war stories published in the medium.

Many of Kurtzman's tales were set in Korea while the war raged. He dedicated an entire issue of Two-Fisted Tales to the battle at the Changjin Reservoir, and he paid tribute to medics, helicopter pilots, and even company cooks - essential personnel who often were overlooked by other war comics.

It was when Kurtzman focused on the individual, however, that he best expressed his convictions. In one classic story titled "Enemy Assault," a lone American serviceman finds himself sharing a foxhole with a wounded Chinese soldier. Holding guns on each other, the men talk and discover they have much in common, including children of the same age. However, their tenuous bond quickly breaks when the Chinese attack again, forcing the American to kill the enemy soldier. "I had to choose sides! I had to!" the American cries. "You can't fight a war by comparing baby snapshots!"

The Vietnam War

The Korean War, World War II, and even the Civil War have been frequent backdrops for comic book war stories, but publishers always have been somewhat reluctant to address the Vietnam War. EC's Two-Fisted Tales featured a story on the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in issue No. 40 (December 1954), and Dell's Jungle War Stories offered tales about the conflict as early as 1962. But for the most part, stories set in Southeast Asia were relatively rare. Other early examples include Warren Publishing's excellent but short-lived Blazing Combat and dc Comics' realistic Captain Hunter series in Our Fighting Forces. However, Captain Hunter failed to catch on with readers, and the title's focus quickly shifted back to World War II.

"World War II was a very comfortable war for us after the fact," explains Benton. "It was very black and white - good vs. evil. The same is true of the Korean War. But the Vietnam War wasn't nearly as popular, nor as black and white. We saw it every night on television, and comic book readers simply didn't want to be reminded of it.

"Interestingly, while the Vietnam War was going on, there was still a popular readership for World War II comic books such as Our Army at War and gi Combat," says Benton. "These were especially popular with American servicemen in Vietnam because it was a comfortable period [of time] to portray. There were heroes and the outcome of the war was guaranteed."

It wasn't until the 1980s, however, that mainstream publishers began addressing the grim realities of the Vietnam War. Marvel Comics published The 'Nam and Semper Fi, and Apple Comics, an independent publisher, pushed boundaries with Don Lomax's Vietnam Journal, which graphically portrayed the war's violence and the sacrifices made by the servicemembers who fought it.

The end of a genre

By the end of the Vietnam War, however, war as a genre was on its deathbed. Young people were spending their money and time on other forms of entertainment.

"The war comic simply lost its appeal to its audience," says Uslan. "As that group got older, the new generation was propelled more by video games and computers and became less and less attuned to comic books."

Enthusiasts who grew up reading war comics mourn their loss. "The unfortunate thing," concludes Benton, "is that with the loss of the war comic book, we also have lost an important ideal of heroism - the sense of being a hero, of fighting the good fight and dying the good death. Young people just don't get that from video games."