DC Finest: War: The Big Five Arrive

by Robert Kanigher (Contributor)

Genres: Comics, War, Dc Comics

616 pages, Paperback

Published November 11, 2025

About the author

See also as Bob Kanigher

One of the most prolific writers in comics, particularly in the Silver Age. He took over scripting duties on Wonder Woman after William Moulton Marston's death, and handled the character's transition from the Golden to the Silver Age. He also created Barry Allen, the second Flash, for editor Julius Schwartz's superhero revival of 1956, as well as writing and editing DC's pioneering war titles.
His creations include Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier, Barry Allen, Ragman, the Losers, Black Canary, the Metal Men, Poison Ivy, Enemy Ace, the Suicide Squad, and Rex the Wonder Dog.

Reviews

[Gary Sassaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of the DC Finest “genre” books I’ve bought (the others being Science Fiction, Horror, and the upcoming Western) and I enjoyed it a great deal. The Big Five in the sub-title refer to the series of books—almost an imprint in and of itself within DC—that were war titles: All American Men of War, GI Combat, Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, and Star-Spangled War Stories, alongside Blackhawk, which was never considered part of the Big Five, but evidently was a war book in DC’s eyes. I think this particular moment (all the books reprinted in this volume are from January through April 1957) is when DC took over both Blackhawk and G.I. Combat from Quality Comics when that company stopped publishing. Amazingly, all six titles were monthlies, and what you get here is four solid months worth of their issues. Other than Blackhawk, these are all anthology titles; at this point none of the war books had recurring characters, although that would soon change. The high point of this volume for me is the art; the stories—mainly written by Robert Kanigher and Bob Haney—are forgettable for the most part. But the war books had a “usual suspects” team of artists including Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Ross Andru (and Mike Esposito), Jerry Grandenetti, Jack Abel, and someone named Art Peddy, who I was unfamiliar with until this book. All of Kubert and especially Heath’s stories are standouts, and for some reason they’re the only two artists who sign their stories. But beyond those two artists, you’ll spend a lot of time looking back to the contents pages to help figure out who drew each story. Each title has four stories per issue, too, ranging anywhere from 4 to 8 pages each, so what we have here is 80 stories in the Big Five books, plus an additional 12 from Blackhawk, which had three 8-page stories each issue. That’s a whopping 92 stories in this volume! The next war book—due in May—will be devoted to the earliest stories of Sgt. Rock, DC’s perennial war hero. Not sure I’ll pick that one up, but I liked this glimpse into DC’s war comics output for four months of 1957.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Five DC war comics were Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, Star Spangled War Stories (renamed from Star Spangled Comics"), G.I. Combat (acquired from Quality Comics along with Blackhawk) and All-American Men at War (which started life as All-American Comics, then All-American Westerns before being converted into a war comic).

These early stories from the 1950s are all from when these books were all anthologies, with usually 4 stories per issues and no recuring characters. Most are set in World War 2, but there are a smattering of Korean War stories as well.

The stories are all fun, with each one usually built around a gimmick--a machine gunner hauling a .50 caliber gun up a steep hill watches a black ant defend a rock against an army of red ants, then has to do the same against an army of North Koreans; a soldier who hates water has to keep going underwater while scouting a swamp to get the drop on Germans; a boy who window-shopped for toy soldiers is an infantryman as an adult, diving through a window to battle real-life soldiers. What elevates the gimmicks to wonderful stories is the fantastic art by Russ Heath, Ross Andru, Joe Kubert and others. The DC war comics achieved true greatness when regular protagonists such as Sgt. Rock and the Haunted Tank began to appear each month, but the art in these early issues hint at the greatness to come.

This volume also includes issues of Blackhawk. They are fun issues and Blackhawk did start out fighting the Axis during WW2, but his post-war science fiction-based adventures don't really fit in thematically with the grittier (if no more realistic) stories from the Big Five. Blackhawk probably needed to be saved for his own DC Finest volume.

[Ángel Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otra magnífica colección de cómics, esta vez de guerra, que nos ofrece la imprescindible línea «DC Finest». De primeras, nos quedamos de todas todas con las historias dibujadas por el gran Joe Kubert y el no menos excelente Russ Heath. Jerry Grandenetti está todavía un poco verde, pero ya se ven las maneras del idiosincrático artista en el que acabaría convirtiéndose, mientras que Ross Andru demuestra que lo suyo era esto, y no los tebeos protagonizados por cierto trepamuros. En cuanto a los guiones, pues es el punto débil del volumen, ya que, aparte de la moralina barata y sin matices que, por otro lado, es la propia de la época, los temas se repiten una y otra vez (como es normal), a pesar de que dos grandes escritores, como fueron Robert Kanigher y Bob Haney, logran dar a sus historias un toque de originalidad, de rudeza e incluso de brutalidad únicos.

En fin, que son tebeos muy buenos en general, pero lo gordo de verdad vendrá cuando publiquen por fin Sargent Rock y Enemy Ace. Entretanto, disfrutemos de estas series un tanto menores en comparación con las que las sucederían.