What do you think?
Rate this book
Enemy Ace
Showcase Presents: Enemy Ace, Vol. 1
Famed German fighter pilot Hans von Hammer has learned his lesson all too well, in countless battles high above the blasted fields of World War I Europe. Feared by his own men almost as much as he is hated by the Allies, Rittmeister von Hammer wages a lonely war from the cockpit of his crimson Fokker triplane, struggling to fight with honor amid the savagery of modern combat. But honor can be an expensive luxury in the unforgiving skies where the slightest mistake can bring a swift and merciless death-- a fate that will, inevitably, claim even the Hammer of Hell himself!
Take to the skies in this thrilling volume collecting OUR ARMY AT WAR #151, 153, 155, SHOWCASE #57-58, STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES #138-150, 152 , 158, 181-183, and 200, DETECTIVE COMICS #404, MEN OF WAR #1-3, 8-10, 12-14, 19-20, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER #251-253, 260-261, 265-267 and DC SPECIAL #26!
Take to the skies in this thrilling volume collecting OUR ARMY AT WAR #151, 153, 155, SHOWCASE #57-58, STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES #138-150, 152 , 158, 181-183, and 200, DETECTIVE COMICS #404, MEN OF WAR #1-3, 8-10, 12-14, 19-20, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER #251-253, 260-261, 265-267 and DC SPECIAL #26!
552 pages, Paperback
First published February 13, 2008
About the author
Robert Kanigher
592 books8 followersSee 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 28, 2016
Four stars for the excellent comics also found in The Enemy Ace Archives, Vol. 1 and The Enemy Ace Archives, Vol. 1, but only 2 stars for the rest of the book, which include backups from Men of War and Unknown Soldier. This book contains all of Enemy Ace's stories up to Crisis on Infinite Earths, with the exception of Justice League of America #s 159 & 160, when the Time Lord brings several DC characters from the past to fight the JLA and JSA in the present.
My reviews for the two archives are already posted, so I'll just describe briefly the last 150 pages or so of this black and white volume. As mentioned before, these are all back ups, so they run 6-7 pages each, and each story runs for 2-3 issues. There's not a lot of space to develop characters, and we get a few retreads of stories already published, but there are a few nice exceptions. One involves Enemy Ace's baronial standard, which gets stolen from his castle, a portend for future calamity. Nice twist on that, as the Ace ends up battling a traditional French noble family. One story actually kills of the Ace's longtime aide, Schultz, as the enemy strafes the German airfield. Finally we get a rematch between Enemy Ace and the American Baloon Buster, Steve Savage, in which roles are reversed and the Ace finds himself the prisoner on the Allied side this time.
Every story seems to hinge on honor and the code of ethics I've discussed before, and there are a couple of occasions where Enemy Ace actually turns on his countrymen because they do not follow the same rules of warfare as he does. These stories appeared a number of years apart, so maybe the reader at the time didn't see it as redundant, but it comes across that way in this collection, reading them back to back.
The last story is a silly tale from a 1970 issue of Detective Comics. Bruce Wayne has financed a film about the Enemy Ace, only to have it sabotaged by a strange lookalike to the WW1 ace. This story had to share space with a Batgirl backup (not included) and at only 15 pages, it seems rather slight. Even though it was published 12 years before the last Enemy Ace story here, I think it was included as it features musings by Batman on the nature of war and Enemy Ace's viewpoints towards it. It's a nice coda, I suppose, but although Denny O'Neil is the writer and Neal Adams and Dick Giordano provide the art (this was around the same time as the classic Ra's al Ghul stories), it's not a good fit thematically, I don't think, and the super hero aspect is just weaksauce compared to the great Kanigher stories before it.
Bob Kanigher, Enemy Ace's creator, wrote all the non-Archive stories here, and some of Howard Chaykin's early art for DC was on the Enemy Ace strip. His style is ok, although a bit abstract after Kubert, and his heavy use of blacks is inconsistent with the previous art that is expansive and clear. Veteran war and western artist John Severin provides most of the rest, and his art is very traditional, and quite nice to look at. Ed Davis and Larry Hama provided the rest of the artistic duties, rather forgettable stuff, to be honest.
DC needs to revive Enemy Ace, but war comics are no longer popular, alas. Quite a lot of material here for a tv series or even a movie. Either way, as the Ace himself would say, "The sky is the killer of us all." Hopefully he made it out of the war alive, but enemy though he may have been, he was a true hero and a gentleman.
My reviews for the two archives are already posted, so I'll just describe briefly the last 150 pages or so of this black and white volume. As mentioned before, these are all back ups, so they run 6-7 pages each, and each story runs for 2-3 issues. There's not a lot of space to develop characters, and we get a few retreads of stories already published, but there are a few nice exceptions. One involves Enemy Ace's baronial standard, which gets stolen from his castle, a portend for future calamity. Nice twist on that, as the Ace ends up battling a traditional French noble family. One story actually kills of the Ace's longtime aide, Schultz, as the enemy strafes the German airfield. Finally we get a rematch between Enemy Ace and the American Baloon Buster, Steve Savage, in which roles are reversed and the Ace finds himself the prisoner on the Allied side this time.
Every story seems to hinge on honor and the code of ethics I've discussed before, and there are a couple of occasions where Enemy Ace actually turns on his countrymen because they do not follow the same rules of warfare as he does. These stories appeared a number of years apart, so maybe the reader at the time didn't see it as redundant, but it comes across that way in this collection, reading them back to back.
The last story is a silly tale from a 1970 issue of Detective Comics. Bruce Wayne has financed a film about the Enemy Ace, only to have it sabotaged by a strange lookalike to the WW1 ace. This story had to share space with a Batgirl backup (not included) and at only 15 pages, it seems rather slight. Even though it was published 12 years before the last Enemy Ace story here, I think it was included as it features musings by Batman on the nature of war and Enemy Ace's viewpoints towards it. It's a nice coda, I suppose, but although Denny O'Neil is the writer and Neal Adams and Dick Giordano provide the art (this was around the same time as the classic Ra's al Ghul stories), it's not a good fit thematically, I don't think, and the super hero aspect is just weaksauce compared to the great Kanigher stories before it.
Bob Kanigher, Enemy Ace's creator, wrote all the non-Archive stories here, and some of Howard Chaykin's early art for DC was on the Enemy Ace strip. His style is ok, although a bit abstract after Kubert, and his heavy use of blacks is inconsistent with the previous art that is expansive and clear. Veteran war and western artist John Severin provides most of the rest, and his art is very traditional, and quite nice to look at. Ed Davis and Larry Hama provided the rest of the artistic duties, rather forgettable stuff, to be honest.
DC needs to revive Enemy Ace, but war comics are no longer popular, alas. Quite a lot of material here for a tv series or even a movie. Either way, as the Ace himself would say, "The sky is the killer of us all." Hopefully he made it out of the war alive, but enemy though he may have been, he was a true hero and a gentleman.
February 25, 2018
Enemy Ace é o maior dos ases que lutam nos céus acima das trincheiras da frente ocidental. Imbatível nos céus, cada vitória é uma morte que lhe pesa na consciência. Criado por Bob Kanigher, Enemy Ace é um personagem atípico nos comics que exploram as temáticas ligadas à guerra. As aventuras de Hans Von Hammer oscilam entre a adrenalina das cenas de combate aéreo e a introspecção de um herói que coloca o dever patriótico acima dos seus sentimentos pacifistas. Um olhar atrás, no aCalopsia: Enemy Ace, de Robert Kanigher e Joe Kubert.
February 2, 2024
The Hanmer of Hell hunts the skies of the Great War…while dealing with the infamy that such “success” brings…
Showcase Presents Enemy Ace vol 1 is a collection of the earlier stories of the famous Enemy Ace, the greatest pilot of World War I.
Rittmeister Hans von Hammer is the best pilot on either side of the ne battlefield of the Sky…as Europe is in conflict and uses new war machines to dominate their enemies.
Dc comics has published about of war comics (and most during this period of the 60s and 70s), but only a handful weren’t set during World War II. This is easily the best comic set during World War I that you are likely to find (even ignoring the schlocky WWI comics Garth Ennis or others might have done).
Von Hammer is a skilled pilot that faces many pilots in the skies of Europe, though he regrets that his success comes at the expense of so many lives…including those young German pilots who die trying to emulate him.
Mixed in with the fierce air battles and plane terminology are also a handful of colorful pilots with their own role to play in the Enemy Ace’s epic story.
Most of these stories are serialized or very short, but that’s ok. Of all the war comics by DC and other publishers, few focused on the pilots who fought in this new battlefield, and none were anywhere near as well developed as the Enemy Ace…
Showcase Presents Enemy Ace vol 1 is a collection of the earlier stories of the famous Enemy Ace, the greatest pilot of World War I.
Rittmeister Hans von Hammer is the best pilot on either side of the ne battlefield of the Sky…as Europe is in conflict and uses new war machines to dominate their enemies.
Dc comics has published about of war comics (and most during this period of the 60s and 70s), but only a handful weren’t set during World War II. This is easily the best comic set during World War I that you are likely to find (even ignoring the schlocky WWI comics Garth Ennis or others might have done).
Von Hammer is a skilled pilot that faces many pilots in the skies of Europe, though he regrets that his success comes at the expense of so many lives…including those young German pilots who die trying to emulate him.
Mixed in with the fierce air battles and plane terminology are also a handful of colorful pilots with their own role to play in the Enemy Ace’s epic story.
Most of these stories are serialized or very short, but that’s ok. Of all the war comics by DC and other publishers, few focused on the pilots who fought in this new battlefield, and none were anywhere near as well developed as the Enemy Ace…
September 22, 2026
Many of the stories are very repetetive, but the core concepts of the character are intriguing. The stories certainly over emphasize the gallantry of WW1 fighter pilots, but it's a comic book so in some ways it's what I want out of a romanticized view of a Red Baron-esque character. In the way that comic book characters are often stuck in an endless soapbox tv show style reality where the conflicts go on and on and on almost works even better for an endless horrible conflict like WW1. It's never very important what year in the war Von Hammer's flying in, it's all part of the general horror that is the seemingly endless western front combat. For stories mostly written in the 1960s, it's nice to read about a portrayal of a German character who is portrayed as a real person who despises having to fight and never kills an unarmed opponent. Probably one of the worst elements of the stories are those where Von Hammer gets to kiss beautiful women as they fawn over him or die in his arms almost as a reward, even if several times they reject him for feeling like a cold robot of a man after all of the killing he has done.
The fact that the collection ends with a Batman story of him facing off a fake Enemy Ace in a WW1 plane is very funny and connects this very grounded setting with the fantasy of the DC Universe.
The fact that the collection ends with a Batman story of him facing off a fake Enemy Ace in a WW1 plane is very funny and connects this very grounded setting with the fantasy of the DC Universe.
May 13, 2018
Nonostante una certa ripetitività nelle storie, quello dell'Enemy Ace è un gran bel personaggio, monolitico ma ben tratteggiato, freddo e all'apparenza privo di emozioni, ma estremamente tormentato. Le storie sono ambientate sul fronte occidentale durante la prima guerra mondiale. Più di metà degli episodi sono disegnati da Joe Kubert, e questo già basterebbe a renderlo un must.
Poi c'é Chaykin, e John Severin, che abbassano qualitativamente i disegni di questo malloppo da più di 500 pagine. Ma a livello di storie la qualità resta alta. Certo, in perfetto stile DC comics, non c'è evoluzione del personaggio, ma le tematiche sono attuali ancora oggi.
Inoltre appare anche il "Balloon Buster" che pur essendo un personaggio americano ed avendo motivazioni simili a quelle dell'asso tedesco, ne è caratterialmente l'antitesi. Forse 4 stelle sono troppe, ma molte delle storie sono degli anni '60 e sono invecchiate benissimo.
Poi c'é Chaykin, e John Severin, che abbassano qualitativamente i disegni di questo malloppo da più di 500 pagine. Ma a livello di storie la qualità resta alta. Certo, in perfetto stile DC comics, non c'è evoluzione del personaggio, ma le tematiche sono attuali ancora oggi.
Inoltre appare anche il "Balloon Buster" che pur essendo un personaggio americano ed avendo motivazioni simili a quelle dell'asso tedesco, ne è caratterialmente l'antitesi. Forse 4 stelle sono troppe, ma molte delle storie sono degli anni '60 e sono invecchiate benissimo.
October 24, 2017
Kubert's art is the definite selling point here. The aerial dogfights are really well done - the detail and perspective really make the movement and tension jump off the page. It's too bad the writing doesn't come close to matching it. Kanigher had a solid basic premise but never realized it's potential. Each hits the same few beats - great action sequence, other pilots call von Hammer a killing machine, he hunts in the woods, he sits in front of a fire while his trophies are cleaned. I'm sure it works much better spread out month to month, but it makes for tedious, repetitive reading in a collected format.
January 14, 2020
Great volume by one of the best DC characters I've ever seen, entertaining from page 1 to page 554 except for the pointless Batman issue. I get it was an homage rather than a ret-con, but it's stupid nonetheless. There's no need to link non-superhero people to actual masked continuity, DC!
Wholeheartly recommended.
Wholeheartly recommended.
March 28, 2010
You can usually tell when most cartoonists and comic artists jump the shark. There's a wobble in the pen, and a lack of proportion that probably comes from rushing the drawing. Veteran Joe Kubert (Tarzan, Tor, Sgt. Rock, Hawkman) is one of those rare birds that only gets better with age. His draftsmanship is extraordinary, and his command of spatial forms is unequalled, even today. Which brings us to Enemy Ace, the war (or should I say
anti
-war) stories created by Kubert and the late Bob Kanigher.
DC's war stories all pointed to the same thing: war is hell and we should avoid it at all cost. Enemy Ace, also known as Baron Hans Von Hammer, the "Hammer of Hell," was a unique, complex character that lived out these realities his own way. He was a man of great conviction, honor and duty, so much so that you often forget that he's the "bad guy." He accepted death as a routine, a requirement, but did not revel in it.
The art is nothing short of magnificent. The way Kubert is able to make a flat 7" x 10" comic page look like the wide open skies is remarkable. You get a truly breathtaking perspective in every panel. The wood and paper bi- and tri-planes look real and battle-scarred. And when the inevitable dogfight occurs, you sense the vertigo, the exhaust fumes, the clouds swirling, the distance to earth.
This collection, in black and white on newsprint, isn't the best way to see this work, but I was glad to have it all in one place for a reasonable price. There are a few post-Kubert stories by lesser artists that I consider filler. But then again, everything pales beside the original work.
DC's war stories all pointed to the same thing: war is hell and we should avoid it at all cost. Enemy Ace, also known as Baron Hans Von Hammer, the "Hammer of Hell," was a unique, complex character that lived out these realities his own way. He was a man of great conviction, honor and duty, so much so that you often forget that he's the "bad guy." He accepted death as a routine, a requirement, but did not revel in it.
The art is nothing short of magnificent. The way Kubert is able to make a flat 7" x 10" comic page look like the wide open skies is remarkable. You get a truly breathtaking perspective in every panel. The wood and paper bi- and tri-planes look real and battle-scarred. And when the inevitable dogfight occurs, you sense the vertigo, the exhaust fumes, the clouds swirling, the distance to earth.
This collection, in black and white on newsprint, isn't the best way to see this work, but I was glad to have it all in one place for a reasonable price. There are a few post-Kubert stories by lesser artists that I consider filler. But then again, everything pales beside the original work.
May 11, 2008
I'd give this one five stars, based on the great artwork by Joe Kubert, Howard Chayking, and John Severin, but there's just one slight problem -- there is, in fact, only one Enemy Ace story, and Bob Kanigher just told it over and over again.
German WWI aviator Baron von Hammer takes his triplane up into the killer skies, nearly gets himself killed, comes home, hears everybody call him a "human killing machine," hangs out in the forest with a wolf, the only "friend" who understands him, then goes back in his plane and kills some Allied pilots. On the way back to his base, he inevitably broods that "the sky is the killer of us all."
Oh, and sometimes he refuses to fire on a pilot who's run out of bullets, and then another German shoots that plane down callously, and von Hammer gets ticked, because there's no honor in that.
Also, there's the one where he's stupid enough to take a puppy into the triplane with him, then do a mid-air roll. You can guess how that goes. This was, I think, the attempt to reveal von Hammer's sensitive side.
German WWI aviator Baron von Hammer takes his triplane up into the killer skies, nearly gets himself killed, comes home, hears everybody call him a "human killing machine," hangs out in the forest with a wolf, the only "friend" who understands him, then goes back in his plane and kills some Allied pilots. On the way back to his base, he inevitably broods that "the sky is the killer of us all."
Oh, and sometimes he refuses to fire on a pilot who's run out of bullets, and then another German shoots that plane down callously, and von Hammer gets ticked, because there's no honor in that.
Also, there's the one where he's stupid enough to take a puppy into the triplane with him, then do a mid-air roll. You can guess how that goes. This was, I think, the attempt to reveal von Hammer's sensitive side.
December 9, 2012
One of DC's greatest war comics, follows the adventures of bitter, conflicted world one one german flying ace Hans Von Hammer.
The art is wonderful, losing nothing by being reprinted in black and white, the stories can be a bit same-ish, but fort the most part combine big ariel battle scenes with quieter contemplations on war and its impact on people.
I always loved that one of Dc's most popular war heroes is from the 'bad guy' side of the war.
The art is wonderful, losing nothing by being reprinted in black and white, the stories can be a bit same-ish, but fort the most part combine big ariel battle scenes with quieter contemplations on war and its impact on people.
I always loved that one of Dc's most popular war heroes is from the 'bad guy' side of the war.
May 4, 2013
Joe Kubert's art is amazing and really carries this book because the writing can be repetitive. An interesting perspective on war not only because it is from the vantage point of the other side but because it examines a man who is a good soldier and an honorable man who seems tormented by his killing acumen but continues out of sense of duty.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews