Showcase Presents: Our Army at War, Vol. 1

Showcase Presents #89

by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru (Illustrator), Mike Esposito (Illustrator)

This value priced collection features over 500 pages of war stories from the early 1950s starring a wide variety of soldiers in a variety of settings, boasting, as the covers said, "Explosive battle action!" Stories include: "Dig Your Foxhold Deep!" "Frightened Hero" "Battle Souvenir" "Dive Bomber" "I, The Gun" "Undersea Raider" "Flying Blind"

Genres: Comics, War

512 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2010

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

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a collection of 1950s war comics which, despite the name, could just as easily been about American navy personnel or marines, to say nothing of Napoleon's drummer boy. The lack of name, reoccurring characters means that occasionally the main character could die a heroic death, though this was rare. Good action and all, but the book had two strikes against it. The first was the occasional racist depiction of Asian characters, both friend and foe. The second was a habit mostly of writer Robert Kanigher, creator of Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, and the Unknown Soldier, where his stories after a point are always written in the second person, where even if the character has a name, he is always "you".

Most of the stories depict the Korean War (for the first few issues) or World War II. The rest take place in other American conflicts, including one mislabeled story in the French and Indian War listed as 1775.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a lot better than I thought it would be. While I expected the war comics in this collection to be cheesy Silver Age stuff, they were actually well written. They did a good job of including both exciting action and interesting characters despite each story only lasting 6 pages.

[Kevin]

awesome war comics love very much lol ajdsfanruengrijruw 84y9v