Blazing Combat

 

 

By Matthew Ilseman

Comics have a long history of telling war stories. These stories have range from gritty and realistic to the downright odd. Among the grittier is Blazing Combat. Among the odder versions is Boy Commandos by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby about a gang of kids serving in the British commandos, The War that Time Forgot about U.S. armed forces battling dinosaurs in the Pacific Theater, and The Creature Commandos about a U.S. special operations unit made up of monsters (who sometimes fought the dinosaurs from War That Time Forgot.)

These comics can be fun if viewed the right way. Boy Commandos had great art by Kirby and some stories that were probably better than average for the time even if the book was essentially about child soldiers. It, at least, was an interesting product of its time that probably could not be written today

Then there were gritty and realistic titles of which Blazing Combat is considered one of, if not the, best examples of the genre. It was an anthology title whose stories were written (with one exception) by Archie Goodwin with art by many talented artists including Joe Orlando, Alex Toth, John Severin and Gene Colan. Goodwin is considered one of the best comic book writers of his era.

Whereas the goofy Boy Commandos could be considered WWII era propaganda, Blazing Combat took a critical stance to war. (It should be noted that Boy Commandos artist Jack Kirby would put his money where his mouth was and serve in combat during the war.) Blazing Combat came out during the early Vietnam era and can be considered anti-war. Both Goodwin and publisher Joseph Warren were against the war. However, the book is not anti-American or anti-soldier. Rather it is simply stating that war, just or unjust, was hell.

This message got it banned on military bases, denounced by the American Legion, and even some civilian sellers refused to carry it.

That is the politics of the book not the aesthetics, however. On that front, the book is particularly successful. It is made up of short vignettes of various wars through out history. World War II and The Vietnam are dealt with but so are World War I, Korea, the American Revolution, the Civil War and even the Apache wars. The vignettes are often darkly ironic. The art is fantastic. The interior work is great with each panel being a work of art. Besides the interior artists I mentioned earlier, each issue has a cover by no less than Frank Frazetta.

Notable stories include the grisly “Souvenirs” about Marines in the Pacific and the collection of gold teeth from corpses. (This makes the third time I mentioned that in these reviews.) Another story is a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The most controversial story is “Landscape,” about an elderly farmer in Vietnam who cannot see the differences between either side. I’m not sure I agree with the message. The Communist was, by my lights, worse than the admittedly corrupt South Vietnamese government.

Still, it is an effective story about the human costs of war.

That’s about as political as it gets though. Instead, it is more about the general hell of war. I think that might be why these stories stand the test of time. That seems to be a deeper truth than anything political. Politics changes constantly. Wars come and go, but they are always hell.

History, of course, plays a big part of the stories. One tells the story of Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop who one of the few pilots to survive the war. (There seems to be some controversy about his claims though.) Another deals with the Battle of Saratoga in which Benedict Arnold played a major part in turning the tide of battle. It ends with a soldier ironically saying,

“Benedict Arnold is a name Americans will remember.”

As mentioned before, “Thermopylae” tells the story of the Spartans last stand with a framing device of British soldiers fighting in Greece.

All this makes it tragic that the comic did not last more than four issues. It is proof that serious subjects can be dealt with maturely in comics. One has to wonder what other stories would have been written if it continued.

Blazing Comics is collected in a nice hard cover edition by Fantagraphics. It includes interviews with both publisher Joseph Warren and Archie Goodwin. Even if you are not a comics fan, I would recommend.