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Originally Posted by sheepherder
I grew up in the 50's/60's [born 1949] and never heard of Sarge Steel or Charlton Comics...Sgt Rock & Easy Co were the only WW II comics I can recall...They weren't the only combat comic stories; there were AAC and Navy tales too, but Rock & the members of his company were the only recurring stories/characters...
I do recall a story from DC's combat-action comics called "Ghost Ship Of Three Wars" where some WW I biplane flew into a cloud and entered WW II Europe against BF-109's, then into another cloud and flew into Korea against Mig 15's...IIRC, the enemy planes all had the same nose-art (like it was the same pilot each time)...I really can't recall any other storylines from the combat comics...Somebody told me they 'cleaned up' Sgt Rock in the later comics; no cigar, no #$%^*@ symbols, no ethnic labels...I guess Rock wasn't politically correct enough... 
Funny what things you can remember from 50+ years ago...  |
I was born in 1953 Sheepherder, so we're from the same generation. I also remember Sgt Rock of Easy Company too, and "little sure shot" the American Indian in his squad. Do you remember a nazi nemesis of Sgt Rock who was called "The Iron Major"? He had an iron hand like "Sarge Steel" had and he sometimes used a Luger, a Mauser Broomhandle C96, as well as a funky hybrid of a Luger/Broomhandle C96.
Joe Kubert didn't know gun design well (check the Thompson) nor uniform design (Check the Major's hat & overall uniform). Good thing his main audience was mostly us as children who didn't know any better. Lol.
Check out the below funky Luger/C96 Broomhandle hybrid. A C96 with toggle grips! (Must be a "Khyber Pass" gun Lol!). Obviously the author/illustrator didn't know guns that well or was just having fun combining the two. First the author says: "His Mauser zeroed in right between my eyes" (and indeed it does look like a Mauser C96 Broomhandle only with the toggle grips of a luger! Lol). Then next he says:...."The Luger blazed". So which was it? A Mauser Broomhandle or a Luger? Answer? Both, or whichever the author or us as little kids wanted it to be. Lol! Gotta luv it.
Remember the written text sound for the burp guns of the Chinese and North Koreans in 50's and 60's comics about our guys fighting them in Korea? Their burp gun's sound text was:..."buddha,buddha,buddha!" (Or something very similar sounding to that). Funny that all these years later I remember that written text sound. I always wondered if that was a tongue in cheek reference of the author to many of the enemy soldier's religion being Buddhism. We probably will never know.
I also remember "Enemy Ace" who was based on the WW1 Red Baron, then there was "Captain Storm" the skipper of the U.S. P.T. boat that had a wooden leg, (kind of based on a JFK character but with a wooden leg)....and "Johnny Cloud" the American Navaho Indian who was a fighter pilot. Then there was "Gunner and Sarge" who fought the japs in the pacific. Then there was the comic (I forget its name) about the guys in the WW2 Stuart tank that was "haunted"/protected by the ghost of Confederate General Jeb Stuart, that the style of tank was named after. And let's not forget "Nick Fury and his howling commandos", in WW2 decades before they became all sci fi and became agents of "S.H.I.E.L.D.".
But my favorite comic book character of all time was "The Gunmaster and Bullet the Gun Boy". Kind of like Batman and Robin only in the old west with guns. He wore a full head cover like "The Phantom" did and "Bullet" wore a mask like Batman's Robin wore. Gunmaster's secret identity was a gunsmith and he wore and used all kinds of different cool guns. Some unusual ones of his own design. Like a top fed mag revolver and top fed mag semi auto pistol years before the Borchardt or C96. He wore guns all over him in waist, shoulder and ankle holsters. His guns were like his western version of Batman's utility belt. He was Zorro, The Lone Ranger, Batman and Robin, a gunsmith secret identity.....all rolled into one.....and with all those cool guns. His character's influence still lingers with me today, and my handle at CasCity (cowboy action shooting forum) is "Gunmaster". I attribute "The Gunmaster" having such an influence on me with his novel and ahead of their time gun making abilities, that may have influenced me later in life when I invented bumpfire stocks such as my Akins Accelerator and other bumpfire shooting stocks and devices. His influence on me as a kid was really strong and got my young child's mind to thinking about unusual firearm designs and caused me to take my toy cap guns apart to see how they worked and pretend I was "The Gunmaster" as a child. Funny how a comic book character can influence one so much as a child, that helps set a mind path that influences one later in life (and the anti-gunner's know this too).
Check that top fed mag revolver (like a Bren or Owen) and the mag fed cut down lever gun in the left column of below comic.
Dig that crazy belt fed Vickers/Gatling hybrid on a Vickers tripod mount! Then check the top fed mag pistol. (The Gunmaster could make any kind of gun Lol).
What's really amazing is I also remember reading that very same comic you were talking about Sheepherder, where the WW1 biplane went into the time cloud vortex and fought in three wars. As soon as you started to describe that, I remembered it too. That's amazing we both remember that specific story from a comic book 50 or more years ago! Ohhh....remember the comic called "Amazing Tales" or was it "Amazing Stories"? Something like that. It frequently had WW2 soldiers fighting Dinosaurs or outer space aliens or the like. I remember one where Tojo and Hitler were stranded on an island and both of them grew into giants and then became petrified like statues by some sort of ancient curse. Anyone else remember that one?
It was a better time when we were kids in the 50's and early 60's. We had Senator Joe McCarthy to protect us from the "Red" menace (that today sits in the white house). Comics today suck. Either all touchy feely or sci fi. They don't want another generation of kids growing up idolizing independent heroes of liberty and freedom that used guns to defeat tyranny. No more Sgt Rock. No more Gunner and Sarge. No more Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Can't have another generation of independent minded , liberty loving, "gun nuts" being educated from an early age about guns.....like you and I were. No more "Tiger Joe" toy tank commercials or toy gun commercials like "Johnny Seven, One Man Army (O.M.A.)". All toy guns have to have that orange tip on the barrel and are still frowned upon by teachers and anti-gunners. Ahhh....now where did I put my "Dr Who" "Tardis" time machine. Grab my "Tiger Joe" toy tank I bought off ebay several years ago and set the time selector to 1960 and chew on some Bazooka Joe bubble gun and drink some colored (pop?) fluid from that little 1960's bottle made of wax, and sit back for the trip back to a much better time. If only that were possible.
Me and some of family in 1960 (when comics and t.v. as well as the country was good). I'm the bad little 6 year old boy sticking out his tongue and wearing a twin Hubley cap gun holster rig with a cap pistol in my hand.....naturally
. I regularly wore my twin Hubley cap guns to kindergarden for show and tell every Friday. You already know what would happen if a kid did that today. It's the anti-gun, propagandist, indoctrination of our children and grandchildren to insure they are good little disarmed sheep. Sorry....I digress and best shut it.
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