Asians in Combat JOHN WAYNE ADVENTURE COMICS "Bridgehead"

Ten-HUT!

You know John Wayne did a Vietnam War movie (Green Berets)...

...but he never did a Korean War flick!

(Jet Pilot is a Cold War movie involving Russians.

No Koreans or scenes set in Korea.)

Comic books were a different matter...

Trivia: Besides not doing a Korean War movie, Wayne never did a film set in World War II Germany!
This never-reprinted tale is from Toby's John Wayne Adventures #15 (1952), penciled by Mel Keefer.(The other credits are unknown)
You'll note that Wayne is referred to as "John Wayne", not "John Wayne as Sgt Stryker" or some other character he played in movies or a totally-new character!
One of the conceits of this 31-issue series, John Wayne Adventure Comics, was that Wayne was always himself in the stories, no matter where or when they were set!
Stories ran the gamut from Wayne in the French Foreign Legion to putting out oil-rig fires to big-game hunting in Africa to tracking spies in Hong Kong, with at least one Western-themed story every issue.
Oddly enough, though there are numerous comic adaptations of Wayne's Western movies, and even a comic based on The Conqueror (where he portrayed Genghis Khan), there are no comic adapting any of his war movies!
Until next time...

Dis-Missed!

Please Support War Past, Present & Future!

Visit Amazon and Order...

John Wayne
Four Fim Favorites

CoronaVirus Comics KENT BLAKE OF THE SECRET SERVICE "Unseen Death!"

TEN-HUT!

During the Korean War, some of our spies were re-assigned to combat units...

...where their specialized talents were often utilized to best effect!

Oddly, though Lee Tsui was obviously a carrier, Kent Blake was not affected, despite extremely...close...contact!

There were quite a few "germ warfare" stories involving North Koreans, far more than such tales about Germans or Japanese during World War II!

Since the NKs lacked the nuclear weapons the USSR and Red China possessed, writers utilized biological warfare as a hook for stories involving infiltrating Communist lines!

Penciled and inked by Tom Gill, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Kent Blake of the Secret Service #8 (1952) shows a lot of storytelling influence from Harvey Kurtzman's then-current Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales for EC Comics...

...especially on Page 2, which doesn't really need to be in this story...

BTW, the story's scripter is, sadly, unknown!

Until Next Time...

Dis-MISSED!

Please Support

War: Past, Present and Future!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Corpse on the Imjin

and Other Stories by Harvey Kurtzman

CoronaVirus Comics MEN'S ADVENTURES "Germ Warfare"

Ten-HUT!

The belief that the North Koreans would use biological warfare...

...dates back to the Korean Police Action, as shown by this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Men's Adventures #19 (1953)!

An uncredited writer, penciler Arthur Peddy, and an unknown inker produced this tale that showed Americans taking the moral high ground by not using biological weapons, just some gold ol' guile, using the enemy's own propaganda against them!

Until next time...

Dis-MISSED!

Please Support

War: Past, Present and Future!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Corpse on the Imjin

and Other Stories by Harvey Kurtzman

ATOMIC WAR! "Arctic Assault"

Ten-Hut!

We return to a potential near future (the 1960s as seen in 1952)...

 ...where the Cold War became hot when Russia launched a sneak attack on the US and NATO with nuclear weapons!

Could Draft-dodger and current National Security Advisor candidate John Bolton have been inspired by this never-reprinted tale of aerial atomic action in the Arctic from Ace's Atomic War #4 (1953)?

Bolton would've been 5 or older when he read this issue at home or at the local barber shop, or in his friends' collections (presuming he had any friends)

The writer is unknown, but the illustrator was Ken Rice who rendered the bulk of the stories in both Atomic War! and World War III!

See you soon...

Dis-missed!

Visit the Atomic PX...

 ...for all your radiation-proof 
uniform and equipment needs!

WORLD WAR III "Commando in Mufti"

Ten-Hut!

Things are not as they seem in this tale...

...about a third World War that began in 1960!

(You remember when that happened, right?)

This never-reprinted (in color) story from Ace's World War III #2 (1953) was written by pulp and paperback writer Robert Turner and apparently inked by Jim Mooney, who might have penciled it, as well.

Until we meet again...

Dis-missed!

WAR FURY "Unconquered"

Ten-hut!

It's Memorial Day, 2013...

...and, with our humble thanks to those who serve, a tale about the first (and hopefully, only) Korean War, published at it's height in 1953!

This story from Comic Media's War Fury #1 (1952) is typical of the period.

The emphasis is on the enemy being Communists, not Asians, as was done (sometimes to extremes) in World War II comics.

(That's not to say racial insults or ethnic stereotypes weren't occasionally used,but they weren't on the level of the extreme caricatures of cartoonish slant-eyed and buck-toothed Japanese from the previous war.)

Plus, most of the writers and artists were vets from the European and Asian theatres of war, with first-hand experience of the horrors of war less than a decade earlier.

In the case of this story, artist Don Heck had been too young to enlist (or be drafted) during WWII, but odds are the unknown writer was a vet.

Until next time...

Dis-missed!

Check out the PX..

 ...for all your uniform and equipment needs!