Growing up, I loved comics. I especially loved the creepy ones... the odd ones... the weird ones. DC Comics had one that mixed two of my favorite comic genres: war, and horror.
From 1971 to 1983, this comic presented short stories of supernatural war stories. I rather miss this series, and would love to have it return to publication.
Today, I'll be examining Issue 107. I like the cover art- which was done by the comic legend Joe Kubert. His art was always so interesting and atmospheric. The details he put into his panels, the way he used shadows and perspective was just genius.
Story One: "Seize the Time!" In this short story, time travellers from 1989 travel back to the past to prevent the take over of their homeland.
This is certainly an interesting concept, and the execution was fairly good considering they only had five pages to tell it. To be honest, this story could easily be extended to a fairly decent sized graphic novel in it's own right. The artwork, was pretty good- though looked fairly standard for Sci-fiction type stories from the 80's... though I will say that the mustache that was worn by Laszlo was kinda outlandish.
Intermission: "The Monster Marines": The Creature Commandos come across a machine gun nest, and Gritteeth, the werewolf has to take it out.
A cute, and humorous little one page strip. The art is amusing, and the punchline made me chuckle.
Story Two: "Last Chance!" A UFO has landed... and sits in judgement of humanity!
This story isn't really a weird war one, but was still interesting. It has some very strong echoes of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). The artwork used shadow and colour nicely to focus your eye on what was important, without sacrificing details on the surroundings- though I have to admit that the faces looked a little messed up.
Story Three: "The Avenging Furies" Major Werner was warned not to enter the valley unless he wished to anger the Furies. Ignoring the warning, the Major soon learns that "Hell hath no fury"...
I really enjoyed this one. The Major is suitably mean, the Furies suitably eerie, and the climax satisfying. I really liked the art on this one. The colour palette was fairly simple, but when combined with the shadows and texture details, it looked really atmospheric and spooky.
Story Four: "The Turnabout Battle" What if, at the Battle of Rappahannock, General Ambrose Burnside had been victorious?
A simple two page story, with an nice little twist at the end. Really nice artwork, with fantastic use of colour and shading- really set the mood for the story.
Story Five: "Death for Hire" Mercenaries hired to force an African Tribe to give up their land soon find out that they aren't the only hired guns in this conflict.
A nice little tale, and an enjoyable twist ending. Really quite enjoyed it. The artwork wasn't bad, but wasn't great.
Story Six: "The Return of Wanderer One" The impending crash of a satellite has some dire effects for humanity's jump to the heavens.
Not really a war story, but an interesting concept that could be stretched out into a nice thriller of sorts. Wasn't much for the artwork on this particular story.
The comic in its entirety is enjoyable, though rather dated compared to the artwork that's possible now a days. This comic would be more for collectors than newcomers to comics. I'm going to put this particular issue of "Weird War Tales" in "The Bad".
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