Even as opposition to the war in Viet Nam was on the rise, DC Comics' war titles continued to offer some of the best non-superhero stories and art in comics, albeit set in WWII, mostly thanks to Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert. CAPT. STORM, here, the wooden-legged PT boat skipper, was generally drawn by Irv Novick who had started out at MLJ back in the thirties and would go on to some renown for Batman and the Flash. As you can see, the Captain tended to go mano-a-mano with the Japanese enemy...a lot.
Storm was DC's first Silver Age (i.e., 1960's) hero to debut in his own self-titled comic, instead of first appearing in a try-out title (Showcase, Brave & Bold) or as a feature in an anthology (like Sgt. Rock in Our Army at War, or The Haunted Tank in G.I. Combat). PT boats and their officers were a hot topic in the early-to-mid sixties, thanks to the late President Kennedy. That may account for DC's apparent confidence in the character.
ReplyDeleteLater, Storm ended up in Our Fighting Forces, in an ensemble strip, The Losers, along with other characters (Johnny Cloud, Gunner & Sarge) whose own individual strips had been cancelled. That may be indicative of a general decline in war comics by the 1970's.