Dojo Classics - Boy Commandos Volume Two!

The Boy Commandos was a hugely successful Golden Age comic book feature, and no small reason was its extremely timely setting. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby made their bones on Captain America for Martin Goodman's outfit, but were seeking a better deal and so contracted with DC. What made Captain America stand out was the unusual confluence of real world events and a viscerally patriotic hero who for the most part battled spies and other criminals in the United States. With the Boy Commando, Simon and Kirby take the battle to the Axis powers with a rough and tumble team of tyros.

At Marvel Simon and Kirby had concocted the Young Allies which had Bucky and Toro ally themselves with regular kids to battle such enemies as the Red Skull. They took that formula and introduced an international team of youngsters who rushed into battle alongside the toughest soldiers, commandos who spearheaded the battle against Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. Andre Chavard is French, Alfie Twidgett is British,  Jan Hasaan is Dutch and Brooklyn (no last name) is of course American. These four youngsters served as mascots of a sort, similar to Bucky, but were often on the battlefield across the globe. Their leader is Rip Carter, a sharp-chined classic good guy and all around role model for the boys.

The key to the success of the series was that as interesting as these characters might have been, they were often not the focus of the stories. Very much like Will Eisner's The Spirit, the stories of the Boy Commandos often focused on one-shot characters who demonstrated unusual bravery or cowardice or both. Very often the Commandos themselves would disappear in their own feature, showing up at the end to tie up the loose ends. This gave the stories a real variety and also downplayed the fundamental weakness of the series, the improbability that boys could effectively fight with such gusto on the war front. The stories wind across the globe, hitting all the theaters of war and invariably offered up a patriotic message of support and encouragement.

The Boy Commandos were very much a product of the times and captured the zeitgeist of the country. Simon and Kirby, who both served in the war effort (Simon in the Coast Guard and Kirby overseas under the command of Patton) really seemed to have a sense of what the moment required. They also reveled in the storytelling of comics, clearly to my eye adapting many of the popular tropes of movies to the comic book page, another similarity to Eisner's work. But where Eisner tapped into the film noir aspect of movies, Simon and Kirby seemed to really love comedies and adventures. When I read the dialogue of Brooklyn, I hear the voice of Curly of the Three Stooges ringing in my head.  Whatever the elements of the brew were, it's clear that Simon and Kirby and the members of their studio were pushing the limits of the medium and having fun doing it.

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Dojo Classics - Boy Commandos Volume One

I guess I never realized that the Boy Commandos were so popular. I first encountered the Simon and Kirby DC material when it was tapped to fill up the extra pages in the back of the Fourth World books after DC's ill-fated decision to jump its prices to twenty-five cents way back in those halcyon days of the early 70's. I loved those comics brimming as they were with vintage material but apparently it cost DC once and for all its lead role in the market

Of the Simon and Kirby material which was used, I liked Manhunter the best, Sandman the best after that and Newsboy Legion in third position. The Boy Commandos who appeared in the back pages of the Mister Miracle. The WWII adventures felt out of place. But getting hold of the series in bulk and reading them with a firmer feel for the whole of the Golden Age output, I have to say they age quite well.

The Boy Commandos debuted in the pages of Detective Comics #64 and got a cover appearance in the very next issue. But after that, despite their great success in terms of sales (apparently only second to Superman and Batman) they were relegated to the back up pages of Detective Comics and World's Finest. The boys were widely available but not cover featured much if at all.

The exception was of course when they got their own self-titled comic. Boy Commandos was a quarterly comic and each issue gave us four adventures featuring Brooklyn, Alfy, Andre, Jan along with their adult leader Rip Carter. The title last long after the war and long after both Simon and Kirby had effectively left it for other challenges at other companies.

The first volume of Boy Commandos showcases the debut and many stories from the series as well as the complete stories from the first two issues of the Boy Commandos comic.

More to come later. 

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The Commandos Are Here!

The Boy Commandos was a hugely successful Golden Age comic book feature, and no small reason was its extremely timely setting. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby made their bones on Captain America for Martin Goodman's outfit, but were seeking a better deal and so contracted with DC. What made Captain America stand out was the unusual confluence of real world events and a viscerally patriotic hero who for the most part battled spies and other criminals in the United States. With the Boy Commando, Simon and Kirby take the battle to the Axis powers with a rough and tumble team of tyros.

At Marvel Simon and Kirby had concocted the Young Allies which had Bucky and Toro ally themselves with regular kids to battle such enemies as the Red Skull. They took that formula and introduced an international team of youngsters who rushed into battle alongside the toughest soldiers, commandos who spearheaded the battle against Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. Andre Chavard is French, Alfie Twidgett is British,  Jan Hasaan is Dutch and Brooklyn (no last name) is of course American. These four youngsters served as mascots of a sort, similar to Bucky, but were often on the battlefield across the globe. Their leader is Rip Carter, a sharp-chined classic good guy and all around role model for the boys.

The key to the success of the series was that as interesting as these characters might have been, they were often not the focus of the stories. Very much like Will Eisner's The Spirit, the stories of the Boy Commandos often focused on one-shot characters who demonstrated unusual bravery or cowardice or both. Very often the Commandos themselves would disappear in their own feature, showing up at the end to tie up the loose ends. This gave the stories a real variety and also downplayed the fundamental weakness of the series, the improbability that boys could effectively fight with such gusto on the war front. The stories wind across the globe, hitting all the theaters of war and invariably offered up a patriotic message of support and encouragement.

The Boy Commandos were very much a product of the times and captured the zeitgeist of the country. Simon and Kirby, who both served in the war effort (Simon in the Coast Guard and Kirby overseas under the command of Patton) really seemed to have a sense of what the moment required. They also reveled in the storytelling of comics, clearly to my eye adapting many of the popular tropes of movies to the comic book page, another similarity to Eisner's work. But where Eisner tapped into the film noir aspect of movies, Simon and Kirby seemed to really love comedies and adventures. When I read the dialogue of Brooklyn, I hear the voice of Curly of the Three Stooges ringing in my head.  Whatever the elements of the brew were, it's clear that Simon and Kirby and the members of their studio were pushing the limits of the medium and having fun doing it.

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The Commandos Are Coming!

I guess I never realized that the Boy Commandos were so popular. I first encountered the Simon and Kirby DC material when it was tapped to fill up the extra pages in the back of the Fourth World books after DC's ill-fated decision to jump its prices to twenty-five cents way back in those halcyon days of the early 70's. I loved those comics brimming as they were with vintage material but apparently it cost DC once and for all its lead role in the market

Of the Simon and Kirby material which was used, I liked Manhunter the best, Sandman the best after that and Newsboy Legion in third position. The Boy Commandos who appeared in the back pages of the Mister Miracle. The WWII adventures felt out of place. But getting hold of the series in bulk and reading them with a firmer feel for the whole of the Golden Age output, I have to say they age quite well.

The Boy Commandos debuted in the pages of Detective Comics #64 and got a cover appearance in the very next issue. But after that, despite their great success in terms of sales (apparently only second to Superman and Batman) they were relegated to the back up pages of Detective Comics and World's Finest. The boys were widely available but not cover featured much if at all.

The exception was of course when they got their own self-titled comic. Boy Commandos was a quarterly comic and each issue gave us four adventures featuring Brooklyn, Alfy, Andre, Jan along with their adult leader Rip Carter. The title last long after the war and long after both Simon and Kirby had effectively left it for other challenges at other companies.

The first volume of Boy Commandos showcases the debut and many stories from the series as well as the complete stories from the first two issues of the Boy Commandos comic.

More tomorrow.

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Diverse Commandos!

While Jack Kirby was whittling away in the DC shop during the 70's a few titles were trotted out to take full advantage of DC's rich trove of vintage stories. We get two issues of Boy Commandos, a title which once upon a time during the war was as big a seller nearly as Superman and Batman. Above we see a re-purposing of the original artwork by Kirby and Joe Simon for the debut issue of Boy Commandos.

But you'll quickly note several differences. One is the color scheme and another is the addition of a foreground battery of Nazi soldiers. Also missing is the phalanx of aircraft behind the Commandos.
The guns in the foreground though are not by Jack Kirby, nor are they by Joe Simon who was also working at DC at this time. No the editors made use of the consummate talents of Luis Dominguez to render them. It works really well and the styles blend much better than you might expect.

There was only one more issue of this truncated series and for that we get a brand new cover by Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando. There's an oddness to this one as the figures of the Boy Commandos conform in a strange way to the curvature of the stone arch they are hiding behind. It's not maybe logical but visually it really ties the cover elements together.

Sales alas were not all they might have been and the series ended. It would be a long long time before DC reprinted anymore of these. I'll be taking a look at those this weekend.

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100 Days Of The King - Day 41

I always wondered why a Sherlock Holmes character was included in this ensemble of Simon and Kirby creations.

It turns out that Joe and Jack pitched a Sherlock Holmes strip when they first landed at DC after their success on Captain America at Timely. The idea was nixed but at least now we know why the sleuth from 221 B Baker Street is staring the leering Red Skull in the crimson mug and sits atop this gaggle which includes Stuntman, Cap, Sandman, Guardian, Blue Bolt, The Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, Sandy, Bucky, Betty Ross, Green Sorceress, among others.

You take the image at the tope and add the image above and you have the wonderful cover for The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio by Mark Evanier.

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One-Shots Heard Around The World!

DC has been pretty robust in their celebration of Jack "King" Kirby's one hundred year anniversary and they are coming out with some comics later in the summer to cap off that celebration. We are getting one-shot comics featuring Darkseid, New Gods, both the Newsboy Legion and the Boy Commandos, Manhunter (called OMAC for some reason in DC's promotional materials) and Black Racer with Mister Miracle alongside. Apparently Mister Miracle is coming back in a regular following this round of one-shots. I'm always up for creative spins on Kirby's ideas and since these seem to be done by folks who "grok" the King maybe they will be above average. Looking foward to them.

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Golden Powers!

This is going to be a month of pure gold, specially the "Golden Age" of comic books. This time period is a fertile period of creative energy which produced some of the mighty oaks which have since become centerpieces for major entertainment empires -- Superman, Batman, Captain America and more.

It also wrought a host of lesser creations, some intriguing, some poorly crafted and some just poorly conceived.  To begin I want to take a look at the Fantagraphics collection of an infamous Golden Age artist Turn Loose Your Death Rays and Kill Them All: The Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks. Hanks under an avalanche of pseudonyms gave us the utterly bizarre characters Stardust and Fantomah among others.

Also on tap this month is a look at the very first Joe Simon and Jack Kirby team effort, the character Blue Bolt who appeared in very early Golden Age comics of that very name. You Blue Bolt and the Green Empress above in the Verotik edition. I also have those adventures on hand in the handsome Titan volume of Kirby's sci-fi work for a little comparison and contrast. These are energetic science opera adventures in the spirit of Flash Gordon and such.

And I've just ordered and gotten in some of the Simon and Kirby classics from DC, so if all goes right you might see some Newsboy Legion and maybe even Boy Commandos as the month progresses.

And perhaps even some Newsboy Legion action from a later era, when the next generation of the Legion fought alongside Superman's Best Pal, Jimmy Olsen when Jack "King" Kirby took the reins of that classic comic.

I'd also like to dabble inside one of the more handsome Marvel collections in recent years, the Marvel Firsts: World War II Super Heroes volume which offers up of Timely's most famous and infamous and bizzare features from an era long gone by, but hardly forgotten.

So not forgotten that they get raised up and dusted and put into new stories. The Twelve was the comic series which nearly a decade ago now made me pretty much swear off new comics. The utter failure of the creators to hit their deadlines made the book just one more strong starter that sputtered out and would take years to conclude. It finally did, but I was too annoyed to bother reading the end. Now I've gotten over that and will take another look at this handsome revival.

And to get ready for the Wonder Woman movie which hits theaters any time, I have been prowling through the pages of the Bronze Age collection Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors which showcased her return to classic form after the fondly remembered Sekowsky era.

And all month long too will the relentless "100 Days of the King Feature" each and very day leading to the celebration of Jack"King" Kirby's centennial later this summer.

Finally the "Favorite Covers" feature will showcase some of the best from Simon and Kirby for a host of publishers in those halcyon 1940's days. All of that whatever else I can cram into what should be a very rich summer month long excursion. Jump aboard for some pure uncut gold.

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