Our Army at War #196 (On Sale: June 4, 1968) has an interesting cover by Joe Kubert.Sgt. Rock stars in "Stop the War -- I Want to Get Off" written and drawn by Joe Kubert. After three nights of no sleep Rock takes four green Easy Co. replacements out on patrol, where they are killed by the big gun fire from an enemy bunker. Seeing his dead comrades, Rock goes a little crazy and after tossing a few grenades into the enemy turret Rock declares, "I-I've had enough! ENOUGH! No more killin'... No more blood... NO MORE WAR!" Out of the smoke of the burning tank an unknown soldier confronts Rock, telling him he is not alone, that every soldier has felt the same.
As the smoke gets thicker Rock sees back into prehistoric time as cave men band together as an army to fight a bear, to protect their families. Rock shuts his eyes and when he opens them again he is looking at a Roman soldier, Horatio, who fought the Etruscan Army in order to give his comrades time to regroup. The white smoke turns to snow and Rock is now watching General George Washington at Valley Forge, who must watch his men suffer because the country depends on them.
Then Rock sees Hitler, slave labor camps and finally concentration camps and he finally says he has seen enough. When he looks up the unknown soldier is gone and Rock is all alone. (Thanks to my friend Dave Potts for sending me scans of this story.) This is Kubert's second Rock script and proved quite popular as it was reprinted in Our Army at War #269, DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #21, Sgt. Rock #395 and Sgt. Rock #20.
The back up story "Indians Don't Fight by the Book" was written by Howard Liss and drawn by Russ Heath. It was reprinted in Four-Star Battle Tales #2
Edited by Joe Kubert.
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3 comments:
What a great cover!
I read this story in OAAW #269 (one of those great 100-page super-spectaculars which DC put out in the early 70s), which my older brother had. Your estimate of its quality, based upon the number of reprintings, matches with my memory of it — I recall it being possibly the best Sgt. Rock story I ever read. (It's probably been at least 25 years since I last read it, though, so I can't say if it would still seem as good as it did when I was a kid.)
So Dave, send me a synopsis and I will put it in. I looked this one up on-line and all I found was an interview with Kubert where he said he thought this was the best Sgt. Rock story he ever wrote.
There should be a little birthday present for you in your email.
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