Our Fighting Forces #121

Our Fighting Forces #121 (On Sale: July 10, 1969) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Take My Place" by Robert Kanigher and Artie Saaf (I really hate when things like this happen, Robert Kanigher writes a good story. I just need to remember my mantra: Kanigher was an asshole, Kanigher was an asshole). We begin on top of a windswept fjord in Norway, as we meet a pretty young redhead, who we learn is Pvt. Heller, the newest member of the Hellcats. She soon meets and defeats a Nazi Command Car, with the assistance of the Hellcats who arrive JIT.

They steal the Command Car and leave the Nazis in their underwear. While heading away, Heller remembers how she got here...Her father was a cop who was murdered by a neighborhood kid, Tommy Carlin. Heller promised her dying father that she would track Carlin down and get revenge no matter what. When Heller went looking for Carlin she learned he had enlisted and in order to follow him, she did the same.  A troublemaker, Heller winds up in the WAC guardhouse where Lt. Hunter choses her to join the Hellcats. In her first assignment with the group of ex-cons, they decide to answer a German Poster offering to free captured resistance leaders if they would take their place in front of the firing squad.

Coming back to real time the Hellcats get to the town and give themselves up. Later in their cell they meet the officer from the Nazi Command Car who tells them that they will not honor the poster and will execute all of them. The next morning they are taken out to be hung in public when the people of the town rise up in revolt against the Nazis.  As Kanigher put it, "Like a broken dam the people pour over their oppressors." They free the Hellcats but are stopped when the hostages are about to be shot.

Heller breaks away from the rest and sidles up to the Officer, saying, "Mind if I join a winning commander?" She is hot, he is stupid and once she get close enough she takes him and his guards out. The last page is pretty stunning. It is a single large panel with a round insert panel in the lower right side where Hunter and Heller talk in closeup. But it is the top of the page that is so well done. It says, "Following the Hellcats--the enraged townspeople mete out the kind of justice that is the ultimate end of all tyrants...Brutal--Permanent--and to the point" Below this you see the bottom of their boots as the townspeople cheer at their hung bodies.

Loved it. I was really surprised at how much I liked a lot of the Artie Saaf art. When it is good it has a sort of Frank Springer feel to it; when bad it looks like Vinnie Colletta inked it. Besides the really effective last page, Saaf did some interesting work, including the first page of the story that he liked enough to actually sign.

The back-up is "Jump into Two Wars" by Bob Haney and Joe Kubert and reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #108. It is the night before D-Day and a plane full of ally soldiers is about to jump into enemy territory. Their job is to stop a division of Nazi tanks from shelling Omaha Beach. Andre, a Frenchman, relates to Lt. Link how they are about to jump where Charles Martel defeated the Moors centuries ago. On his way out of the plane, Link hits his head on the doorframe. When he lands he is met, not by his men, but by Charles Martel about to attack the Moors.

Link notes that he is in the exact same spot he was supposed to be, looking down at the same bridge he was supposed to keep the Nazis from crossing. The Moors are stopped at the bridge by Martel's men, but some of them head away and attempt to cross on a dam hidden around the bend of the river. Outmanned at the dam, Charles Martel tells Lt. Link to save himself while Martel attacks. Link's machine gun had jammed when he arrived, but he bets his hand grenades still work. He tosses one at the dam which explodes stopping the Moors. A chunk of debris from the dam whacks Link in the head, knocking him silly. When he regains his senses, he is back in his parachute, high over France, the day before D-Day.

When he lands, he is able to stop the Nazi tanks with the knowledge of the dam he gained, while in the past with Charles Martel.

Edited by Joe Kubert.