Mind Candy. Lawrence Watt-Evans
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ahead a bit faster, let’s look at #60. Here Dum Dum is being court-martialed for insubordination, charges having been brought by Captain Sawyer. He’s guilty, as it turns out, but let’s not worry about that—the real conflict here is that Happy Sam Sawyer, the beloved father figure, has betrayed one of his boys. Dum Dum can’t believe it. Fury can’t believe it. And of course, he hasn’t. The real Sam Sawyer’s missing, having been replaced by a German double for the sole purpose of messing up the Howlers.
Naturally, once this is demonstrated to the court Dum Dum is off the hook—even though he did disobey orders without having any idea that the orders came from an enemy spy rather than his commanding officer. Reality simply has nothing to do with the Howling Commandos. They’re about togetherness. The entire Second World War is just an excuse to keep these guys working and living together, something to provide background against which they can play out their little interpersonal dramas. I mean, let’s face it, if these guys were border police in the 1970s, patrolling the Rio Grande every day instead of shooting up German headquarters, nobody would have bought the mag long enough to discover its real appeal. World War II is the hook to bring the reader in.
Probably the writers didn’t think of it that way; most of the people who worked on Sgt. Fury were wartime veterans, and probably they drew upon their own memories of wartime companionship in creating this warm and happy group. Wars and armies do create camaraderie by throwing randomly-chosen people together in horrendous conditions for extended periods of time, under conditions that allow little or no privacy and with constant danger tending to break down social reserve. Old army buddies are always special as a result—or old boarding school buddies, or buddies acquired in any similar high-pressure situation.
Sgt. Fury takes this natural camaraderie and exaggerates it to absurd proportions, justifying this by having the Howlers lead absurdly dangerous (impossibly dangerous, really) lives. The visible plotline may deal with Nazi plots and dangerous missions, but that’s not what’s important, any more than a punch-out between Spider-Man and the Kangaroo is actually as important as what’s happening to Spidey’s Aunt May or his girlfriend, Mary Jane.
The ongoing subplots in Sgt. Fury, in keeping with this togetherness theme, are always something to do with separation or acceptance. Dino’s wounded, Izzy’s captured by the Japanese for a few issues, Gabe is captured by the Germans briefly—separations, all of them. Bull McGiveney doesn’t accept a medic as a real soldier (i.e., a real man) because he doesn’t carry a gun; Jim Morita isn’t accepted by the soldiers at the base because he’s Nisei; Erik isn’t accepted by the French Resistance because he’s German; a black American woman in Paris sides with the Nazis because she was never accepted by white America—all acceptance problems. Erik’s gradual transition from temporary fill-in to full-time permanent Howler lasted several issues and resulted in such amazing things as a thought-balloon in #38 reading, “He bellows at me as loudly as at the Howlers! That must mean he accepts me…”
I think this explains why Sgt. Fury lasted as long as it did; the reader could identify with the Howlers and have that warm sense of belonging as a result. The war was just background noise; the group was the important thing, just as it is in many of the most popular superhero team comic books now. As an example, Tales of the Teen Titans #50 dealt entirely with the characters and their interrelationships, without a single fight scene or supervillain interfering; it’s the group dynamics that interest readers. Sgt. Fury took a different approach from the Teen Titans—much simpler, in that everything within the group was harmony, but at the same time subtler, in that it’s not immediately obvious, upon reading just one or two issues, that it’s the interaction that’s important. I suspect it appealed to a younger audience, and in a simpler time, when the idea of a powerful father-figure like Sam Sawyer and an all-male bunch of heroes was still acceptable.
This is not to say that the slam-bang action was just filler; it’s got a certain charm and does add superficial excitement. Besides, it gives the Howlers a chance to show off their macho wit and their individual traits. The wit isn’t much, usually, but there’s a steady supply of it, mostly in the form of insulting descriptions—Fury, for example, regularly refers to Germans as “lager-slurpers”, an appellation I cannot imagine anyone else ever using. The individual traits are really just stereotypes, trademarks to make it easier to tell the characters apart—Dino’s a handsome Italian actor obsessed with women (the Latin lover), Izzy’s a good Jewish boy from Brooklyn, Gabe’s a big strong black musician/athlete, Reb’s a good ol’ boy from Kentucky who inexplicably speaks with a Georgia accent (presumably because nobody at New-York-based Marvel Comics knew the difference), Pinky is a really offensive parody of an effete Englishman. Dum Dum and Fury are actually almost human, rather than being ethnic stereotypes—Dum Dum the big strong well-meaning Irish guy who’s not as dumb as he looks, and Fury the all-American tough guy.
Oh, yes, and there’s Erik, stiff and formal and Prussian, fighting against the monsters who have taken over his country.
And all these varied characters work together in perfect harmony.
I wonder—any Sgt. Fury fans out there who may be reading this, I have a little test I’d like to try. What stories do you remember? I’d be willing to bet that you remember the ones that dealt with threats to the integrity of the group, that you remember Dino’s wound and Izzy’s imprisonment and Dum Dum’s court-martial—but do you remember a single one of the missions that the Howlers went on?
I don’t, and I just read eighteen of them.
Superman: Previous Issues
Published in The Man from Krypton; based on an earlier column in Comics Buyer’s Guide
Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive—Superman is practically a symbol of power. What’s more, he fights for truth, justice, and the American way; he’s an icon of power used for good, power handled responsibly. It may be Spider-Man who actually said “With great power comes great responsibility,” but the big blue Boy Scout was living it twenty years before Spidey spun his first web.
Superman has powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men; he could make himself ruler of the world, take anything he wants, kill anyone who got in his way—but he doesn’t. He’s a good guy, the ultimate good guy; he apparently isn’t even tempted to abuse his powers. He’s wholesome and noble and selfless. His foster parents raised him that way, and he’s true to his upbringing.
It’s long been recognized that this is part of what makes him boring sometimes, or at least hard to write good stories about; he’s too powerful, too perfect. No menace can really endanger him; he’s invulnerable. His moral choices are never really difficult; the Kents gave him so strong a sense of right and wrong that there’s not much room for self-doubt. DC’s editorial powers have more than once tried to make things easier for their scripters by cutting him back to a more human scale, but it never really sticks, because he’s Superman. If he isn’t power incarnate and a moral paragon, he’s not the same iconic character.
He’s practically perfect in every way—that’s what makes him Superman.
At least, on the outside.
But even though he’s Superman, he has issues. It’s implicit in his background. He’s kept them concealed all these years, but if you know where to look, you can find them. Especially if you look at the version of the character I grew up with, the so-called “Silver Age” or “pre-Crisis” Superman that existed from about 1955 to 1985.
A starting point to show you what I mean is his clothes. They say clothes make the man, and certainly part of what makes Superman the icon he is is that familiar outfit of blue tights, red shorts, red boots, yellow belt, and that flowing red cape. He always wears it—and I do mean always.
In those pre-Crisis years, Superman’s costume was indestructible. He needed an indestructible costume when he was out there getting blasted by rayguns, or strolling unscathed through nuclear explosions, or taking a swim through the sun’s photosphere. So where did that costume, so much a part of the Superman legend come from?
Well, as any long-time DC reader can tell you, Ma Kent (Martha Clark Kent, to give