Russkie-Smashers CAPTAIN ATOM II "An Ageless Weapon"

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Written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this is a short-but-sweet tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #39 (1961) about beating the Commies at their own game of deceit and deception by utilizing something...or rather someone...they don't expect!

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Captain Atom

Volume 1

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Viet-Cong Wallopers TOD HOLTON: SUPER GREEN BERET "The Curtain Rises!"

Never failing to capitalize on a pop culture trend...

...numerous comics publishers, noticing the popularity of the 1966 hit single Ballad of the Green Berets (by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler and Robin Moore) quickly produced comics series featuring the elite Army unit.
Most were standard war comics, but one stood out from the rest for sheer weirdness...

What do you get when you combine
the Green Berets

with Teenagers and SuperHeroes?

Why,

SUPER GREEN BERET

of course!

Using his new-found powers of teleportation, telepathy, telekinesis, transmutation, time travel, invulnerability, and super-strength, Tod decides to fight Enemies of Our Country, mostly in present-day Asia, but also traveling through time to the American Revolution and World War II, during his two-issue run!
Yes, it's as hokey as it sounds!
Created by writer Otto Binder (who co-created the Golden Age Captain Marvel and the Silver Age Supergirl) and illustrator Carl Pfeufer, who was a busy artist in the Golden Age doing superhero and western strips at both Fawcett and Timely (Marvel Comics' predecessor), the series ran for only two Annual-sized (64-page) issues.

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Tales of the Green Berets

by Robin Moore and Joe Kubert

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Russkie-Smashers SPACE ADVENTURES "Captain Atom II '...on Planet X' "

Despite the misleading title, Our Russkie-Smashing Hero never leaves Earth orbit...

...as you'll see in this tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #36 (1960)!

WOW!

Writer Joe Gill and illustrator Steve Ditko jammed a lot into just five pages!

These days, that'd be a whole issue, if not a two-parter!

As you saw, "Planet X" was, in fact, an artificial satellite, not another planet!
But the code-name made for a catchy title for an extremely-action-packed tale, eh?

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Captain Atom

Volume 1

NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...the Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!

With a slightly shaken-up "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, Sgt Fury and the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...

Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?

He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four (V1N21 [1963]) as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel (though he's named "Sgt Fury" and wearing ripped Army fatigues on the cover) to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.

So we knew the crusty noncom-turned-officer had survived to the (then) present day.

But bigger plans were in store for Nick...

Fury had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales as of #135 (1965), making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the "present day" 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and eventually, Eric Koenig.

Fanboy Trivia:

Eric isn't in this Annual set in the period between World War II and the 1960s because he wasn't even introduced into the WWII-era Howling Commandos comic until six months after the Annual was published (#27 in late 1965)!
And, we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the 1960s, had never been reissued by Graphitti!)

Would I love to have a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos shirt (in XXL, sadly)...

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Marvel Epic Collection

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

#2 Berlin Breakout

(Which includes this story!)

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NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Part 1

Though Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were best-known for their World War II exploits...

...many of the current comic readers don't know how they battled Commies in the 1950s!

And, no, this ain't rebooting Marvel history with retroactive continuity like the recent Ben Grimm and Logan mini-series presentation!
This was written and illustrated during the Silver Age of Comics by the original Marvel Bullpen crew and has been officially part of Marvel continuity since!

This tale from Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1 (1965), gives the details...

We'll observe, Commie...NEXT MONDAY!

In the 1960s, Marvel's Annuals were a mixed bag.

Unlike DC's 80-Page Giants which were all-reprint, Marvel's combined a new lead story with new behind-the-scenes featurettes and pin-ups along with a couple of reprinted stories into a 72-page package for the same 25₵ price as the aforementioned Giants.

This Stan Lee-scripted, Dick Ayers-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked tale ("Frankie Ray" was Giacoia's pseudonym because he was doing a lot of freelance work for DC at the time.) covered a major, but untold, event in the group's history...their only battle during the Korean War!

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Marvel Epic Collection

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

#2 Berlin Breakout

(Which includes this story!)

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WEREWOLF: The Silver-Age SuperHero Who Battled ONLY Russkies and Chi-Coms!

He's the "SuperHero with The Easiest to Draw Costume in Comics History"...

...and, during his three-issue run, he fought only Communists!

Russkies once!

Chinese twice!

To learn about this all-but forgotten crusader against Communism, here's the links to his adventures which we previously presented!

Note: There are links at the end of each issue's entry to the next chapter!

Issue #1
Issue #2

Issue #3

Trivia: Though his fellow monster/heroes Dracula and Frankenstein were reprinted in the early 1970s when the revision of the Comics Code allowed mainstream four-color comics to use "traditional monsters" again, Werewolf wasn't included in the revival!

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