The Peacemaker Vol.3 #1 is dated March, 1967. Pat Boyette is the artist on the first two stories and the cover. There is no writer listed for the stories but presumably Joe Gill is responsible.
The first of two Peacemaker stories is titled "The Killer on the Reef!" and begins with American envoy Christopher Smith heading to the west coast and boards a trawler to investigate recent mysterious incidents of vandalism and destruction among the fishing fleets of the world, and the sinking of ships is attributed to some power other than the governments of the world. As the trawler heads to its location a scuba diver begins to destroy the nets with explosives and attaches one to the ship itself. The scuba diver then announces to the ship's captain that "The Commodore" is responsible and the ship will be destroyed in one minute.
Christopher Smith becomes Peacemaker and using special undersea gear dives into the sea to confront the attacker and prevent the bomb from doing its deadly work. He detaches the bomb and sends it into a school of deadly sharks. He follows the deadly diver to a mysterious submarine and after dispatching him goes himself into the sub to confront The Commodore. He meets the leader who claims all the wealth of the oceans is his and he will kill to maintain his claim. Peacemaker uses his helmet laser to destroy key equipment and the sub begins to suffer small explosions. It surfaces and the men disembark just before the whole shebang goes up. The Commodore, now in custody, explains that in mere days he would've met another at the south pole and together they would've ruled the world. Smith ends the story wondering about this new threat.
"Peacemaker Patter" written by Dick Giordano, the editor, explains how Peacemaker is a revised version of the defunct Fightin' 5 comic which had featured Peacemaker in its last few issues. Now the tables are turned and Peacemaker is the lead and a revised Fightin' 5 is the back-up feature. There is also a biography of artist Pat Boyette (presumably written by the artist himself) along with a photo.
The second Peacemaker story is titled "The Hidden Power". It begins with Christopher Smith getting slapped by the ambassador of a seemingly innocuous Balkan country under the sway of the Soviet Union. This challenge is inexplicable unless the country has gained some great power, and reconnaissance does indicate that the country has new planes and nuclear capabilities. Becoming Peacemaker, Christopher Smith uses his own experimental jet to fly to the area where he encounters a cargo plane he finds curious. He follows it and discovers a base at the south pole, an expansive base hidden in the depths of the ice.
His plane is detected and a heat-seeking missile is dispatched, but Peacemaker cuts off the power to his plane and deploys a flare which lures away the missile and in fact brings it to home where it destroys those who launched it. Meanwhile Peacemaker's plane uses a parachute to land safely. On the ground he encounters troops but uses non-lethal nerve gas to defeat the guards and he descends into the complex through a shaft which becomes a hellish endurance test as massive heat from the nuclear furnaces is vented through there. He survives the ordeal and arrives at the bottom and quickly destroys the facility and returns home. With the capability destroyed the Balkan ambassador is quick to apologize to a polite Christopher Smith.
The Fightin' 5 are back in a story titled "Ruler of Darkness" presumably written by Joe Gill and featuring artwork by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. The action begins right in the middle as a Balkan dictator named Leontid Jrozva has his agent Sonya hold Hank Hennessey(FF4), the leader of the F5 at bay while he describes his attempts to pressure the major powers to go to war as they ought. Sonya shoots Hennessey, but it proves to be a ruse as she radios Irv "The Nerve" Haganah (FF2) that he should meet her at a graveyard where they uncover Hennessey's casket to find him rather fit. Hank radios Frenchy the Fox(FF1) who is flying above and who lands to pick them up. An enemy jet appears and Hank fires a pistol but one loaded with special anti-aircraft ammunition that destroys the enemy.
The team then heads back to base where they debrief Sonya who indicates that the dictator has missiles and that they should both inform their respective governments. The Fightin' 5 plus Sonya then parachute back into the region and Hank and Irv destroy the dictator's capability to fire missiles by destroying the master communications array. But the electricity involved is deadly and kills Irv and seriously injures Hank, destroying his arm and one eye. Sonya then uses a destruct switch to destroy the dictator's base. The Fightin' 5 carry their dead and wounded home as the story ends.
This comic was reprinted in the late 70's under the Modern imprint.
This is a solid issue of entertainment. Pat Boyette produces some dandy work. The plots are a wee bit creaky in places, presumably rushed given the length of the stories. Either of these stories could easily have been expanded to fill the whole issue. I assume these are stories all ready produced for back up in the cancelled Fightin' 5 comic. There is less braying about peace in these tales, and Peacemaker comes off as what he mostly is, a private soldier and agent who acts in what he believes to be the immediate best interests of world order, if not world peace necessarily. It is peculiar that in the second story he's actually fighting to maintain the balance of terror between the superpowers.
The Fightin' 5 story suffers from some clumsy storytelling but does pack a lot of change to the status quo into a very few pages. The death of Irv was a big deal to me when I first read this issue many years ago in the Modern reprint. Even at that late date the unheralded death of a main character was very unusual, and I can only it was more so in the 60's when this story first appeared.
More to come.
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