We Spoke Out - The Last Outrage!

The suffering or the Jews and others during the Holocaust is a horror which weirdly fascinates and repels at the same time. The intense practiced cruel cold-blooded murder and torture inflicted on men women and children over the course of years is difficult to fathom, and so some will say it never happened. They prefer a world in which such evil didn't exist or they would like that the hate they themselves feel were more justifiable and the Holocaust makes that impossible. And some just never seem to get it, to understand that such evil is fundamentally different, yet still a part of man. The desire to expunge the "other" is all too commonplace, even in our "enlightened" modern day. 

In the story "The Last Outrage" which perhaps inspired this collection, we are introduced to Dina Babbitt, a survivor of Auschwitz who had made a successful career in animation in the years after the liberation of the camp and the end of the war. She worked on cartoons as varied as Wile Coyote, Daffy Duck and Captain Crunch. But her story begins here with Snow White, which she painted as a mural on a wall in Auschwitz to help lift the veil of suffering from the children trapped there. No less than the "Angel of Death" the sadistic Dr. Joseph Mengele took notice and wished to use her talents to help him record some of his heinous experiments. She painted many portraits of people for the purpose of recording (in Mengele's eyes) their various deficiencies particularly in respect to skin tone. After the camps were freed she left this work and never thought of it more until she learned that a museum in Poland was displaying her works. She wanted them back and the museum shockingly failed to comply. And as a result a long effort, ultimately unsuccessful was waged to get back work produced under such vile circumstances and held with egregious contempt. 

"The Last Outrage" was first published in the Marvel comic X-Men: Magneto - Testament. The writer of this story and the essays in this collection Rachel Medoff  and the artist of this story Neal Adams worked to help Babbitt, but to no avail and she passed away some years ago. Not only did the Holocaust happen, but thanks to the small-minded greed of people like the museum directors in Poland, the suffering it caused continues.

This wraps up my month-long examination of We Spoke Out. It's an important comic book reprint collection in an era when collections are abundant. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - The Gold Rush!

I grew up a Marvel fan for the most part and what I knew of the Marvel Universe like everyone else was found in their countless comics produced over decades. Then at last I wearied of the chase and the comic universe the MU had become was not recognizable. Many years before Marvel had at long last found success in the movie theaters with series like Blade and The X-Men, and later the Avengers cycle. As I drifted farther and farther from the comics the movies became the centerpiece of what I know as the Marvel Universe. And in that cinematic universe much is made of the uber villain Magneto and his beginnings as a waif who loses nearly everything in the monstrous death camps of the Nazis. The films have made an empathetic character out of the villain if not at all times a sympathetic one. That began in this comic. 

Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by the late Dave Cockrum, this X-Men story finds the team in the middle of one of their never ending sagas while inside the mind of Professor Xavier a different battle is going on. We see in his memories a time twenty years before when he was helping Holocaust survivors come to terms with the suffering they'd endured. He meets a man named Magnus and slowly they learn that they both are mutants. The arrival of an up and coming Hydra causes them to fight together to save a young woman who holds the secret of vast gold reserves in her war scarred psyche. It's a good tale, not a great one, but making Magnus a survivor of Auschwitz utterly transform a villain who to that time was largely a cruel enigma. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - The Calypso Connection!

Captain America is the original World War II hero and in this follow up to the story in which we learn he helped liberate the fictional death camp called "Diebenwald" we learn more about the suffering of Cap's landlady Anna Kappelbaum. In Captain America #245 we discover that she was sexually assaulted by the commandant of the camp, a fellow named Klaus Mendelhaus. She happens to see Mendelhaus and soon after is approached by Nazi hunter Aaron Heller and his daughter. They find  Mendelhaus who seems to be regretful of his many crimes and Anna is unable to kill him when given the chance. Heller's daughter does shoot him down when her father dies of a heart attack. 

This story written by Roger McKenzie and drawn by Carmine Infantino and Joe Rubenstein is a nifty rousing adventure, but somehow its message of folks need to forgive seems a little underdeveloped. I understand that victims like Anna need to forgive for their own sake and not for their attackers, but Mendelhaus seems a little too pat in this story, a bit too sympathetic for my tastes. He's a mass murderer and rapist and those are mighty crimes indeed. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - From The Ashes!

Captain America is the original World War II hero and despite being created by two young Jewish men and owned by a Jewish family never battled the infamous threat of the death camps directly, though he mowed down many a Nazi in his time. Taking on the "Holocaust" would have to wait until the Bronze Age of comics and issue #237 of the second Captain America series. The talents who bring Cap face to face with the final solution are writers Chris Claremont and Roger McKenzie and artists Sal Buscema and Don Perlin. 

It happens that Cap had just put down the threat of the National Force led by a former Captain America the racist Cap from the 1950's. After the seeming death of Sharon Carter he's looking for a new direction (something Cap did a lot alas) and seeks to back away from his hero identity and find some solace as a private citizen named Steve Rogers. To that end he moves into a new apartment building, one owned by Anna Kapplebaum a survivor of the camps and in particular one which Cap himself had helped liberate. So we finally get to see the Living Legend battle the Nazis on the ground on which they murdered countless numbers. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - The Fourth Death!

"The Fourth Death" was written by Robert Kanigher, an editor and writer at DC for many years. He was especially well known for his tales of war, those often illustrated by the likes of Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, and Jerry Grandenetti. It is the spirit of Grandenetti that the art of Ric Estrada most reminds me, not quite as liquid but still filled with a kinetic potency artists of prettier images often sacrifice.

Tucked away in the many pages of Sgt.Rock Spectacular #13 this is a story of cold blooded revenge. This is another story of the death camps and in this one the commandant is a particular sadistic individual who seems to gain a great satisfaction in the destruction of his charges. Commandant Aufbach is eager to get his  hands on an escaped prisoner named Baumer and drives his troop relentlessly to find the man who has blotted his record. Find him he does and he wishes he hadn't . Features one of the best final pages in this collection.

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Holocaust!

Joe Kubert is a master of the comic book form. I didn't really begin to appreciate the genius of Kubert when I started into comics as a mere lad because of two things, I was a Marvel fan and I didn't necessarily follow the war comics. Kubert was a DC artist who drew mostly war  adventures of Enemy Ace and Sgt. Rock and many more. 

I fell in love with Kubert when he tackled Tarzan of the Apes when DC acquired the license from ERB folks after Gold Key's long tenure. There was a ruggedness and raw energy to this Tarzan I'd not seen before and I fell head over heels in love with it and with Kubert's art itself. I began to seek it out and often smiled when I found it. I did not smile when I discoverd "Holocaust". 

Rarely has Kubert drawn images with more raw power than the two above. Sequestered inside Sgt. Rock #351 this drawing shows the horror of the death camps in stark four colors. The nakedness of the tragic Jews being led to a factory of murder is heart breaking, but it's the stark reality of the Holocaust. Evil men did evil things to innocent people and all too many stood by for too long before it was stopped. The evil is still among alas. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Walls Of Blood!

Blitzkrieg was a different comic book, one which focused on World War II through the lens of the Nazis themselves. The goal was not to be sympathetic to the Reich, but to find new angles to tell stories which had been told in one form or another for decades. In the second issues the focus was on the Warsaw ghetto uprising when the Jewish population which was persistently being shipped to death camps rose up and waged guerilla war for some weeks against the might of the Nazi war machine. 

What I found most striking about this story written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Ric Estrada is how much the story reminded me of the later Joe Kubert masterpiece Yossel, a work which I reviewed a few weekends ago. There are a number of structural similarities including most interestingly an escapee who describes for the Jews of the ghetto the horrors of the death camps. Also, the hero here is a young boy. Kubert drew a magnificent cover which captures the tension of any uprising of just how it's best to used violence effectively. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Mark Our Graves!

Who doesn't love The Losers? Well I guess lots of people or they wouldn't be the Losers, a truly ragtag ensemble of characters who fought together in World War II after losing their own individual features. Captain Storm (a sailor), Captain Johnny Cloud (a flyer) and Gunner and Sarge (two grunts) are a quartet who find danger in all the theaters of the war eventually as their series tumbled along between the covers of Our Fighting Forces. Even the great Jack Kirby took a stab a the book at one point. But here the great John Severin is the artist and Robert Kanigher was the writer of a tale which hooked the Losers up with some fighters from the Jewish Brigade. This was  a special team of fighters put together to not only fight in the name of those who were defenseless behind the Nazi lines, but would go on to for the basis for the Israeli army. 

This story follows the Losers and the Jewish soldiers who take time to practice the faith which was being persecuted and at the same time blowing up a Nazi weapons depot. Seeing those Stars of David representing not just two brave warriors but also the millions who were expunged by the evil of the Third Reich. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - The Duty Of A Man!

War is Hell from Marvel is a damn weird and offbeat book. Marvel put out an avalanche of reprints in the early Bronze Age and I loved them, since they were all new to me, but then they started using these mags to debut new features such as Thongor of Lemuria, Morbius the Living Vampire, and Man-Wolf. In this war comic reprint title, we get the misadventures of a dead soldier named John Kowalski who is returned to life, time and again to take part in some critical aspect of World War II.

Under an exciting Gil Kane cover, story artist George Evans tries to make sense of what I consider an overwritten Chris Claremont script. I found I didn't really know what was happening all the time as I read this story, though it's clear that Kowalski, who is resurrected this time as a German soldier, does his best to save Jews being delivered to the slaughter. There are echoes of the real-life events when thousands of Danish Jews were saved by a flotilla of fishing boats that sneaked them across German lines into Sweden. Wanted to like this one more as I like Evans, but it wore me out a bit. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Thou Shalt Not Kill!

Weird War Tales was one of the Bronze Age's strangest titles. It blended the DC mystery mag with the DC war comic and gave us a stiff tea that sometimes was a bit too much to drink.  Not so the story "Thou Shalt Not Kill"  from the eighth issue which features the Jewish legend of the Golem. As you can see, the Golem is powerful and mighty, even more mighty than the logo it looms above. Great Neal Adams cover.

In the article which comes with this story his other cover, the one rejected ultimately for his X-Men run featuring the Living Monolith is mentioned and Adams even suggested if they'd let him do that it might've save the comic. Really? Still it's a doozy.

Now the story itself is drawn by Steve Harper one of the myriad students in the Neal Adams umbrella and his work has heavy doses of Adams inks pulling it together in places. The writer is not known and Adams takes no credit in his discussion of the story. We have German soldiers going about their work of killing Jews and they come afoul of the statue of the Golem which of course they consider a myth until it rises up and crushes them. One soldier is left alive to tell the tale. It's not the strongest story by any means in the collection, but it does have a whopper of a cover. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Totentanz!

"Totentanz" in French "Danse Macabre" or in English "Dance of Death" is the title of this remarkable Unknown Soldier story from Star-Spangled War Stories #158. The Unknown Soldier was a very popular DC war hero, a man horribly wounded but who took his bandaged features behind enemy lines and as a master of disguise brought the Nazi menace down many times. This time he's headed to a "Death Camp" named "Totentanz" where a young woman is held captive. The Nazis think she's just another pretty face, but she's actually an important war fighter who has led many to freedom beyond the clutches of the Nazi menace. 

The Unknown Soldier is able to penetrate the camp in disguise as the "husband" of the woman and so he's put to work and to torture just as were the Jewish prisoners. There is no overt revelation that the prisoners in this story are Jewish but it's exceedingly clear in the story written and drawn by war maven Joe Kubert. Kubert's gritty and evocative style was ideal for stories of this kind which required the reader to forget the glossy heroics of the super folk and rather keep their attention on the real. Kubert kept it real. This one of the comics in this collection I bought off the stands at the time, and I can only imagine it was because of the powerful and unusual cover by Kubert. 

Though not part of this collection We Spoke Out, this issue of Star-Spangled War proclaims a poster of the Robert Kanigher's WWI German Enemy Ace. Here's that poster by Joe Kubert. Enjoy!

Anticipate more Enemy Ace action later this month. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Night Of The Reaper!

It is an absolute mystery to me why the Rutland, Vermont Halloween stories have never been collected in a single volume. (I'm talking to you Craig Yoe.) They are delightful artifacts from a bygone time when comics was a small world and dominated by two largish companies who had not yet been swallowed up by corporations and who treated their fans by inviting them into the story. Now these weren't exactly fans, but creators such as Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Berni Wrightson and Steve Englehart among others who participated, but the sheer fun of the fourth-wall busting events brought absolute glee to this fanboy's heart.

"Night of the Reaper" is arguably the best of the Rutland stories, perhaps simply by dint of the art from superstar Neal Adams. The story weaves in and out and around the parade and the follow-up party hosted by Tom Fagan. During this dark and sometimes gruesome tale we learn that Nazis prowl the darkness and that one in particular, a former commandant of a death camp has found a hiding place in the isolated quiet of Vermont. Batman tries to track down the deadly "Grim Reaper" who seems to be appearing and killing off folks. 

While Batman gets to the bottom of the mystery and as we all know bring some level of justice to the proceedings, comic book pros find all sorts of tomfoolery to engage in, some of it even beneficial to the case.

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - The Mad Master Of The Murder Maze!

"The Mad Master of the Murder Maze" is the story that in many way was my first introduction to the horror of the holocaust. While I might've come across the dreadful info at school, there's little doubt the emotional power of this Gil Kane drawn comic was lacking. Written by Roy "The Boy" Thomas, this one felt different from the other collaborations he did with Kane on Captain Marvel and he says that Kane (real name Eli Katz born in a Latvian Jewish family) was the impetus that made this one hum. It has a power other comics lack, and that comes from the visceral reality of the background.

Rick Jones, at the time the inter-dimensional partner of Captain Marvel (formerly of the Kree Empire) finds himself in need of a living situation and finds an apartment in Minos Towers which seems to good to be true. And it is, as we discover a madman has assembled a carefully balanced population inside the towers so that he can at his discretion conduct weird and deadly experiments on them, measuring their psychological responses. He regards his tenants as lab rats and that dehumanization connects his work to that of the Nazis years before. It takes the bravery of a former Aushwitz prisoner to end the threat.

It's a story not directly about the Nazis, but more importantly really about the dehumanizing attitudes which allowed them to flourish, attitudes which are very much still with us and thriving in the modern day.

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Experiment In Fear!

Eerie  was James Warren's second magazine dedicated to horror in the classic EC vein and in its ninth issue there's a story titled "Experiment in Fear!". This is a tale written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Gene Colan which takes place in a concentration camp. The experiments in question here are actually mild compared to some of the dastardly and grotesque "experiments" conducted by the Nazis on those they considered less than human.

We have a Nazi doctor here who wants to prove Aryan superiority by proving that the emotion of fear itself is a trait limited to the lesser varieties of peoples of the Earth, those selected by the Nazis for extermination in their death camps. It's an elaborate laboratory arrangement to induce fear, so much fear that the subject or better said, the victim always dies. When the tables are turned on the Doctor himself of course, we learn what we always knew, that fear is common to all men and women and rising above it is realizing that, as a wise man once said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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We Spoke Out - Escape From Maidenek!

"Escape from Maidenek" is a true story of sorts and buried beneath the utterly banal cover of Stamps Comics #4 is hidden among assorted tales of all kinds of sorts. This one, drawn by Vince Napoli, despite his rugged and primitive stylings still delivers.  It tells of one man's successful effort to escape the Maidenek camp and his own doom, at least for a time.

The stories in Stamps Comics were (logically enough) inspired by particular stamps. 

This one was inspired by a singular Polish stamp featuring a concentration camp and looming above it in deadly and dramatic fashion is a skeletal storm trooper of the Reich. Here's what one source says about it:

This Polish stamp, issued in 1946 according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, depicts a Grim Reaper-like Nazi emptying Zyklon-B over the Madjankek death camp. The first line of the text reads:

"Death Camp." The second line read" "Bath and Gas Chambers."

In the words of the late great Stan Lee -- 'Nuff Said!

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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