(One did get killed very early in the series, but that was before things had settled down to a pattern. Besides, it gave the others something to feel guilty about, and an excuse to hate the enemy.)
In ordinary war stories, the basic conflict is between Our Guys and The Enemy, and people do get killed, or at least hurt. Sure, we all know Sgt. Rock is going to pull through, but his men do get killed, innocent civilians do get killed. The suspense is dependent upon the fear of death for one or more characters. In Sgt. Fury the Howlers are totally indestructible—they can be damaged, but not destroyed. Germans die right and left, civilians do occasionally get killed (usually with a heart-wrenching dramatic played-to-the-hilt martyr scene), but nobody ever believes for a minute that Fury or Dum Dum or Dino or Reb or Izzy or Pinky or Gabe or even Erik, the anti-Nazi German, is going to be killed. Heck, the specials showed them all alive twenty years later!
Then where is there any suspense? If you haven’t got conflict and suspense you haven’t got a story. Disbelief can only be suspended so far. If these guys can’t be killed, if their lives can’t be threatened believably, what can be threatened?
Their relationship to each other, that’s what. And that’s what Sgt. Fury is really all about—camaraderie, friendship, loyalty, male bonding, call it what you will. Interpersonal dynamics. Group interaction. Peer acceptance. All that stuff they talk about in pop psych books.
Really, the essence of the whole series is that these seven or eight guys live together, work together, and are a big happy family. They banter with each other, but never, ever in any of these eighteen issues I have here, or any of the others I’ve read through the years, is there actually any sort of tension or disagreement within the group. It’s all idealized to the point where that’s unthinkable. Real threats don’t come from the Germans, usually, but from the outside world as a whole, threatening to alter the status quo.
For example, in an issue numbered in the 30s (I don’t happen to have it here) Dino Manelli, the Hollywood star of the group, is wounded and shipped stateside, relegated to making training films. This leads into #38, “This One’s For Dino”, wherein the Howlers steal a plane (intentionally left unguarded by father-figure Captain “Happy Sam” Sawyer), fly it to an island somewhere, break into a prison camp, and rescue one particular prisoner. Who, you ask? Why? Why, it’s the only man in the world who can get Dino back into fit condition for combat, a doctor who happens to specialize in just the sort of wound Dino got. If they get this doctor back to the States Dino may be able to rejoin them.
If this were “M*A*S*H”, of course—or real life—the guys would probably be glad to see Dino sent safely home, where nobody’s shooting at him, and Dino would be glad to go, but in Sgt. Fury it doesn’t work that way. The family group has been broken! That isn’t acceptable, ever, under any circumstances; they need to get him back, by any means possible. So they do, using methods that would get real commandomen killed about three times over, and would get any survivors court-martialed upon their return and probably jailed for the duration.
It’s the same in almost any issue. In #32, “A Traitor in Our Midst”, it appears that somebody’s been feeding information to the Nazis—a threat to the group’s self-image of being all gung-ho All-Americans. Turns out that Izzy was drugged and hypnotized using new Nazi methods, so of course he’s forgiven and all is again right with the world. In #40 the main conflict has nothing to do with their mission to rescue a French resistance fighter, but with the fact that the beautiful French girl who helps them can’t forgive Erik Koenig for being a German—it’s a matter of his acceptance into the group. In #42 the Howlers go AWOL to rescue Erik’s sister, putting their personal interests above those of the Allied Armies—one of their own needs them, so to hell with orders and rules. In #48 the Howlers battle the Blitzkrieg Squad, a group of Germans created specifically to match the Howlers at their own game and beat them—a threat to the group’s uniqueness and self-image of being the very best.
Skipping 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. B
esides, 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 her full name) made it for him by sewing together the blankets that were wrapped around him in the rocket that sent him from Krypton to Earth. He wears it under his street clothes, in order, he says, to be ready to change to Superman at an instant’s notice.
That very recognizable costume was at the heart of a good many stories back in the Silver Age; people tried to steal it, it showed through Clark Kent’s torn clothing at inconvenient times, and so forth. It’s always been a major part of Superman’s life.
And it must be inconvenient. Think about it; Clark Kent can’t open his shirt collar on a hot day because that dumb suit would show. Wearing shorts when it’s 95° and everyone else is in cut-offs takes a major decision and costs much worry, because it means he has to take off the longjohns. (The heat doesn’t bother him, but Clark Kent’s reputation for eccentricity mustn’t get out of hand.)
Now, some other superheroes may have some justification for wearing a super-suit under their clothes, but this is a man who can move faster than light, and clothes that can be stretched or compressed almost infinitely. The Flash used to keep his super-suit compressed into a ring—Supes could surely do the same, and would no longer need to worry about rayguns or moths putting holes in his clothes that let that tell-tale red and blue show through. He could leave the suit in his Fortress, or in orbit, and still reach it and change clothes and get to anywhere on the face of the Earth in a seventh of a second. So why doesn’t he?
Well, remember where that suit came from. It’s not made from ordinary fabric, but from Kryptonian blankets—that’s how it survives all the abuse it gets.
In fact, it’s made from the very blankets that were wrapped around him when he was an infant. The blankets he slept under. The cute little blankets his mother tucked him into.
That’s right, friends—the super-suit is Superman’s baby blanket. It’s his security blanket—not figuratively, but literally. The last son of Krypton doesn’t just carry a piece of his old baby blanket in his pocket, as some insecure people do, he’s wearing it.
Told you he has issues.
But hey, we can cut him some slack. Despite being the most powerful being in the world, the guy has a rough life—he saves the universe almost daily, both his parents and his adoptive parents are dead (let’s ignore the occasional dumb stories where Jor-el and Lara turn up in the Survival Zone or wherever), he has lots of secrets he can’t share with anyone, there’s nobody around with whom he can knock back a few beers, get tipsy, and arm-wrestle—he can’t get tipsy at all, so far as I know, and certainly not without risking very serious trouble.
That’s something that people don’t seem to consider. At the end of a long day of rounding up bank robbers and mad scientists, how does Superman relax? Because he is so incredibly powerful, he just can’t let himself go—not anywhere inhabited, anyway. He’s liable to wreck several square blocks if he tries. He can’t kick the furniture to blow off stress—he’ll be punting footstools into orbit. He can’t slap a friend on the back without maybe killing him. People admire him, they’re in awe of him—but they’ve got to be a little scared, as well, when dealing with someone who can kill them by breathing hard.
He lives half his life in a really unnatural, assumed role as Clark Kent just so he can deal with people on an equal basis occasionally, and even then, he has to be constantly on guard against doing something superhuman. The guy has got to be lonely and under constant stress.
So is it really surprising that he carries a security blanket?
No, not carries—wears. In fact, he flaunts it, though of course no one recognizes it for what it is. He stands there, chest out, as the bullets bounce off, and you can just imagine him thinking, “You can’t hurt me! I have my blankie!”
This explains why he pretty much never takes it off even when he is relaxing. All those scenes in the
Fortress of Solitude when he’s taking it easy, playing chess against his super-robot or whatever, writing in his diary by carving Kryptonian words into solid steel plates with his fingernail, or whatever, does he ever slip out of his work clothes and into a dressing gown? When he takes a refreshing dip in a lava pool, does he ever strip down to his shorts to feel that warm tingle on his chest? Nope—the big red S stays firmly in place at all times.
That’s a little eccentric—as well as unhygienic. Most of us don’t wear the same underwear day in and day out, and we have good reasons for that. Although we see that Superman does clean his super-suit sometimes—by flying through the sun while wearing it.
That’s right, he usually doesn’t take it off even to wash it. This guy has it bad. Most people with security blankets at least put them down occasionally.
But then, Superman does have it rough. His home planet blew up; his species is effectively extinct. Yes, humans look the same, but we know they aren’t—we can’t clean our clothes by flying through the sun. Compared to Superman, we and all our creations are ridiculously fragile; if he ever forgets for even a second just how delicate we are, he could kill dozens of people. He must live his entire life as if he were walking through card houses floored with eggshells. Just cracking his knuckles might shatter windows! He can’t belch, he can’t fart, without worrying about killing innocent bystanders.
Mind Candy Page 3