I’m slowing down a bit because I had a few did not finish books and I’m reading a longer novel. But it put me in the mood to re-read some old Weird War Tales comics.
Weird War Tales is the comic where GI Robot and the Creature Commandos first appeared back in the 1970s. It ran for over a decade with 100+ issues and was mostly an anthology title with its very own Crypt Keeper-like host, Death. Only there are far fewer puns. The first 7 issues were reprints of earlier war comics. With issue 8 the fun really begins with the introduction of horror elements…
Issue 8 has a few great stories.
The Avenging Grave. WW2. German soldiers in march across a WW1 battlefield. The German commander fought in that earlier war, in that exact battle, and recounts how fun it was to win in such a lopsided way against the French forces. So of course the French soldiers reanimate and wipe out the German soldiers.
Thou Shalt Not Kill. WW2. German soldiers take a Jewish town with…ill intent. There’s a 20ft-tall Golem statue in the center of town. The Germans are doing their thing when the Golem comes to life and slaughters them. It leaves one soldier alive to warn any others who might try to do the same.
Duel of the Dead. WW1. A German fighter pilot is bloodthirsty to the point of insanity and keeps trophies of his kills. He finds a French pilot and shoots him down but is sad that the biplane exploded so no trophy to loot. He finds another enemy plane, shoots it to disable it, and forces it to land. The enemy pilot is already dead, but they manage to kill each other with their machine guns while on the ground.
Issue 9 is a banger.
The Promise. Middle Ages and WW2. German vs Russian troops. Germans invade Russia and the Russians vow to defend the Motherland even if they have to climb out of their graves. Wave one is Middle Ages but it’s a set up for the WW2 section. Wave two is WW2, but despite the page count dedicated to the earlier fight, those troops don’t make an appearance. The WW2 Russians freeze to death after wading through a shallow lake only to reanimate and kill the invading Germans.
Blood Brothers. US Civil War. Your typical North vs South, brother vs brother story. Only the twist is one side fights on after death so everyone dies.
The Last Battle. Far Future. The world is divided into East vs West. One side launches their ultimate weapon, so the other side follows suit. Both are wiped out save for a sole survivor from each side. They battle through the wasteland of their civilization. The twist at the end is one is a man and the other a woman, so of course the guy is thinking about rebuilding the species. The woman set a trap and blows them both to hell. The twist is that they’re both robots, not people. The war is so long-lasting and so ingrained that the actual humans died out centuries ago and the robots carried on for them.
