Social History in Comics: Sgt. Fury 90 - "The Chain That Binds!"

This August 1971 issue of Sgt. Fury features an anti-racist story written by Al Kurzrok. Al was a writer for Harvey Comics, and then worked for Marvel mostly as a letterer but did write some 1960s and early 70s stories, including 5 issues of Sgt. Fury. Kurzrok didn't get to pen too many Marvel books. He clearly did his homework on this title, though, because stylistically in many ways it reads like a typical Sgt. Fury book. Although it has an anti-racist message, however, it doesn't deliver this with the same kind of punch that Robert Kanigher or Stan Lee would give a similar story. Given the rarity, even by 1971, of comics taking a stance against racism, it is noteworthy, and should be added to that elite list of anti-racist books. Let's take a look at it. Of course the story highlights Gabriel Jones, and it's another tale, like that in issue 56, that has Gabe on a journey to meet up with the rest of the Howlers. This one starts with him being captured by a Nazi officer on the orders of Hitler himself, who wants to use Gabe as bait in a trap for the rest of the Howling Commandos. Right from the start we're reading racist remarks from the Nazi, and he doesn't let up. The Nazi is motivated by his expectation of considerable reward from the Fuhrer should he succeed in his mission.

As with previous Sgt. Fury anti-racist tales, Southerner Rebel Ralston exhibits the greatest concern for Gabe, continuing the disconfirmation of the 'all southern whites are racists' stereotype that we've seen in anti-racist books in the 50s and 60s.

Gabe meanwhile has to put up with the racist rantings of the Nazi, but handles it well. When their plane gets shot down, they parachute into the snow below. The tables are not quite turned, but circumstances have evened things up a little.

But even Gabe can be pushed too far...

Even though an American patrol passes nearby, Gabe is thwarted in his attempt to get their attention and regain his freedom.

Chained together the two men, complete opposites not because of their respective races but because of their differing world views, continue to battle for the upper hand.

The back and forth dialogue between the Nazi and Gabe has, throughout, exposed the ludicrous yet sinister nature of white supremacist beliefs.

The difference emerges when it becomes clear that the troops they've spotted are American. The Nazi has no qualms about killing Gabe with his knife, and Gabe has to shoot him in order to defend himself. The Nazi's dead after all that, and Gabriel is back with the G.I.'s and will presumably find his way back to the Howlers.

I think this story could have been intended to be allegorical, the chain representing perhaps the institutions in American society that have bound African Americans to racist overlords. If so, then the abrupt ending suggests the racial conflict that had erupted in the Civil Rights era with African Americans pushed to the limit by racist whites unwilling to surrender their assumed superiority. I think that the story seeks, and to some extent succeeds, in ridiculing the racist way of thinking. All that Aryan supremacy stuff. By 1971 people had had enough of their hopes for progress being smashed - assassinations of key leaders, and still no real equality of opportunity in a lot of ways.

Social History in Comics: Sgt. Fury 56 - "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn!"

While the entire series of Sgt. Fury showcases racial integration, several issues take an active, outspoken stance against racism. Sgt. Fury 56 is one such issue. Written and drawn by the creative team that made the book an award-winner, "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn" focuses on Gabriel Jones, the Howlers' African American member. The story picks up from the previous issue when Gabe was captured by the Nazis, and starts with his escape and the beginning of his trek to re-connect with the Howlers. A sub-plot that gets going early on is Rebel Ralston's anger at Gabe's capture. He blames Fury and tries to start a fight. What Friedrich is doing here, as others before him had done, is to dispel the stereotype that Southerners are all racists. This will return at the story's conclusion. After five pages Gabe has managed to contact the French Resistance, and in exchange for their assistance, he receives orders to rescue an African American female jazz singer whom the Nazis have enslaved.

The Resistance sell Gabe, in the guise of jazz trumpeter Lips Norton, to the Nazis, thus allowing Gabe access to the female singer. The Howlers, also being aided by the Resistance, split up with a plan to rendezvous for their boat trip over to England. It's now that Rebel happens to pass by the club where Gabe is playing, and he recognizes his comrade's style. Rebel gets spotted by the Nazis, however, and has to make himself scarce. By page 10 we see that Gabe is beginning to wonder about the lady he's supposed to be rescuing - she seems happy with her lot and not at all hankering for freedom.

After the show, Gabe takes care of the guard and is able to chat with Carla, the jazz singer. Gabe expects her to be glad to have a rescuer, only to find that she prefers her lot with the Nazis. True for WWII, and unfortunately a situation not fully resolved in the late 60s, African Americans returned home from war to be treated as second class citizens in their own country. Carla reckons she has it better right where she is, where at least the Nazis appreciate her talent. Carla maintains that the situation for African Americans back home in the States is hopeless. Gabe tries persuading her by saying that famous African Americans like herself need to engage in the struggle if equality is ever to be achieved. She's not convinced, but Gabe has his orders - he's going to try and get her out of there anyway. By page 15 Gabe has sprung Carla, Fury and the rest of the Howlers minus Rebel have been captured by the Nazis, and both Gabe and, separately, Rebel are about to discover where they're being held.

When Gabe sees the Howlers prisoners, naturally he wants to mount a rescue. Carla, however, disagrees with Gabe's plan. She sees that none of the Howlers (except for Gabe) are African American, and believes that none of them would risk their lives to save Gabe if their positions were reversed. Gabe isn't interested in her racist views of whites - he sees both black and white as American, and he's going in to help the guys he knows would do the same for him. This sparks a revolt by the Howlers, and a melee ensues.

The Howlers have just about made good their escape, when the Nazi leader returns holding the scared Carla as a hostage. Much to Carla's astonishment, Fury and his men couldn't care less about her skin color, they'll put down their guns and surrender to save her - she's one of them - an American!

The Howlers have gone from the frying pan into the fire, but just when everything looks hopeless Rebel makes his entrance, and that good old Southern boy saves the day. Carla's had a complete change of heart, and is going back to the USA with a revised outlook - not all whites are racists after all, not even all Southerners!

So ends Friedrich's anti-racist tale, one that denounces racism whatever form it takes. It can't have been easy to write and publish such material, racism being such a sensitive topic, especially since it was a comic that featured an African American person in a position of power that resulted in the great EC closing down due to a Comics Code judge's decision in the mid-50s. This story acknowledges the paradox of the United States and the principles of equality and freedom enshrined in its founding documents juxtaposed to the irony of African Americans who risked and in many cases gave their lives fighting the ultimate racists in WWII to defend that freedom, only to return home to discrimination because of the color of their skin. Yet not everyone with white skin was or is a racist, just as not everyone with colored skin is free from racism. It's not one particular race that is the enemy of freedom, its the divisive racist mentality that tears society apart and sets human against human.

Social History in Comics: New Heroic Comics 81 - "Hill 528"

The significance of New Heroic Comics 81 (March 1953), published by Famous Funnies, is that it contains a short true story about the bravery of Corporal Fred McGee in the Korean War. Corporal McGee is still alive today, and is a decorated veteran of the Korean War. In this two page story depicting the events on Hill 528 for which Corporal McGee received his honors, McGee is not shown as an African American, even though that is his identity. Personally I think it is unlikely that this omission was deliberate on the part of the comic book creators. It is more likely that it was simply assumed that McGee was white, because in the early 1950s institutional racism, if nothing else, tended to make society blind to the contributions of African Americans. It was as if a whole section of the population didn't exist, and you can see this by the absence of African American characters in comics throughout the 1950s especially. The error made on this comic is reminiscent of that made by the Marvel colorists on the cover of Sgt. Fury 1 in the early 60s - they simply assumed that all the characters were white, unaware of Lee and Kirby's intention to introduce diversity into the Marvel universe. Here then is "Hill 528". I wish that somebody who is a comic book creator would re-do this short story with McGee correctly depicted as an African American, and publish it somewhere while McGee is still alive.

As a special treat, here's the inside back cover of the comic, which features a Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree ad drawn by none other than Frank Frazetta!

Also, just to complete this short post, here's the cover of Sgt. Fury 1, showing the incorrectly colored Gabriel Jones:

Gabriel Jones is the famous African American horn-blowing member of the Howling Commandos.

African American History Month Reprise: Sgt. Fury 6 - "The Fangs of the Fox"

Central to any consideration of the introduction of African American characters into mainstream comic books of the 1960s has to be issue #6 of Sgt. Fury (March 1964), a Lee/Kirby masterpiece with inking by George Roussos. The whole series promotes a view of harmonious relations between all ethnic groups and races in America as desirable, simply by virtue of the diversity of the Howling Commandos themselves. You have a Jewish American (Izzy Cohen), Italian- (Dino Manelli), Irish- (Dum-Dum Dugan), African- (Gabriel Jones), and originally three Anglo-Americans, two from the north (Fury himself and Junior, who gets killed early in the series) and one from the South (Rebel Ralston). But issue 6 of this series is one that takes the bull of racism by the horns, brings it out in the open and slays it for all to see.

As the cover suggests, the story is "based on a little known incident of the North African campaign", so right away you know Rommell and the Afrika Korps are going to be part of the tale, and Monty's British Desert Rats are going to show up at some point. The expertise with which this story is written, though, is evident from the way the reader is led to believe that the mission to get Rommell is the main plot, and that the racist issue is a sub-plot - it's not evident at all from the cover. By the end of the book the former fizzles out and the latter provides the main punch. The story was clearly written to get a strong point across on racism.

Back to the story of issue 6. Leaving aside the details of the mission, just suffice to say it's all going on in North Africa, the Howlers are given a replacement for Junior who was lost two issues previous. Fury notices something strange about the new guy, George Stonewell. First of all Fury puts it down to their new man maybe trying to impress him with his toughness, now that he's with the Howling Commandos, but when they enter the barracks all is revealed:

Fury sure doesn't mince his words. Notice how Stonewell assumes that 'Rebel' is a racist because he's from the South. In Wally Wood's "Perimeter" (Frontline Combat 15 by EC, Jan 1954) Wood used a similar scenario to undermine the stereotype of all Southerners being racists. In fact this story feels like it draws a lot of inspiration from Wood's 1954 standard setter.

Now as I'm sure anyone in the armed forces will tell you, the most important people to any soldier are the other members of his/her unit. I hasten to add that I do not speak from direct experience here, but from what I have learned from a colleague who is a veteran. Their lives are inter-dependent at a level most other people don't experience. So disharmony is, unsurprisingly, a danger to everyone concerned. A couple of times during this story the point is made that racial disharmony is a direct threat to the lives of soldiers - Stonewell, in considering himself superior to Izzy and Gabe, doesn't think them capable of handling the mission, and his clumsy attempts to take over their roles nearly gets them killed a couple of times. Here's the first incident, where mistrust of Gabriel's abilities almost ends in disaster and does reach a flashpoint between Jones and Stonewell that Fury has to break up and suppress with some serious threats:

In a kind of interlude, because Stonewell speaks German, Fury wants to use him to communicate with a captured Nazi officer. It is during this conversation that Nazi anti-semitism and racism against African Americans back home are equated:

Then comes the incident in which Stonewell tries to take over Izzy's role because he thinks Jewish people are incapable inferiors. Again this exposes the two commandos to unnecessary danger, as their conflict alerts the enemy to their presence. Yet when the chips are down the two fight as a team, and Stonewell deals the blow that frees them from their immediate danger, but in the process he's hit by grenade shrapnel. Izzy has to carry him to their rescue by Fury and the rest of the unit:

So now comes the final anti-racist message, using the same blood transfusion idea seen in the Our Army At War 160 story "What is the Color of Your Blood?" (November 1965) featuring Jackie Johnson and the Nazi heavyweight boxer. Gabe has the same rare AB blood type as Stonewell, who won't survive without a transfusion. Sgt. Fury 6 predates OAAW 160 by 18 months, but Bob Kanigher was using the blood transfusion theme in his Sgt. Rock stories well before this issue of Sgt. Fury. Remember the story "A New Kind of War" (March 1961) featuring Sgt. Rock and the nurse in Our Army At War 104, where she offers her blood to save Rock's life? In that one I think the point was being made about the bravery of nurses in war, and their willingness to sacrifice part of what keeps them alive, or even their own life, for that of their patient. Here the blood transfusion is being used to show that there's no difference between black and white. It makes the 'one drop of blood' rule look ridiculous.

The final page sees Stonewell preparing to depart, reassigned after making his recovery thanks to Gabe, and being saved by Izzy, the two men whose racial and ethnic backgrounds had led him to despise them. Stonewell has changed, but he's not fully reformed by any means. It's taken a lifetime of conditioning to turn him into the bigot he is, and in his case it isn't something that is going to go away too easily. But there's hope, and the last panel summarizes the message the story was putting across.

So ends one of the few major anti-racist comic books of the decade, the first in the 1960s to directly and openly confront racism.