Review by Win Wiacek

In 1961 DC Thomson launched a digest-sized title called Commando. Broadly similar in dimensions to a slim paperback book, it offered 68 black and white pages per issue and an average of two panels a page. Each issue told a complete war story (generally based in World War I or II – although all theatres of conflict have featured since). They told tasteful yet gripping stories of valour and heroism in stark dramas, which came charged with grit and authenticity. The fully painted covers made them look more like novels than comics and they were a huge, instant success. They’re still being published.

A number of these stirring sagas were collected in sturdy, capacious hardback volumes, re-presenting a dozen classics at a time, but in its decades of unflinching service Commando has occasionally produced other collections. This redoubtable annual from 1989 (the first of two) contains shorter stories in a more traditional panel format, rendered in varying degrees of colour and offering all new material.

Because of previous company policy these tales are all uncredited, although due to the diligent researchers contributing to sites such as Last Dodo.com some credits can now be attributed.

Behind the stunning wraparound cover by Ian Kennedy lie seven cracking yarns. In full colour ‘The Young ‘Un!’ follows coal ship crewman Joe Simes as he struggles to come to terms with his father’s death as a victim of the Royal Navy’s foolish, doctrinaire policies. Or at least that what he thought until he joined up. ‘No Surrender’ from 1968 sees intransigent troublemaker Angus McKay fight his own comrades and Germans with equal passion during a mission to Norway. Dorrell L. G. Staiton and Ferran Sostres are responsible for ‘Duel in the Sun’. It pits rebellious Australian pilot Mark Hudson against his own commanders when all he really wants is to kill the Japanese genius shooting down allied pilots as if they were sitting ducks.

‘Killed in Action’ is the part-colour tale (black, white, grey and yellow) and sees cruel, cowardly lieutenant Vivian Fawcett-Bligh challenged by a common soldier who knows all his secrets. Set in the African desert in 1941, it doesn’t end the way you might expect. ‘Big Bird, Little Friend’ is another spectacular full-colour air adventure featuring two rival pilots, one British, the other American, whose bitter quarrel is finally resolved in the flak-blistered skies over Europe. Dennis McLoughlin draws 1984’s ‘The Good Soldier’, looking at the war through German eyes as Panzer commander Martin Winter becomes increasingly disaffected and appalled by SS atrocities on the Russian Front.

The strips conclude with another half-colour adventure ‘The Three Musketeers’ wherein three boyhood chums are reunited with explosive results on the beaches of Dunkirk. This classy package also contains a wealth of feature pages and many brilliant painted pin-up pages.

So ubiquitous and effective were Thomson’s war publications that they moulded the character of three generations of boys – and continue to do so eight times every month. This slice of the Blitz Spirit is a wonderful example of purely British comic-making: rousing, passionate and winningly understated, so if you’re looking for a more home-grown comics experience, well-written and wonderfully illustrated, get some in and check this out.