Today is Memorial Day (or Armistice Day) and we remember those who have served. On this date, World War I ended with an armistice, and so I am jumping ahead a few entries in Who's Who to talk about a character from the War to End All Wars.
Who's This? A WWI ace.
The facts: An intriguing Robert Kanigher/Joe Kubert creation, the WWI German anti-hero known as Enemy Ace (based on the famous Red Baron) debuted in Our Army at War #151 (February 1965) and quickly gained popularity and surprising longevity. After a few appearances in OOaW, he moved to Star-Spangled War Stories from #138 to 183, with lots of later appearances (as back-up or team-up) in Sgt. Rock and Unknown Soldier through the 80s, showing his career extending into WWII. In 1990, George Pratt painted an Enemy Ace graphic novel called War Idyll. Tim Truman's Guns Of The Dragon 1998 mini-series has him visit Dinosaur Island (as does the 2008 War That Time Forgot mini). Garth Ennis and Chris Weston gave us Enemy Ace: War in Heaven in 2001, though Ennis would go on to write more aviator stories for Marvel instead. He's appeared in dozens of superhero comics, whenever time travel has been a thing, and writers loved to give him descendants who either became aviation aces themselves or were more prominent still (for example, Swamp Thing comics have revealed Von Hammer to be an ancestor of the Arcanes - yeesh!)
How you could have heard of him: During the Dark Nights: Death Metal storyline, Enemy Ace is among the superheroes that were revived by Batman using a Black Lantern ring. Enemy Ace appears in the teaser of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Aquaman's Outrageous Adventure!", voiced by John DiMaggio.
Example story: Star-Spangled War Stories #140 (September 1968), "The Face of the Hangman" by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert
One of the interesting things about making your protagonist a soldier on the enemy side (and an enemy destined to be defeated as well) is how to make the reader still root for them. Enemy Ace had one recurring foe, a pretty terrifying French ace called the Hangman. Well, that's ONE way to do it. Obviously World War I didn't have the same ethical stakes - no Nazis per se, no genocide, etc. - so that's helpful too. And since it wasn't really an American conflict, the creative team can keep the U.S. clean of it (Balloon Buster not withstanding) and make other Allied nations breed "bad guys" as it does here. Perhaps the Hangman will put a dent in Enemy Ace's trademark haunted ambivalence. So let's see...
Well, there is some of that angst at the beginning. Enemy Ace is trying to down a British dirigible that has a new type of gun emplacement. He both marvels at Ally ingenuity and makes an acid comment about how good humanity is becoming a killing.
I note here that Enemy Ace's adventures are told in the first person. That's a neat trick to make us immediately empathize with him. If these are his memoirs, they can be self-reflective, and it boldly states that our allegiance must be with him. We're in HIS head. So a dangerous maneuver later, Von Hammer is heading for a fiery explosion.
He swoops out of it immediately, but right into the crosshairs of France's Hangman. Enemy Ace flies into an electric storm, the Hangman follow, and the two planes crash into one another, falling into the English Channel. And surprisingly, the French ace rescues his wounded foe from the waters.
Man, he certainly commits to the bit, doesn't he? Full costume, full mask (he's badly burned), a noose hanging around his neck (someone should tell him the Hangman hangs people, not the other way around), but... honorable? Yes, they float to shore on a wing, and the Frenchman brings him to his chateau, for like Baron Von Hammer, he is an aristocrat - the Count André de Sevigne - and in another time they would play polo together or some such. In his opinion, men such as they should die in the sky, not on the ground or in the flood. Enemy Ace recuperates in his enemy's company and his beautiful sister's. And though he's bound for a P.O.W. camp eventually, it doesn't stop him from saving the countess from a runaway horse accident.
But as long as he's on a horse, he takes his shot. No, not with the girl. He races off to see the nearby airfield! Not, just see, but steal from it!
He flies out of a sticky situation, not to mention his raw, wounded hands on the "stick". He's soon being chased by the rest of the squadron and does some loop de loops!
And then the Hangman is after him. Almost a brother-in-law or not, this is the sky, and it's totally legit for either of them to die there. Time for some dangerous maneuvering!
As the Hangman closes in, Von Hammer flies up into a French formation above, shoots one spad down, and then takes his place in the breaking formation, and it's impossible to tell him apart from the other French biplanes. The last thing he sees down below is a funeral over a broken propeller, no doubt for one of his victims. The COST of WAR!
Well, that was very enjoyable, even if the story could have been spread out over more issues, making more of a meal of his stay at Chateau Hangman. But perhaps it's this enjoyable exactly because it gets in and out fast, with lots of action, but also the strip's trademark reflection of what it means to wage war. And of course, Joe Kubert. I'm not made of stone, here!
Who's Next? A villain with a third eye.
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