What's This? A Sherman crew.
The facts: The Haunted Tank was created by writer-editor Robert Kanigher and artist Russ Heath for G.I. Combat #87 (May 1961), with Kanigher sticking with the strip until the end of that series with issue 288 (March 1987)! Only Sgt. Rock has run longer among war comics features. The Tank has also appeared in a smattering of other war books like All-Out War, Our Army at War and, to get more recent, Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion. That was 2009, but in 2008, it got a current-day Vertigo series that addressed the innate racism of the ghost of a Rebel general acting as a beneficial agent. A new G.I. Combat featured the Tank in 2012.
How you could have heard of it: The Haunted Tank appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Menace of the Madniks!". The original stories were the object of a Showcase Presents. The other collection you might still find in comics stores is Doctor 13: Architecture & Morality TPB.
Example story: G.I. Combat #103 (January 1964) "Rabbit Punch for a Tiger!" by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert
Something you may be right to ask is whether the ghost is real or if Jeb is hallucinating. Like, is the ghost of his ancestor just the way his brain manifests intuitions during battles? I HAVE to ask, because in the randomly chosen story, Jeb also hears a magician's rabbit talk to him.
Kanigher is about to torture the rabbit metaphor out of shape, but since no one else ever sees or hears the ghost, and it's not the only thing Jeb perceives, he seems pretty nuts. But this is the DC Universe - he could just be psychic. But if he's crazy, at least he's the right kind of crazy. For example, after zig-zagging to avoid an enemy Tiger Tank's shells, our heroes run right into a pit and get stuck. Jeb plays dead, outside the tank, while being fired upon, just to trick the bigger, tougher enemy.
So hey, out of a hole JUST LIKE A RABBIT - prophecy fulfilled, right?! Well, no. The ghost says the rabbit trick has yet to happen. They enter a ravine (which Jeb decides to call a "rabbit stew pot") and turn the corner on ANOTHER Tiger.
You're really stretching it there, Jeb. You just want the rabbit visions to stop, I get it, but this is surely not it. Just random tank-on-tank action. At the next ravine, they decide to take the high road so as not to get caught by surprise again. Except that exposes them to airplane fire, and down they go into the warren anyway!
The planes dare to pull a Luke Skywalker and get blown up by Haunted Tank fire for their trouble. And then it starts to snow, giving the tank enough cover to get to a small hamlet, seemingly untouched by the war. No wait, that's just the snow covering enemy tracks, because as the crew approaches a wrecked U.S. jeep, shelling from a hidden Tiger begins and Jeb is thrown off! He jumps into the jeep and makes a run at the Tiger to distract it, hits a bump and fulfilling the promise of the cover!
And also, the prophecy. This is kind of like a hand grabbing a rabbit in a hat. Right? Like, if the rabbit them pulls out a bazooka and shoots the magician. Yeah, kind of. "Rabbit-punch" joke, and we're done. The ghost is a facilitator more than an active agent in this one, but Jeb is always looking at the sky for the ghost's appearance, because a calm ghost is a "go-ahead". That's how he makes all his decisions, and it works for them. Indeed, there are HUNDREDS of Haunted Tank stories and they're all like this, i.e., filled with crazy action moments featuring tanks. You'd think it would be repetitive, and it is, but not in a bad way. There's a reason for the strip's longevity.
Who's Next? The son of a frontier hero.
Comments