Our Fighting Forces #151 - Kill Me With Wagner

Beneath a generic Joe Kubert cover that has nothing to do with the interior story is the first of twelve issues of OUR FIGHTING FORCES featuring the Losers, written and drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by D. Bruce Berry.

For his first story, Kirby places the Losers in a small town in occupied France, where they have the mission to rescue famed (but apparently never photographed)concert pianist Emma Klein, being hidden by the Maquis. The youngest Loser, Gunner, gets captured, and the others come in with the help of the Maquis. I like how the women brought in as hostages get in the fight in the middle of this page.



Kirby does an especially good job with a sequence on the last few pages, showing the the entire town being virtually leveled by Allied shelling following the rescue. Very cinematic, with Kirby setting up Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" as the soundtrack to the destruction in the previous scene (which I just realized is significantly before APOCALYPSE NOW used it in a similar vein).

Kirby also writes a text page in place of the letter column about his intent for the series, to tell the stories of "Everymen" characters caught in the landscape of war.

Published 1974