Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #31, June 1966 [published 12 Apr 66]

“Into the Jaws of ... Death!” - Script: Roy Thomas; Art: Dick Ayers; Inking: John Tartaglione; Lettering: Sam Rosen

Pop Reference: Johnny Weismuller – first movie 1931, first Tarzan movie 1932

Pop Reference: 3 Stooges, who began making films in the 1930s or before.

This story is a prelude to D-Day – meaning of course that it’s a prelude to this summer’s annual.

Continuity alert: reference to the failures of Baron Strucker. (2 different past issues are footnoted in this story – I attribute Roy with the continuity.)

To repeat: I miss the way Jack Kirby used to draw Happy Sam: short and hatchet-faced.

Page 11, panel 5: the position of Dum Dum is an Ayers-ism. He uses this pose repeatedly. It looks more like Dum Dum is doing the jitterbug than getting ready for combat.

It’s not Roy’s writing but the Howler’s patter gets old and repetitive after a while.

For a journeyman story this was okay. The pop references are fun, and Roy was trying to be conscious about the continuity; and of course it set up this summer’s annual. As noted, the dialogue has become cliché by this time, but I’m not sure there was a cure for that.

Anarchy and Chaos are the natural state of the human race. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And Chaos must always ultimately triumph.