Random Back Issues #154 - Our Fighting Forces #132

Who knew a dog could do the "slow bad-ass walk away from an explosion" bit? 

Of the 3 stories in this issue, we start with Robert Kanigher & John Severin's, "Pooch: The Winner", less a Losers story and more a flashback to happier times. On their way to a mission briefing, Gunner and Sarge spot someone entering Buckingham Palace. It's Pooch, an all-white dog that served with them in the Pacific Theater.

Pooch remembers them, too, and thus begins the flashback, where we see Gunner and Sarge weren't excited initially about their new partner, but Pooch immediately warns of a Zero diving silently out of the sun, and that's convincing enough. He later saves a whole group of Marines from being killed by a 'banzai charge', Japanese infantry planning to hold onto their grenades until they're on top of the Marines' ammo dump. Which raises the question, why did the barber set up next to the ammo dump? There must have been other boxes to use for chairs somewhere.

Pooch falls ill, and minus his senses, Gunner and Sarge are captured on their next patrol - clearly having gotten lazy, trusting the dog to do all the work - with the idea they'll be bait to lure the other Marines into a trap. Pooch leads the way, catching a bullet in the process (though he stays upright long enough to chew through the ropes holding Gunner and Sarge.) While he recovers, Gunner and Sarge are redeployed to Europe, where their entire squad is wiped out in the first battle. They meet Captains Cloud and Storm not long after, and we return to the present. Pooch seems eager for a team-up - likely more fun than whatever function he's attending at the Palace - but Gunner and Sarge figure their "loser" stink would finish Pooch off for sure this time. Or maybe having your super-awesome dog pal back would turn things around?

"The Invincible Armada", by Kanigher and Ric Estrada, is a "history repeats itself" story, as we open on Don Julio Francisco Alverez y Diego promising to bring his son the head of Sir Francis Drake as a present (as seen in Sunday Splash Page #193.) Yes, it's time for the Spanish Armada to invade England! There's no way fighting a naval battle against the British can go badly! Don Julio's pretty cocky, but Drake's smaller ships are too nimble to hit. As he falls beneath the waves, Don Julio vows the Armada will return.

The only returning his widow does is to Prussia, but 350 years later, his descendant, a Luftwaffe bomber pilot, prepares to "avenge" the defeat. But the Nazis are apparently still operating under the delusion the "bomber will always get through", so there's no fighter support, and Spitfires send Don Julio the Sequel to a watery grave of his own, his plane coming to rest beside a Spanish galleon (remarkably well-preserved after 350 years.)

"Cabbages and Kings" is one of Sam Glanzman's U.S.S. Stevens' tales, this time focused on a Bo'sn Egloff, who ventures on deck during a typhoon to make sure everything is secured. While he gets the guns taken care of, some of their food was stored topside for lack of room below, and the crates burst, flinging cabbages everywhere. While Egloff ties down the remaining food, he notices an ensign being swept away. Egloff saves him by chucking a "monkey's fist", a lead weight on the end of a heaving line, then towing him back aboard. The ensign (who looks years away from being able to grow facial hair) was trying to help Egloff, but just ended up creating more work for the man. That's why I don't do group projects. 

{4th longbox, 161st comic. Our Fighting Forces #132, by Robert Kanigher (writer), John Severin and Ric Estrada (artists), Sam Glanzman (writer/artist), colorists and letterers unknown}