Commando Comics by Brent Towns

(My friend Brent Towns is a bestselling Western and thriller writer from Australia, and recently he's added comic book author to his list of achievements, becoming one of the regular writers on the long-running COMMANDO series of war comics published in England. He has six out so far, with more in the pipeline. I've read all of them in the past couple of months and really enjoyed them. Great action and characterization. I grew up reading OUR ARMY AT WAR, OUR FIGHTING FORCES, and SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS, so I'm really glad to have some top-notch war comics to read again on a regular basis. For a long time it was difficult to get issues of COMMANDO in the States. When my friend David Whitehead, also a fine writer, was scripting them, he sent me some, and you can find used copies of print collections on-line. But the publisher is now making some of them available digitally, and that's the way I've been reading them. If you want to read some excellent action comics, check out the titles by Brent below. While I'm waiting for his next one to come out, I've also picked up e-book editions of several COMMANDO issues by other authors and will be reading them as well.)

FLAK RUN!
Norway fell to a German invasion in 1940, and when they did, the Nazis gained access to a factory that could manufacture a component vital to the creation of nuclear weapons. The SOE and the RAF were in agreement, the factory must be flattened at all costs. There was only one man for the job -- only she wasn't a man. Nancy Peacocke was regarded as one of the best female pilots in Britain. Her precision skill with an aircraft was exactly what the RAF needed to destroy the factory. But before she could drop the bomb, she had to get through the FLAK RUN!

JUNGLE REDEMPTION
Deep in the thick, muggy jungle, Sergeant Ted Jones and his squad of raiders trudged on. Eaten alive by insects and wet with sweat, they closed in on their target -- a Japanese radio station. The lone radio operator had no idea what had hit him until it was too late. But as they made their escape, a searchlight blinded them and they froze. Ted's cobbers covered their retreat, but one by one they fell, until only one man walked out...

HELLFIRE PASS
Trapped in the confines of the Selarang Barracks, Sergeant Pete Mellion couldn't be further away from his turbulent past -- that is until his old nemesis, Lieutenant Reg Williams, is assigned the same work detail building the Thai-Burma Railway. Slaving away in the intense heat of the jungle, can these two foes put aside their feud in order to escape? Or will Hellfire Pass consume their very souls?

LEGIONS OF THE DAMNED
In 9 CE, over twenty-thousand men of the Roman Legions were on a perilous mission in the heart of Germania to consolidate the Roman Empire. But they didn't count on the betrayal of one of their own... And now the survivors must retrieve their eagle, all amidst the fall of the LEGIONS OF THE DAMNED!

THE WOMBAT AND THE TIGER
A monster is lurking in the shipping lanes north of Port Darwin -- the size of which no-one has ever imagined. Freighter after freighter sink without a trace and the only ones who can stop the beast have fought their way into a jail cell! The Wombat and The Tiger crews are fierce in a bar fight -- but Captains Griffin and Beaumont must put their differences aside if they are to take on this devil from the Far East.

THE PEREGRINE FALCONS
In mid-1944, Hitler launched his vengeance weapons. These evil V-1 rockets struck at the heart of Britain's cities, killing innocent people in their thousands. But Hitler wasn't going to have it all his way, as his V-1 rockets began being caught in the talons of a squadron known as the Peregrine Falcons -- experts in taking out the buzz bombs. But there was a saboteur in the nest, one that Squadron Leader Henry Abercrombie never saw coming.