Review: Convict Commandos: Frenzy of Fear (Commando #4571) - Alan Hebden

With the exception of Private "Jelly" Jakes -- the unit's resident coward -- the Convict Commandos were among the most fearless fighters in the British Forces. So why were they running in terror from a unit of Germans leaving their quaking comrade behind in their haste? Something was badly awry, something had happened to throw the Convict Commandos into a Frenzy Of Fear.

A few years ago I read a bunch of digital issues of COMMANDO, the long-running British war comic, and some of my favorites were in a series called Convict Commandos, created and written by legendary comics author Alan Hebden with art by Manuel Benet. As you might guess from the series title, these stories chronicle the exploits of three criminals recruited to be commandos -- strongman Titch Mooney, knife expert Smiler Dawson, and burglar and explosives expert Jelly Jakes -- and the officer who leads them on their mission, Lt. Guy Tenby. I've decided to pick up where I left off and read the rest of the series, starting with this one from 2013, which is still available on Amazon. It's a fine yarn with a particularly good plot, as the Convict Commandos set out to destroy a Nazi radar jamming operation in occupied Greece, only to encounter a menace that forces them to act nothing like their usual selves. It's a clever, very entertaining tale, and if you're a fan of war comics, I give it a strong recommendation.

War Dog - Alan Hebden, Cam Kennedy, Mike Western

 

WAR DOG is a 16-part serial that debuted in the December 29, 1979 issue of the British weekly war comic BATTLE ACTION and ran for several months on into 1980. The art on the first five of the three-page episodes is by Mike Western. Cam Kennedy is responsible for the art on the rest of the serial, which was written by Alan Hebden. This is an absolutely outstanding World War II yarn featuring a protagonist who never says a word, and we’re never really privy to his thoughts. I’m talking, of course, about Kazan, the massive German Shepherd, who, as this story opens, is a guard dog at a Luftwaffe base in Russia.

Kazan winds up in the hands of some Russian partisans, and that’s just the start of a journey that finds him taking part in an Arctic convoy, getting in trouble in England, barely escaping a bureacracy that wants him dead, serving masters in several different armies, surviving a plane crash in the Libyan desert, being pursued by a madman who wants to kill him, and finally encountering an unexpected destiny. I’m used to plot twists in Hebden’s scripts, but they come so fast in this story that it’s almost dizzying. And just when you think Hebden’s going to push things so far over the top that you have to say, “Oh, come on!”, darned if he doesn’t make it all come together and make perfect sense.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s a great story with epic scope and a very likable protagonist, and the artwork by Western and Kennedy is richly detailed and top-notch all the way through. Garth Ennis has reprinted this in the second volume of his BATTLE CLASSICS series, and I give it a high recommendation. Also in that second volume is FIGHTING MANN, a Vietnam-set serial also by Hebden and Kennedy, and I’ll probably be reading that one soon. A year ago I knew about COMMANDO but was unaware of the wealth of great material in the other British war comics. I’m having a fine time reading them.

The General Dies at Dawn - Alan Hebden

 

Like DEATH SQUAD, which I read recently and really enjoyed, THE GENERAL DIES AT DAWN is a serial from the British comic BATTLE, written by Alan Hebden with art by John Cooper. And also like DEATH SQUAD, it’s written from the German point of view, although there’s only one protagonist in this story, not the five of DEATH SQUAD.

That protagonist is the general of the title, Otto von Margen, a Panzer commander fighting on the Eastern Front in Russia. As the story opens, von Margen is imprisoned, convicted of treason and cowardice and awaiting execution by the SS at dawn the next day. But it’s the spring of 1945, and American troops are closing in on the prison where von Margen is being held. If they get there first and take control, von Margen probably will be spared. If not . . . he’ll keep his date with the SS firing squad.

So to pass the time on what may be his last night, von Margen tells the story of his military career to the soldier guarding him, with each part of the tale being another episode in the serial. Von Margen, a proud officer from the Junker class, has clashed repeatedly with the SS during the war, such friction eventually leading to his imprisonment and conviction. But along the way, he takes part in many battles, including the desperate Siege of Stalingrad.

This story is shorter but more epic in scale than DEATH SQUAD, which covered a relatively short period of time rather than most of the war. But there’s plenty of action, mostly tank battles on the frozen Russian plains. Von Margen is an interesting character, a professional soldier who fights because that’s his job, another example of a German protagonist the reader can sort of root for, even though he’s on the wrong side in the war.

Hebden’s script has the usual twists. He can pack an awful lot of plot into these three-page episodes. Cooper’s art is excellent as well. All of it comes together to create a considerable amount of genuine suspense as the story winds down and we flip the pages to find out whether the Americans will arrive in time to save von Margen’s life. Do we even want them to? That’s a question every reader will have to answer for themselves, I suppose. This story was reprinted in the collection BATTLE CLASSICS, edited by Garth Ennis, which is still available, and if the others in that volume are as good, it’s well worth reading.

Death Squad - Alan Hebden

Having grown up reading OUR ARMY AT WAR (with Sgt. Rock), OUR FIGHTING FORCES (with Gunner and Sarge—and Pooch!), and all the other DC war comics, plus SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS over at Marvel, plus being a huge fan of the TV series COMBAT!, I had a hard time warming up to the sub-genre of war fiction that features German protagonists. Oh, I read ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque and was impressed by it, but it took the ENEMY ACE series by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert to convince me that good, compelling war stories could be told from the enemy point of view. Still, I haven’t read much in that field. I have novels by Sven Hassel, Charles Whiting (writing as Leo Kessler) and Kenneth Bulmer (writing as Bruno Krauss) that feature German protagonists, but I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

But then along comes DEATH SQUAD, a magnificent collection of a serial written by Alan Hebden, with art by Eric Bradbury, that originally appeared in the British comic book BATTLE ACTION in 1980 and ’81, and just like that, I’m a big fan. This is one of the best war comics I’ve ever read.

The Death Squad is part of a punishment battalion in the German Wehrmacht and consists of five men: Granddad, the crusty old non-com who’s also a veteran of the first World War; con man Gus; knife expert Frankie; Swede, a Scandinavian lumberjack who’s deadly with a throwing axe; and Licker, the only real Nazi in the bunch, stiff-necked and pompous, as you’d expect. They’re grunts, with the exception of Licker, and as such they’re fighting more for each other and to stay alive, rather than for the Fuhrer or the Fatherland. This seems to be a common concept in the sub-genre. The protagonists are either enlisted men or occasionally an aristocratic officer, but none of them are actually Nazis, and none of them get along with the Gestapo or the S.S. This allows the reader to sympathize with them, at least to a certain extent.

It’s impossible not to sympathize with the Death Squad, as they get thrown into mission after mission where the odds of their survival are almost nil. They’re fighting on the Eastern Front against Russia (which admittedly helps in making the reader root for them) and have to deal with the terrible extremes of a Russian winter, to boot. They infiltrate Moscow to destroy a tank factory, get stranded on a snowed-in troop train under attack by Russian partisans, are tortured by sadistic prison commandants, encounter a beautiful female Russian freedom fighter, and engage in a deadly game of masquerade and deception. Even when they’re transferred back to France, to what seems like an easy job guarding a U-Boat post, they immediately run into trouble from British commandos raiding the place.

Hebden’s script is great, especially in the extended Russian front sequence where he throws in plot twist after plot twist and makes them all work. Characterization is, of necessity, rather limited except for the Death Squad, but each of them comes alive vividly. The tough but likable old-timer Granddad is my favorite, but they’re all portrayed very well. The art by Eric Bradbury is also top-notch, filled with action and details, capturing both the carnage and the poignant moments of war. If you’re a fan of war comics, or war fiction in general, I give DEATH SQUAD a very high recommendation. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Classic Western Comics: El Mestizo - Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra

I’m familiar with Alan Hebden’s work from his scripts for the British war comic COMMANDO, but a while back my friend Paul Bishop mentioned this Western comic strip written by Hebden and drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, which ran in the British magazine BATTLE during the summer of 1977. There are only sixteen episodes, each running either three or four pages, but Hebden’s scripts and the great art by Carlos Ezquerra pack a lot of story into that limited space. The whole run was reprinted in 2018 in a handsome hardback collection from Rebellion Books in England.

These are actually Civil War stories, not Westerns, but the two are close cousins and Mestizo certainly has Western elements in his background. He’s a half-black, half-Mexican former slave who escaped from the plantation in Alabama where he lived and went to Mexico to become a bandit and gunfighter. During the Civil War, though, he returns home to try to rescue the girl he loves but instead winds up as a mercenary working for both north and south, taking on whatever dirty jobs need to be done as long as the money’s right. Generals on both Union and Confederate sides come to depend on Mestizo to carry out the missions they give him, which include stopping a crazed southern doctor from unleashing bubonic plague in Washington, D.C., and tracking down renegades on both sides who use the war as a cover for their outlawry.

As you can tell just by looking at that cover, there’s a great deal of Spaghetti Western influence in this comic strip. Actually, EL MESTIZO would have made a great series of movies with, I don’t know, Fred Williamson, maybe, playing the character. Likewise, what a series of novels it would have made for the Piccadilly Cowboys. There’s plenty of gritty violence, and Ezquerra’s artwork makes it even grittier. I enjoyed this collection enough that I’m really sorry the series was so short-lived. If you enjoy this sort of Western, I give EL MESTIZO a high recommendation.

Commando: Convict Commandos: Mask of Death - Alan Hebden

The Convict Commandos -- Jelly Jakes, Smiler Dawson, Titch Mooney -- and their leader Guy Tenby are back in action. This time they are planning to snatch a scientist from under the noses of the Nazis in occupied Europe. It's no easy job and, with treachery afoot, the prison sentences they're trying to avoid begin to look a very tempting alternative.

(This is another good adventure yarn with some effective--but not really that surprising--plot twists. Another good job on the art by Manuel Benet, as well. I've read enough issues of COMMANDO now that I'm starting to get a pretty good handle on how the different writers handle things. Alan Hebden has a denser style, with longer captions and more description. Iain McLaughlin's stories are more breakneck action. Brent Towns' yarns have the most heart and emotional impact. All of them work very well and provide a nice variety.)

Commando: Destination Siberia - Alan Hebden

When Hector Salway and a bunch of mates decided to go halfway around the world to repay a debt, they knew it wouldn't be an easy task -- their destination was Siberia, with the Cold War between the West and East at its height. What they didn't know was that a vicious killer who had tried to murder them once before would already be there -- and was now even more dangerous.

(As always with Alan Hebden's COMMANDO stories, this is a well-written yarn with a bit more of an epic scope than usual, going from Italy in the final months of World War II to a Siberian prison camp in the post-war years. This is a reprint of a story originally published in 1994, and I'm glad COMMANDO brought it back because I really enjoyed it.)

Commando: Convict Commandos - Alan Hebden

There you are -- stuck in a military prison in Singapore when the Japanese smash into town. You know that if being a prisoner of the British is bad being a prisoner of the Japanese will be ten times worse. So if a man in British officer's uniform was to offer to get you out if you'd work for him, you'd agree to do anything he ordered, wouldn't you?

The Convict Commandos did... and probably wished they hadn't!

(Alan Hebden is the son of long-time COMMANDO scripter Eric Hebden. He's a prolific author of war comics himself and has done a really fine job in this one of crafting a variation on the classic Dirty Dozen plot. He has a distinctive writing style that I enjoy, as well. There are several more in this series, and I'll definitely be reading them.)