MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY moves into its second year of publication with issue #5, the Dirty Mission Issue. And I’m happy to report that this latest offering more than lives up to the very high standards set by the previous issues. The men’s adventure magazines probably published more stories about World War II than any other subject, and as you can tell from that great cover by Bruce Minney, this issue concentrates on stories about daring raids carried out by commando forces made up of criminals, prostitutes, and rugged American G.I.s.
The prototype for that plot, of course, is THE DIRTY DOZEN, the bestselling
novel by E.M. Nathanson and the famous movie made from it. Or is it? Turns out
the inspiration for that novel was a real-life group of commandos known as the
Filthy Thirteen, and old pulpster Arch Whitehouse contributes an article about
them from the October 1944 issue of the men’s magazine TRUE. That tale kicks
off the line-up of stories reprinted in this issue of MAQ, the rest of which
are completely fictional, by the way.
The only other author in this bunch whose by-line can be identified as his real
name and not a pseudonym is Donald Honig, who has the longest story in the book
with “Savage Comrades”, from the September 1969 issue of MALE. There’s been a
Honig story in every issue of MAQ so far, because he was a fine writer, and he
doesn’t disappoint here. In “Savage Comrades”, he comes up with a neat twist on
the criminals-turned-commandos plot by making them German POWs who, because of
their criminal history before the war, don’t want the Nazis to win. Along with
a couple of American GIs to run the mission, they’re sent in to blow up a vital
jet fuel refinery.
The term “Lace Panty Commandos” has become sort of a running joke among men’s
adventure magazine fans. The story that coined the term, “The Wild Raid of
Gibbon’s Lace Panty Commandos” (MAN’S BOOK, June 1963) is included here, are
are “The Desperate Raid of Wilson’s Lace Panty Guerrillas” (WORLD OF MEN, March
1963), “Free the Girls of Love Captive Stalag” (MEN, December 1967), “Death
Doll Platoon” (MAN’S STORY, February 1972), “The 5 Wild Missions of O’Brien’s
Submarine Commandos” (STAG, November 1973), and “G.I. River Rats Who Blasted
the Nazis’ Sex Circus Villa” (STAG, November 1973). That last story has a great
bit of copy on its first page: “The guests were top Nazi officers—perhaps even
Rommel—and the wild assassination scheme included a mute wrestler, a bear, and
a team of underwater daredevils . . .” If you can read that and not want to
read the story that goes with it, well, you have more will power than I do. I
found all these stories to be very entertaining.
The great fanzine publisher Justin Marriott contributes an article about Dirty
Missions in British comics, featuring a couple of my favorite series, the Rat
Pack and the Convict Commandos, both written by Alan Hebden, along with
covering a number of other series that sound intriguing. Blogger/author Joe
Kenney provides an essay about his introduction to the men’s adventure
magazines, and like everything he writes, it’s enjoyable and informative. I
mentioned Bruce Minney, but there are also dozens of reproductions of great
covers and interior art by Minney, Norm Eastman, Gil Cohen, Frank McCarthy, Al
Rossi, Walter Popp, and Franklin Wittmack, as well as others I’ve probably
overlooked or forgotten. And that doesn’t even include the features on beautiful
models Eva Lynd and Mala Mastroberte. For great art and production, you just
can’t beat MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY.
The Dirty Mission Issue gets the same very high recommendation from me that
the previous issues have. You can buy it directly from the publisher via his eBay page. And coming up next time around, as previewed in this
one: the Heist Issue! Something tells me it’ll be a good one.
