Jack Kirby's The Losers: Bombing out the Panama Canal

GoogaMooga · 02 Aug 2006

from http://pencilink.blogspot.com/2008/02/o ... y-art.html

When I find myself waiting for a bus or train or metro, I sometimes exclaim, "We'll take the Panama Canal!" - all because of an old Kirby comic I bought when I was a pubescent 13-year old:

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Our Fighting Forces #158 - Jack Kirby art & cover

Our Fighting Forces #158 featuring the Losers, 1975 - A decent two page spread opens this Panama Canal story. The art is slightly less better than previous issues as Kirby nears the end of his run. This is number 8 of 12 Our Fighting Forces issues with Kirby art. See today's posts or more Our Fighting Forces or Kirby issues.
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Kirby cover pencils = **
"Bombing Out on the Panama Canal" Kirby story pencils 18 pages = ***[/quote]

GoogaMooga · 02 Aug 2006

fra http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/troublew ... osers.html

Kirby comes up with a neat formula for the series that carries throughout the run. A sort of "cold opening" to set up the situation, then we get the title and the details of the mission The Losers need to accomplish. Within this framework, Kirby's able to tell a story of the danger of hubris in "Bushido," a ghost story in "The Partisans," and a good heart curdled by abuse in "Panama Fattie/Bombing out on the Panama Canal," as well as war and idealogy getting in the way of the purity of sport in "Mile a Minute Jones." In his Introduction, Neil Gaiman notes that none of the characters in these stories get what they want, and that's an astute observation, at least on the part of Panama Fattie and Jones and the others who grab the spotlight for an issue or two and then are killed or just left behind when the mission is over. What's interesting is that Kirby, perhaps carrying an aversion to the whole "loser" label, spends as little time as possible on the team of Captain Storm, Johnny Cloud, Gunner and Sarge. In some issues, Cloud would appear to be the leader instead of Storm, but aside from the two-part Panama Fattie story, where Storm showed real affection for Fattie and regret over the route her life takes, they're largely interchangeable cyphers. The same can be said of Gunner and Sarge, who are kind of the Johnny Storm (youthful exuberance) and Ben Grimm (sincere, stolid neighborhood fella) of the quartet, but much more hastily sketched. If the missions were more boilerplate and without Kirby's range and grandiosity, the thin characterization would be more of a problem, but most of the time readers will just be enjoying the imaginative action sequences to care.

RobertSwanderson · 01 Jan 2007

Run him over Kamandi!

That meddlin kid · 26 Mar 2007

RobertSwanderson wrote:

Run him over Kamandi!

Yes...please tell us that's not Kamandi driving!

But seriously, I recall my brother having a couple of Jack Kirby issues of "The Losers" and really liking them.

Jack Kirby's The Losers: Bombing out the Panama Canal

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