I’ve pointed this out before so I won’t belabour it, but the death of Private Junior Juniper, in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos # 4 (Nov., 1963), marked the first step in shifting the series away from its attitude of supermen in khaki romping their way through World War II. Granted, it would be three or four years before the title fully took the war seriously, but this early, at least, Stan Lee seemed to have learnt a lesson: that there was human drama in the grim reality of wartime. In fact, Stan realised, Sgt. Fury’s world, one without fanciful super-heroes or costumed super-villains or science fiction, provided the most effective stage for telling stories about the human condition.
That’s why it didn’t take long for one of the most powerful stories ever written for comics to appear---in Sgt. Fury # 6 (Mar., 1964). No matter how over-the-top or ridiculous one regards the early Howlers adventures, and that they were, everyone recognises “The Fangs of the Desert Fox”, written by Lee, and drawn by Jack Kirby and George Roussos, as an incisive piece of storytelling, one that strikes uncomfortably close to home.
The first five pages of the tale aren’t that integral, except to set up the backdrop of the situation. After an extemporaneous scene of Sergeant Fury capturing three Nazi infiltrators, the focus shifts to German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s domination of North Africa. The Desert Fox’s armoured troops are a juggernaut, sweeping its way through Libya. Without the troops or weaponry to challenge Rommel’s forces head-to-head, the Allied High Command makes a risky decision: send in a team of commandos to capture or kill Rommel. Stop Rommel and you’ve stopped the juggernaut.
This crucial mission falls upon Sergeant Fury and his Howlers, and they undergo a week of intensive training, including a series of practise paratroop jumps. On the last drop, Dino Manelli’s parachute snarls. With Fury’s help, the canopy opens, but too low for a safe landing. Dino collides with a tree, breaking his leg.
Manelli is the only multi-lingual Howler, and the mission calls for a German-speaking commando. Fortunately, a last-minute replacement is found. And this is where the story truly begins.
At the infirmary, Sergeant Fury introduces the bed-bound Howler to his replacement, Private George Stonewell. Manelli sticks out his hand in greeting, but Stonewell refuses to shake it, casually noting that Dino is of Italian descent.
On their way to their barracks, Fury and Stonewell encounter Howler Izzy Cohen, applying his mechanical skills to the engine of a broken-down jeep. Stonewell gives Izzy the cold shoulder, as well.
“What’s with this guy?” ponders Fury. “He’s carryin’ a king size chip on his shoulder . . . “ The grizzled sergeant comes to the conclusion that Stonewell is trying to impress him with how tough he is, now that he’s a Howler.
Yet, when they arrive at the Howlers’ barracks, Stonewell greets Reb Ralston and Dum Dum Dugan warmly. That changes when he meets Gabe Jones. Stonewell recoils as if the black Howler were a rattlesnake, revealing the new man’s true colours.
Fury’s eyes blaze as he confronts the replacement.
“Stonewell, at first I thought you were just tryin’ to throw your weight around---tryin’ to act like you thought a commando should,” snarls Fury. “But you ain’t just actin’, mister!! You’re a genuine, 14-carat, dyed-in-the-wool, low-down bigot!”
The Howlers move out at dawn, so Fury admits that they’re stuck with him. He yanks Stonewell toward him until they’re nose-to-nose and angrily warns him, “You so much as look crosseyed at Izzy, or Gabe, or anyone because of his race or color, and I’ll make ya wish you were never born!”
Stonewell endures Fury’s rage in cold silence.
The scene shifts to North Africa, where Field Marshal Rommel’s Panzer divisions have captured Tobruk and are now marching savagely toward Alexandria. Moving at lightning speed, the German legions smash all resistance, trampling everything before them underfoot.
That evening, the Afrikan Korps halts to replenish and reconnoiter. This is the moment that Fury and his commando squad, concealed outside one of the enemy outposts, have been waiting for. Once they put that German platoon out of action, they’ll be free to penetrate the Nazi field headquarters and locate Rommel.
With battle-hardened efficiency, the Howlers attack the outpost. George Stonewell does his part, fighting with grit and determination, like a skilled commando. Their victory is almost complete when Dum Dum shouts out an order to take out the radio operator before he can alert the Nazi HQ about their attack.
Gabe Jones is closest to the radio tent, but as he leaps to carry out the order, Stonewell interferes, insisting that he’s better suited for the job than a “mere” black man. The disturbance alerts the radio operator, who sends out word of the Howlers’ assault before Stonewell can gun him down. Gabe comes to blows with the bigoted commando before an angry Fury separates them.
But the damage is done. In response to the warning, a squadron of Stuka dive-bombers arrives overhead, forcing Fury and his men to take shelter under an outcropping of stone. In the lull after the enemy planes make their first pass, Fury orders Stonewell to question a captured Nazi officer about Rommel’s location.
Stonewell tries the “good cop” approach, offering the German a cigarette. But the enemy officer is canny, having witnessed Stonewell’s pitched exchange with Gabe.
Stonewell is not like the other Amerikaners, the German officer tells him. He should be fighting with them, on the side of the superior Ayrans. “We do not allow inferior races to mingle with us---to be part of our culture. That is why we cannot lose the war! That is why we are always triumphant!” inveigles the Nazi, promising to have Stonewall’s life spared if he helps him escape.
To the German’s surprise, Stonewell rejects him and Nazism with disgust.
The interrogation is interrupted when the Stukas make their next pass and, sighting the commandos, drop their bombs. As the Howlers scurry for shelter, the German officer takes advantage of the confusion to clout Stonewell and flee---into oblivion! For he is the first victim of the exploding bombs dropped from above.
Fury and Izzy hop into a German staff car and drive into the open, drawing the enemy planes’ attention away from the other Howlers. The pair manage to down one of the Stukas. The remaining trio of bombers drop the last of their payloads, wounding the two commandos, before running low on fuel and returning to base.
While they get their minor injuries patched, Fury chews out Stonewell for letting the prisoner escape.
“I couldn’t help it!” protests Stonewell. “It wasn’t my fault!”
To avoid Nazi search patrols, the Howlers are forced to keep to the rocks and gullies, moving in roundabout patterns for several hours, until they are completely disoriented to the location of Rommel’s command post. Fortunately, the lost commandos come upon a tribe of Bedouins, who have no love for the Germans.
“The Nazi swine have plundered my village---forced our young men to slave for them---treated us like savages!” decries the leader of the tribe.
The Arabs feed the Howlers, then provide them with horses and a guide. Rommel’s headquarters is only eleven miles away.
At the tenth mile, Fury and his men dismount and send the guide back to his people. On foot, the commandos cover the remaining distance, then they climb a rocky ridge. As the Howlers peer over the rim, their jaws drop as they view the staggering magnitude of the obstacle before them.
But Sergeant Fury has a plan. He calls for Stonewell and Cohen. Stonewell speaks German, and that gives them the best chance of sneaking past the guards and grabbing the Desert Fox himself. Stonewell protests being sent in with Izzy, but he isn’t closed-minded enough to disobey a direct order.
Unable to resist getting in a final kick, the prejudiced commando tells Fury, “But don’t blame me if Cohen gums up the works!”
It turns out to be the other way around. After dispatching the perimeter sentries, Stonewell charges forward into the compound, intent on leaving Izzy behind. As he closes in on Rommel’s tent, Izzy catches up, whispering a harsh reminder that this is a two-man assignment. Stonewall lashes out and slams Iz into a stack of steel drums, alerting the Field Marshal’s personal guard.
All hell breaks loose, as the chatter and flash of Nazi burp guns rend the night air. In the fire of battle, Stonewell starts acting like a Howler. He stands back-to-back with Izzy, covering each other. When a German soldier hurls a hand grenade at Iz, Stonewell snags it in mid-air and hurls it back at its thrower. Unfortunately, it explodes too near, and Stonewell is critically wounded by a piece of shrapnel.
Snatching up Stonewell in a fireman’s carry, Izzy makes a last stand. The enemy soldiers hold their fire as a German troop carrier races toward the two commandos. But instead of running them down, the vehicle swerves! Gabe Jones is behind the wheel, and in the back are the rest of the Howlers. They pull Cohen and Stonewell into the speeding truck.
Guns blazing, the Howlers race through the staging area, desperate for a path out, when a piece of luck comes their way. A sudden sandstorm kicks up, concealing them from the enemy soldiers and covering their tracks.
Fury orders Gabe to drive away from the Nazi compound. It’s a tactical decision. Rommel won’t be going anywhere, but Stonewell needs medical help now. His wound is deep and bleeding profusely. They drive along the perimeter of the vast German encampment until they come across a station that they desperately need---a field hospital.
The Howlers swiftly occupy the station, holding the doctor and his staff at gunpoint. Take care of Stonewell’s shrapnel wound, Fury informs the German physician, and nobody will get hurt. The implied threat isn’t necessary, though.
“Even though I am forced to serve mit der Fuehrer’s army,” says the medical man, “I am a doctor first!”
There’s a critical problem, he reports. Stonewell has lost too much blood to survive an operation to remove the damaging shrapnel. The commando needs a blood transfusion; however, his dog tags indicate that he has the rarest of blood types---“AB”.
Unhesitatingly, Gabe Jones steps forward. His blood type is AB. Take all you need.
During the procedure, Stonewell rallies. His features twist in a conflict of revulsion and astonishment when he realises that a man of the race he despises donated the blood that has saved his life.
After the German physician successfully removes the shrapnel and tends Stonewell’s injuries, Sergeant Fury’s thoughts turn back to their mission. However, his planning is interrupted by sounds of battle.
A British battalion has launched an attack! Taken by surprise, the Nazi defences fall back, and the Brits swiftly occupy the immediate sector. Fury reports to the major in command of the battalion.
“We failed in our mission, but we’ll be tryin’ again as soon as it gets dark . . . “
But, no, the Howlers won’t. The British major tells Fury that the whole point of his battalion’s attack was to prevent the commandos from completing their mission. The major explains to the stunned sergeant that military intelligence recently discovered that members of the German military are plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and that Field Marshal Rommel is the highest-ranking member of that conspiracy. Now, the Allies want Rommel kept alive and in place, in the hope that the assassination plot succeeds.
After a ride on a Navy destroyer back to England, we find the Howlers in their barracks. They’ve gotten the word that Dino will be out of the infirmary in a few days, and Private Stonewell has been transferred to another unit. The commandos barely pay attention to the bigoted soldier as he packs his gear in stoney silence. Without a word, Stonewell hefts his duffle bag over his shoulder and slowly walks out of the barracks.
But as Nick Fury witnesses his departure, he sees Stonewell drop something in his path. It’s a deliberate gesture, as if the man wanted the Howlers to see it. Fury retrieves the item, as his men crowd around.
It’s a note, addressed to Gabe and Izzy, with Stonewell’s new A.P.O. address on it.
“How about that! He must want us to write to ‘im!” says Izzy. “Maybe we did get to ‘im---after all!”
* * * * *
With “The Fangs of the Desert Fox”, Stan Lee delivers an impactful account on the enormity of bigotry, and he does so effectively.
It’s that last part that’s telling. We’ve all been exposed to after-school specials and “very special episodes” of television series that addressed some social ill, showing us the error of its way. Comic books were no exception. Infrequently, we saw stories that focused on a social cause, such as “A Place in the World”, All Star Comics # 27 (Winter, 1945); “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy”, Superman # 170 (Jul., 1964); and “Man, Thy Name is---Brother”, JLA # 57 (Nov., 1967).
The problem with all of these is that, as well intentioned as they were, they were heavy handed. The lessons were good and proper, of course, but they were forced. They virtually announced, “Pay attention! This is something important that you should learn from.” We were being preached to, and kids---adults, too, for that matter---tune that out. The last five minutes of 1970’s Saturday morning cartoons often consisted of a morality lesson, and that’s when every youngster watching went into the kitchen and made a bowl of cereal.
But I guarantee you: no-one tuned out “The Fangs of the Desert Fox”.
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos was a much better stage for presenting the ugliness of racism than any of Marvel’s super-hero titles. For one thing, the Howlers themselves were straight out of Hollywood’s traditional multi-cultural casting for World War II films.
Thus, Stan already had the perfect backdrop to present the toxic effects of bigotry. He didn’t have to introduce any heretofore-unseen ethnic characters in order to make his point.
Lee cleverly weaved his morality lesson into the action of the story. He didn’t advertise on the cover that this was a “very special” issue. No, fans buying this issue were told that they were getting an adventure pitting the Howlers against Erwin Rommel, “the Desert Fox”. For the World-War-II buffs, aware of how Rommel’s Panzer forces had nearly conquered North Africa, this was an exciting prospect. Moreover, Lee spent the first five pages building up that premise.
It isn’t until Private George Stonewell arrives, on page six, that the story Stan Lee is really telling kicks off. And once Stonewell is on stage, Lee doesn’t hold back. As Stonewell is introduced to the Howlers, his prejudiced attitudes come out, especially after meeting Gabe Jones. This is no surprise. Bigots like Stonewell don’t bother to hide it because they don’t see anything wrong in their beliefs, especially at that time in our history.
Fury’s outrage and disgust for Stonewell is genuine and comes from the heart. But it’s more than that. Fury knows that such a tight-knit group of professionals as the Howlers functions because each man has implicit faith in the others. Their missions depend on that. Their lives depend on that. The ugly dissention that Stonewell sows is a threat. Unfortunately, as Fury points out, “There’s no time to trade ya in for a real human being!”
At this point, the readers are hooked.
To the credit of Stan Lee’s literary instincts, he doesn’t give in to a natural inclination to dogpile every sort of negative quality on George Stonewell.
Stonewell is, indeed, a skilled commando. In battle, he’s fearless and fights capably. And, perhaps surprisingly, he has no love for Nazism. He detests the swastika-wearers, and he won’t even think of colluding with them.
That said, Stonewell’s racist attitudes put the mission at risk. The first time is when he refuses to be “shown up” by Gabe when they’re ordered to take out the German radio shack. His tussle with the black bugle-blowing Howler gives the radioman time to alert the compound.
The second occasion is even more serious. In the infiltration to nab Rommel, Stonewell refuses to accept Izzy’s presence, and when the doughty Jewish commando calls him on it, Stonewell lashes out, betraying their presence. The soldier’s bigotry almost gets him and Izzy killed. As it is, Stonewell is seriously injured. It should be noted here that he is wounded while saving Izzy from a grenade---the first tiny sign that, somewhere under all that hate, there’s a human being.
It is during this sequence that the Howlers’ intense camaraderie rises to nobility. Cohen refuses to leave the injured Stonewell behind, and Fury puts their mission on hold to find Stonewell medical help. The men will risk all for one of their own---even a temporary Howler and a flawed one.
Stan Lee has moved things along at such a frantic pace that, after Stonewell has been successfully treated and Fury turns his thoughts back to their mission, the story is down to the next-to-last page. Here is when the Smilin’ One pulls out the “reveal” that he’s been keeping in his hip pocket the whole time. A British battalion arrives with the express purpose of aborting the Howlers’ assignment, based upon an actual wartime occurrence. Field Marshal Rommel was one of the key figures in the German plot, Operation Valkyrie, to assassinate Adolf Hitler and then negotiate for peace with the Allied forces. (Unfortunately, things didn’t work out so well for Rommel and the other conspirators.)
That leaves the final page to the disposition of George Stonewell. Once again, Lee displays a canny understanding of the human condition: Stonewell does not have an epiphany in which he realises his racist attitudes are all wrong and he’s now a changed person. That’s the way the after-school specials and “very special episodes” on television always did it---and that’s one of the reasons why they always seemed ham-fisted.
No, a man whose bigotry is so deeply rooted does not change overnight. But Stonewell’s repugnant beliefs have been challenged by the actions of Gabe and Izzy, and we do see that Stonewell is aware enough to understand that. In his final gesture, he acknowledges that at least one black man and one Jewish man have proved the prejudices of his life wrong. And we’re left with the hope that, someday, he will see that’s true of all men of all races and religions.
We never find out what happened to Stonewell, but three years later, another instance of racism within the ranks of the Howlers was touched upon. In Sgt. Fury # 44 (Jul., 1967), we are shown the events of “The Howlers’ First Mission”, as told to Howler-come-latelies Percy Pinkerton and Eric Koënig. The flashback, written by Gary Friedrich, shows that in the team’s formative days, Southern-born Rebel Ralston displayed contempt toward Gabe Jones. It’s never directly addressed (except once, when Fury tells Reb, “We ain’t got no place in this man’s Army for bigots!”) and it’s not the focus of the tale. At the end, we’re promised a future story relating how Reb overcame his prejudice, but it never happened.
That’s probably for the best. No other story on the subject could be as measured or as striking as “The Fangs of the Desert Fox”. By inserting the invidious effects of bigotry realistically into an adventure that gripped the readers on its own, Stan Lee avoided sermonising---and thus, gave us a tale to remember.
Replies
"The commando needs a blood transfusion; however, his dog tags indicate that he has the rarest of blood types---“AB”."
Which means he can take A or B blood as well as AB. He has lots of options (O blood type, while common, can only receive O blood). Funnily enough, I was just watching the movie Hatari! which made the same error. I'm guessing it's one of those "everybody knows" assumptions the writer doesn't think to check out.
Doesn't make the meat of the story less interesting though.
Aye, I was aware of the blood-matching protocols, too, when I reviewed the story. I didn't see much point in bringing it up. As you said, it doesn't detract from the human interest of the tale. You're right---most folks don't understand how blood-typing works, so fiction gets away with it. Much in the same way the majority of film and television viewers don't understand that silencers don't work on revolvers and that there's no legal requirement for the police to read someone his Miranda rights when he's arrested.
But, if the suspect says something incriminating without having been read his rights, the statement can't be used against him. It could still be used to find more evidence (I think).
Miranda rights attach only when the suspect has been arrested and is being interrogated by the police. Both conditions must exist for the Miranda rights to be in effect.
During an encounter--even if the officer has already formed the intent to arrest the suspect---until the officer communicates that intention, verbally ("You're under arrest.") or by overt action (handcuffing him), the officer can ask the suspect all the questions he wants, and whatever the suspect says is admissible without Miranda because the suspect is not (yet) under arrest.
If the suspect is under arrest, but is not being questioned, and he blunts out an unsolicited statement---e.g., , Oh, God, I didn't mean to shoot that man!"---that statement is admissible without Miranda.
If a police officer arrests a man but does not interrogate him (questions for purposes of identification---name, address, date of birth---don't count), then Miranda is not required.
That was one of the most fun parts of being a cop: dealing with all the folks who learned the law from television.
"You have to let me go! That officer false-arrested me! He didn't read me my rights!"
"You didn't do that, Benson? Again?"
"That's right. I didn't read this one his Miranda rights, either,"
"See? He false-arrested me!"
"Get in the cell."