I was never a fan of Charlton Comics. Like most of the also-ran comics companies of the Silver Age, they always came across as “Brand X”. There was something bland and two-dimensional about Charlton’s output. DC boasted the most polished product of the industry, while Marvel was able to push forward on raw energy and enthusiasm. Charlton’s comics, by contrast, were dull with pedestrian art, type-set lettering, and characters that seemed to lack in originality. At least that’s the way it appeared to my youthful eyes. Therefore, with my limited income, I was rarely encouraged to toss a valuable twelve cents Charlton’s way.
But, if I had the spare change, I would make one exception. I’ve always been a sucker for non-super-powered hero teams. Two of the first series which I managed to acquire complete Silver-Age runs were Blackhawk and Challengers of the Unknown. I guess it was a matter of wish-fulfillment. I knew I would never be a Superman or a Flash or a Green Lantern; but there was always a chance I might grow up to be a member of some daring team of adventurers and get to wear a neat uniform and go on exciting missions---if I could just get my math grade up. So the one Charlton title I didn’t ignore was The Fightin’ 5.
For those of you who were taking a nap at the time, The Fightin’ 5, as Charlton would have it, was “America’s Super-Squad”.
To avoid the start-up costs of a new magazine, Charlton did some accounting sleight-of-hand and simply changed the name of its floundering Space War title to The Fightin’ 5, beginning with issue # 28 (Jul., 1964). As The Fightin’ 5, the book would run for fourteen more issues before getting handed its pink slip following # 41 (Jan., 1967). America’s Super-Squad received a brief lease on life by jumping to the back end of The Peacemaker, where it lasted for a mere five issues (March to November, 1967).
In concept, the Fightin’ 5 was part Blackhawks, part Challengers, and a little bit of S.H.I.E.L.D. thrown in for good measure. Like the Black Knights, the Fightin’ 5 was a paramilitary group, evoking a sense of chain-of-command, protocols, and regulations. Like the Challs, each member of the group brought a special skill-set to the table. The origin, in # 28, would tell us pretty much all we would ever know about them and their lives before becoming the F5:
“Frenchy the Fox” was a former frogman for the U.S. Navy who performed salvage operations for hire. He was the team’s demolitions expert and displayed the same proclivity for romance that's marked every comic-book Frenchman from André of the Blackhawks to Pepé le Pew.
Ex-mercenary “Granite” Gallero designed the squad’s combat weaponry. Sceptical by nature, he filled the rôle of the team’s worrier.
Irv “the Nerve” Haganah, stony faced and taciturn, was a former Israeli commando who had worked as a private investigator in Manhattan before being recruited for the F5. He was the hard-core one.
Tom Tom was massively muscled as befit his old career as a professional wrestler. Despite his intimidating size, he was the most readily likeable one of the group, something of a Hoss Cartwright with a few more brains.
And they were led by Captain Hank Hennessy, the only member of the squad still on active duty, with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. But even that wasn’t distinctive enough. A Steve Rogers clone, the blond, handsome Hennessy was wealthy, lived in a Manhattan penthouse, and squired a different glamorous doll every night.
These five were drafted by the C.I.A. to act as an elite counter-strike unit, to be inserted into crisis situations where America’s interests were at stake. Tossing a bone to comic-book sensibilities, the group took its name from the acronym formed by the first initials of the five members’ names: Frenchy, Irv, Granite, Hank, Tom Tom.
Like most comic-book adventurer teams, they wore uniforms. Theirs were blue fatigues with red scarves and red berets. The leader, Captain Hennessy, apparently had a smaller ego than Blackhawk, in that he did not distinguish his uniform with special touches. The brawny Tom Tom, on the other hand, was constantly tearing off his shirt and running around bare chested, the better to flex his mighty muscles.
Unlike most comic-book adventurer teams, the F5 relied heavily on armaments, usually wading into battle with sub-machine guns, sidearms, and grenades. As a consequence, most of their missions ended when the villain blowed up real good. The C.I.A. saw fit to provide them with a secret base in the American southwest, equipped with a special laboratory and an armory “containing every type of modern weapon.” For the squad’s transportation, the government laid out for a yacht-sized hydrofoil and a modified Convair B-58 supersonic bomber.
This was how the Fightin’ 5 occupied its own niche, set apart from other comic-book non-super-powered teams. The Challengers, the Blackhawks, the Sea Devils, and the like were independent groups, who might occasionally take on a mission for the U.S., but were not beholden to any but themselves. However, the F5 worked directly for the government. That meant that they had to go wherever Uncle Sam pointed. The upside of it, though, was that most of their assignments were robustly supported by Pentagon assets and C.I.A.-gathered intelligence.
This thread of realism was maintained in the type of missions undertaken by Hennessy’s squad. There were none of the space aliens, giant monsters, or super-powered villains that infested the adventures of the Challengers or the Blackhawks in their Silver-Age years. The F5 took on sabre-rattling foreign despots such as Zeru, General Chu, and Doctor Nijus. Also high on the team’s radar were terrorist groups such as the Black Dragon cult and S.A.T.A.N. And as always seems to be the case, "America’s Super-Squad” once took on its opposite number in the Dedicated Enemies of And Traitors to Humanity (D.E.A.T.H.).
As to be expected, the stories were thoroughly steeped in the Cold War. Most of the foes were petty tyrants propped up by the Soviets or the Red Chinese. This allowed for a great deal of patriotic speech-making about the ideals of freedom and the threat of Communism. Under the hands of series writer Joe Gill, they managed to sound sincere and never stretched into jingoism.
The talent on The Fightin’ 5 was consistent. Under the auspice of editor Pat Masulli, Gill wrote every F5 script. Gill churned out decent, serviceable tales, never straying too far from believability. The downside to that restraint, though, was the risk of becoming repetitive. There are only so many ways to rescue a vital American hostage or to wipe out a terrorist band. While Gill did, indeed, fall into that trap a few times, he occasionally spiced things up with an adventure set in a hidden land or an ancient civilisation, a welcome relief from the usual puppet-dictator plots.
Where the scripts fell short was in their failure to elevate the stars of the book beyond basic stereotypes. Each member of the F5 had his stock personality traits, but they were never vivid enough to make the characters stand out---a necessity when dealing with identically dressed characters with few visual distinctions. None of the squad seemed to have a personal life either, except for an occasional “friend” who might pass through a story as a plot device. To all intents, the F5 spent all of their time in uniform, leaving for, embroiled in, or returning from their missions.
The art chores for every F5 story were handled by Bill Montes (pencils) and Ernie Bache (inks). Like Gill’s scripts, their work was adequate but not inspired. There was a whisper of Dan Spiegle in their art, especially in their figures, but it lacked Spiegle’s detail and sense of panel composition. Stronger art would have done wonders for the series.
The series limped along a rate of roughly five issues a year, but never caught fire. At the end of 1966, Charlton cancelled the title, replaced it with The Peacemaker, and moved the Fightin’ 5 to the back of that magazine.
In the F5’s first story as The Peacemaker’s back-up, Joe Gill---no doubt prodded by that title’s editor, Dick Giordano---attempted to jump-start interest in the group by tinkering with the format. In “Ruler of Darkness”, the squad takes on Leontid Jrozva, the dictator of a minor Balkan nation. In a novel twist, Jrozva not only despises the capitalistic nations of the West, he has also turned against Moscow, believing that the Soviet government has not done enough to conquer the free world. Using the armaments provided by his former Russian allies, Jrozva intends to launch nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles toward both the United States and the Soviet Union.
The team survives its first encounter with Jrozva due to the unexpected assistance of Sonya, a Soviet security agent who has infiltrated the dictator’s organisation. With both America and Russia having a vested interest in thwarting Jrozva’s plan, the F5 and Sonya enter into an uneasy alliance. The Fightin’ 5-plus-1 launch a second attack on the dictator’s stronghold, but only Hank Hennessy and Irv the Nerve make it as far as the roof of the control room---just as Jrozva gives the order to launch the missiles.
The only way to stop the launch now is to interrupt the radio signal triggering the missiles. Irv accomplishes this by cutting the master communications circuit, at the cost of his own life, when one hundred-thousand volts of electricity course though him. Hennessy, standing near-by, is severely injured when he is caught in the electrical arc.
For once, an F5 mission doesn’t end with a round of congratulatory slaps on the back. The caption of the story’s final panel delivers sombre tidings.
This gallant little band saved the world . . . but at an awful price! Irv the Nerve is dead . . . Hank Hennessy’s right arm is terribly injured . . . and none of them know if he will ever see again!
The next story, in The Peacemaker # 2, puts the finishing touches on the new format. We learn that the high-voltage explosion has cost Hennessy his left eye and his right arm. No longer able to go into the field, Hennessy becomes the organiser of the team’s missions. And to keep the squad from changing its name to “the Fightin’ 4” (or perhaps, more accurately, “the Fightin’ 3½”), the C.I.A. assigns Sonya, who has defected to the West, as Irv Haganah’s replacement.
This step was, no doubt, calculated to inspire Marvel-type in-team conflict, as Sonya was both a female and a Soviet---two qualities guaranteed to generate mistrust from the other squad members. It was an ambitious agitation of Joe Gill’s usual plodding as, for the first time, dissention in the ranks is shown. Granite and Tom Tom and Frenchy all resent Sonya’s place on the squad, questioning both her capabilities and her loyalties. Their suspicions aren’t entirely misplaced. Scenes over the next three stories open up reasonable doubt as to whether her defection was genuine or not.
Unfortunately, the format changes never really had time to go anywhere. The Peacemaker also failed to find a strong readership. When it was cancelled after issue # 5, the Fightin’ 5 had nowhere else to run to. We never would find out where Sonya’s loyalties truly lied.
The Fightin’ 5 represents one of those concepts that wasn’t bad at all; it just fell short of the mark in execution. Had DC or Marvel gotten their hands on it, it probably would have played to a longer, more memorable run in the Silver Age, and would have been ripe for a revival, now.
Replies
Fightin' Five and Peacemaker, from 1964-67, mostly pre-date my forays into Charlton's books. I got into them in a limited way in 1967 when Steve Ditko revived Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, which I stuck with until the end.
In 1969 I found myself in a tiny PX near the DMZ. The DC and Marvel comics were there, but always two-to-three months behind (they came by ship). I had already read most of them, so I was forced to branch out to new titles. I discovered Fightin' Army, particularly its feature "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz". The Willy Schultz series was eye-opening, in that it was messy, unpleasant and lacked the super-human heroics of Sergeants Fury and Rock. The series began in Fightin' Army #76 (OCT67) and continued (except for #81) to #92 (JUL70). I know I probably missed half of these, but the ones I read were well done. I also started reading the Charlton versions of Flash Gordon and Hercules, along with their titles Ghostly Tales and The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. Charlton's lettering style and printing quality were a lot to overcome, but they often succeeded.
My memory was helped immeasurably by these two valuable sites, which I often neglect to credit:
Newsstand Time Machine
Grand Comics Database
I've heard about the Fightin' 5 but never saw them. The most Charlton that I've read were Modern Comics' Blue Beetle reprints and a couple of issues of Yang so this was a treat.
I wonder if the name "Fightin' 5" had anything to do with the Fantastic Four, though the books themselves were very different. Strange that an elite squad would drastically limit the amount of members it could have. I never understood the whole "Let's-Put-The-Number-of-Our-Group-In-Our-Name" thing. It would be silly if it were the Five Avengers or The Legion of Twenty-Five Super Heroes!*
Did the Fightin' 5 ever show up after DC bought the Charlton heroes?
*Maybe there could be a massive crossover with the Dynamic Duo, the Galaxy Trio, the Fantastic Four, the Fightin' Five, the Secret Six and the Seven Soldiers of Victory!
Staring at the spinner rack I never even considered purchasing a Charlton comic, in fact the only Charltons I ever read were the rather bland war anthologies that I picked up in trades with comic reading pals. The cover art you feature in the article is quite good though - good enough to pull in a few customers I would think.
Well Commander, now that you have branched out beyond the Big Two, can we look forward to articles on Dell or Harvey or my personal favorite among the smaller fry - Gold Key?
doc photo said:
Technically, it's not the first time I've explored Silver-Age comics published by an outfit other than the Big Two, doc. This is an archive column from 2008 or so that I polished and corrected. And about two years ago, I did a piece on Dell's monster-inspired super-heroes (i.e., Frankenstein and Dracula and Werewolf).
I don't have a large number of Silver-Age comics published by the also-ran companies, but I do have one banker's box labelled "Non-DC/Non-Marvel" full of such works. (It's from that box that I got my material for both the Fightin' 5 piece and the Dell one.) These are simply comics that caught my eye 'way back when, so there are few complete runs. I do have a few Gold Key issues, I believe. I know I have the Doc Savage issue that Gold Key published back in c. '64-5.
You given me the idea that, perhaps, something of a grab bag-type of article might be entertaining. Where I simply go through the box and pull out something interesting and do a piece on it. Maybe not so much empirically interesting as much as why it was interesting to me.
I also bought quite a few issues of Yang.
Philip Portelli said:
I remember reading Yang as a child as well. Probably only a couple of issues, but it's the extent of my childhood Charlton experience.
Richard Willis said:
Obviously Yang was a takeoff on the TV show Kung Fu.
Still even a kid, I knew this was a SEXY COVER before I understood comics' grand tradition of beautiful, hot, (mostly) evil women trying to kill, but never quite trying too hard, the hero.
Believe it or not Yang also got the Modern Comics treatment!
I have to say, The Fightin' Five sounds interesting. I probably would have enjoyed it around the same time I discovered war comics.
Man, I hated Charlot's lettering. It just looks wrong.
A lot of Silver Age books look so simple and smooth, it take someone trying the same stuff and failing to make me appreciate how much talent the A-listers (and even B-listers had).
I never followed anything from Charlton but i did pick up an issue here or there. Captain Atom, Blue Beetle and yes, Yang. But not consistently.