Friday, August 24, 2012

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos

In addition to Fury, the elite special unit of US Army Rangers nicknamed the Howling Commandos consisted of...
  • Corporal Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader "Dum Dum" Dugan
  • Private Isadore "Izzy" Cohen - The first demonstrably Jewish American comic book hero.
  • Private Gabriel Jones - An African American serving in an integrated unit, though the U.S. armed forces were not in real-life integrated until after the war, in 1948)
  • Private Dino Manelli[22] - He is modeled after Dean Martin.
  • Private Robert "Rebel" Ralston
  • Private Percival "Pinky" Pinkerton - A British soldier, replaced Juniper in issue #8 (July 1964).
  • Private Jonathan "Junior" Juniper — In an unusual and daring move for comics at the time, Junior was killed in action after a few issues (#4, Nov. 1963). As one comics historian wrote in 1999, "Today that's no big deal but in 1963, comics heroes simply didn't die; not permanently, anyway. Suddenly, with the death of 'Junior' Juniper, the series acquired some real cachet. It now played like a true-life war drama where people got killed and never came back. You wondered who would be next."
  • Private Eric Koenig - A defector from Nazi Germany who joined the squad in issue #27 (Feb. 1966).

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