Sunday, May 13, 2007

GIs and Dinosaurs



I'm having a jolly time reading Showcase Presents: The War that Time Forgot. It’s pure male adolescent fun!

Here’s the copy from DC’s website
Over 500 pages of classic adventures are included in this value-priced volume collecting one of the most unusual series ever from DC Comics! On an unnamed, uncharted Pacific island, dinosaurs continued to thrive while World War II raged across the globe. It's there that members of the U.S. Military found themselves armed only with standard-issue weapons against the deadliest predators ever to roam the Earth!


There’s certainly something weird about WWII and Dinosaurs but it works. The War that Time Forgot series began in 1960 in the pages of Star Spangled War Stories #90 and ran into the 1980s finishing it’s run in the pages of Weird War Tales. This black and white newsprint collection reprints the first stories up through 1966.

The real draw of The War that Time Forgot is the hyperkinetic action that takes place between the US service men and the monstrous creatures on and around Dinosaur Island which is cross between Skull Island and the Lost World. The dinosaurs really are more like “mutant” dinosaurs, similar to Godzilla, because they’re so huge. The stories feature groups of military men on secret missions that get wiped out except for a hardy few. The action gets pretty ridiculous at times and the laws of physics are a little bent out of shape, but the dinos and WWII hardware are always a visual treat. This collection also reprints the first appearance of G.I. Robot, a personal favorite of mine, long before a version of him joined the Creature Commandos.


The War that Time Forgot is just groovy fun, and when I say groovy, I mean Ash from Evil Dead kinda groovy. What red-blooded male wouldn’t want to take a gander at these anachronistic battles? A Sherman Tank vs. a Tyrannosaurus, a sub vs. a giant eel, and a dive-bomber vs. a pterodactyl just to name a few. It’s D-Day of the Dinosaurs man! Not to be missed by Weird War aficionados.

-Swinebread

7 comments:

Arkonbey said...

Yee ha! Crazy war stuff. Gotta love a comic where a jarhead refers to his 'robot buddy'!

I just got DC's The New Frontier vol. 1 and the first story was a fabulous tale of GIs against dinosaurs. The final panel in that story was what convinced me to buy it.

The same day, I very nearly bought War That Time Forgot (but I did grab a Weird War out of the 50 cent bin!).

Dean Wormer said...

I have a bunch of those old Weird Wars, some featuring the Creature Commandoes.

So awesome.

Swinebread said...

arkonbey Now I want to pick up New Frontier even more! I just hope they collect Weird War Tales!

dean hmmmm are they bagged and sealed up?

ladybug said...

That kind of stuff sounds like fun even for me. Somtimes you just gotta have some completely unrealistic fun!

Swinebread said...

Yeah it's kinda godzilla-like except with almost no plot. I bet you'd like Creature Commandoes even better.

Dean Wormer said...

I think so but not to the quality of bagging you're expressed needs to happen.

Swinebread said...

What...!?