Today in Comics History, June 6, 1944: D-Day: Do or do not; there is no try

To wrap up my memorial to D-Day in comic books today, let's look another war tale from the folks at EC Comics, who brought us unflinching, often incerdibly realistic (or at least highly believable) tales of combat in comic form. (It also doesn't hurt that the art by John Severin is absolutely gorgeous.)


from "D-Day!" in Two-Fisted Tales #27 (EC, May 1952), script by Harvey Kurtzman, pencils and inks by John Severin, colors by Marie Severin, letters by Ben Oda
The theme throughout is the doubt and fear of the men tasked with landing on Normandy that their invasion will be met and repelled, or worse yet, that they're all charging into a trap.


reasonable fears, but they threaten to escalate into sheer terror. Not what you need from the soldiers at the front of an invasion.


And nothing is working as perfectly as had been planned or hoped.


They planned and planned, but they couldn't plan for everything.


But the lesson is, still, whatever obstacles on the way: keep moving, keep working, keep fighting. And they did.