U.S. Air Force

(Charlton, 1958-1965)
Charlton

They don’t really make war comics like U.S. Air Force anymore. In this Charlton title, the pilots were universally brave, the enemy was stupid and cowardly, and everything always worked out in the end. This was truly a war comic of the old school.

This title ran between 1958 and 1965 (after which it changed its name to “Army Attack” and ran two more years). This was a time when the children of those who served in World War II could still ask their fathers how it had been in what may have been the last “great” war. But the war stories that seemed simple and heroic a few years back grew more ambiguous when new readers had to make sense of battlegrounds such as Korea and enemies such as communism. Perhaps it was the specter of Viet Nam and the change in public mood that doomed war comics like U.S. Air Force.

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