Look, if there's one thing that comic books have taught us about fighting wars, it's that women and combat simply don't mix. At least this is what some people claim. Of course, those people say a lot of crazy stuff.


For one thing they dismiss the army's use of air support or artillery, and instead feel that strategic objectives can be destroyed simply by loading captured trucks up with dynamite and driving them into the objective. Who needs bombers?

But deadlier than enemy bullets or shells is the constant threat of the sexy enemy lady, for whom soldiers must always be on guard.


For instance, here we see Combat Kelly and his pal Cookie (in this story drawn by Mad Magazine's Dave Berg) at the mercy of none other than that evil North Korean guerilla leader Yalu River Rosie!


Wow, and already this one's getting kinky. Where's the Comics Code when we need it?


Have no fear, the threat of intimate physical contact has been neutralized by the other kind of physical contact. The violent kind.


But it's all in vain as our heroes are, in an ironic twist of events, impressed into building a bridge for the enemy. Whistling the "Colonel Bogie March" and being commanded by Alec Guinness, our prisoners must... sorry, wrong war story.


Sufferin' soviets, it looks like Combat Kelly has flipped and joined the side of the Reds! They've even given Kelly the chainsaw! Will there be a North Korean Chainsaw Massacre?


In the name of Buddha, which they don't believe in, being atheistic Communists, they're moving! That's the last time they give a chainsaw to a red-blooded American soldier.


Flowing downstream, the bridge-turned-raft is more than a pleasure cruise for Comrade Commander and Yalu River Rosie - they're headed right for the falls and I don't think they know the correct method of paddling through rapids! In fact I don't think they have any paddles at all! This is some really poor white-water rafting we're seeing from the North Koreans today, Bob. Gonna cost them some points.


And they all die. Some jump to their deaths, some blow their brains out, some are crushed to death under tanks and rocks at the bottom of the falls. It's all in a days work for non-Code-approved war comics and the woman-defying heroes that star in them.

But was Yalu River Rosie the only woman on the Korean peninsula? Surely not.


If only they could find Korea Katie, that female guerilla leader! Well, here's a sexy Korean lady who needs help with her wagon, why not help her.


And their reward for helping the civilians is a nice tall glass of milk. Warm, unrefrigerated, unpasteurized milk from... well, cows, if you're lucky. Mmm-mm, tasty.


UH OH an even MORE SEXY Korean Lady appears to offer them, by implication, a beverage that might have alcohol in it! Go for the booze, fellas, at least it's sanitary.


Now let's see, two soldiers follow a woman into a dank, spooky bar and immediately huff down shots of the unidentified liquor she pours out. There might be some three-year olds reading this who are surprised they're doped, but everybody else has been waiting for them to suck down those mickey finns and get rolled. They'll wake up in the alley, stripped to their jockey shorts and late for reveille. No more two day passes for these goons, which is just as well.


Dazed but still wearing clothes, our heroes realize they've been drugged. But here to rescue them? The first Korean lady. The one with the cart and the milk. You can tell it's her because she's wearing a red dress. Otherwise she's identical to Green Dress Korean Lady. Asian women are hard to draw, apparently.


Oh no it's Green Dress Korean Lady and her army of thugs! Green Dress Korean Lady must be Korea Kate, because there are only two women in Korea, apparently.


And there's a big fight between our heroes and some Korean guys, halted when Green Dress Korean Lady threatens Red Dress Korean Lady. But who's saving who?


Here's where we really find out the trouble with girls - even this comic book story finds itself dazed in the presence of such female beauty, and it's unclear if Kelly and Cookie drank the doped milk or not (hard to tell) and who they were fighting with (the South Korean agents? the disguised North Koreans?). What's REALLY important is that we learn to fear the Asian woman, full of treachery and secrets.

But what about non-Asian women? Should our soldiers avoid them as well? Comic books say "yes."


Even in the depths of North Africa our heroic Combat Casey and his pal Penny (please, don't confuse them with Combat Kelly and Cookie - Casey has a beard) manage to find themselves involved with petite blondes.


Whoops, who would have suspected that this blonde woman in Nazi-held North Africa would turn out to be German? Not these two, that's for sure.


Yes, it's the evil "Gertie From Bizerte", the well-known Axis propaganda broadcaster whose dulcet tones rang out on the battlefields exhorting the Allied soldiers to surrender! Sadly the Germans don't appreciate Combat Casey's shock-jock morning zoo crew antics.


Leave it to the Nazis to shoot the women first! But some accurate American artillery fire, zeroed in on Combat Casey's broadcast, saves our heroes from getting shot. If you call that "saved."


If there's one thing I love about pre-Code war comics, it's that they don't shy away from giving us a closeup look at someone's horrifying flaming death. Be sure and leave this one lying around to give your kid brother nightmares.


Gertie survived getting shot and ramming a jeep into a truck long enough to tell Casey and Penny about the boat full of munitions. And in defiance of all comic book logic, Casey calls in some artillery fire to destroy it, rather than the usual "truck full of dynamite" tactic. Bizerte is ours and our boys march in singing "Dirty Gertie From Bizerte", which is an actual song that soldiers actually sung in this actual real campaign, and which was actually kind of smutty so you won't see any more of it in this comic book story!

So I think we've provided ample evidence to all the soldiers out there in Korea and North Africa - stay away from the dames. They're nothing but trouble. Sexy, milk-offering, jeep-driving trouble!

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