From wikipedia....


Barr has said that she was inspired to create the character while working in the file office of the University of Washington, which was being painted a "horrible half-pink, half-tan color." Searching for a color name, she stumbled upon "desert peach", and was immediately inspired by the pun upon "The Desert Fox," the name given to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during World War II . According to his biographers, Rommel had a youngest brother, named Manfred, who died in infancy—Barr said she only developed a personality who the universe had prematurely discarded.

Invaders #26



Geez, how old is Bucky supposed to be in that image; eight?

Creative Team: Roy Thomas-writer/editor, F & F Express-art, John Costanza-letters, George Roussos-inks, Archie Goodwin-Brazil (in the war, but not really doing the fighting)

Synopsis: Bucky is in California, where you can pick up a nice home, cheap, so long as you are white....



Bucky has to chase off some neighborhood kids messing with the flagship, while Toro is inside, without medical attention. Bucky takes off and brings Toro to Pacifica General Hospital (is Jessie a young nurse there?) They make sure Toro is stable, but, a surgeon says he cannot operate on the bullet lodged near the heart. Bucky brings up Dr Sabuki's name and the doc says he knew him slightly (not enough to be questioned by the FBI, you understand) and says he couldn't do anything if he were there and sends Bucky out to read a magazine. Bucky leaves, dejected, because someone has already filled in the Highlights puzzle pages and Goofus & Gallant is kind of lame; but, a nurse chases after him (not like that; he's just a kid).

She gives him the real scoop about Dr Sabuki and where to locate him.....



Bucky takes the flagship out to Sandy Flat Relocation Center (concentration camp) and runs afoul of a sentry, who isn't easily persuaded that he is Captain America's sidekick, anymore than the MP is Doc Savage's mother-in-law (please, Doc was a single dude who hung out with 5 other guys and didn't date women...draw your own conclusions), but, a little shiled and the flagship at least gets him in to the adjutant's office.

Bucky is escorted to the office and isn't too happy about what he sees, like little kids behind barbed wire, because their family is easily identifiable as having emigrated from Japan, rather than Italy or Germany. He talks to the officer, who pretty much finds the entire populace of the camp guilty by ancestry....



Bucky tries to be reasonable and requests aid in locating Dr Sabuki, to operate on Toro and the officer flat refuses and says he isn't going to let a "Jap" operate on a "real American" (defined as anyone with a copy of that Hulk Hogan theme song, from the mid-80s). Bucky has had enough and flips the Captain the bird, while saying the sentries are just doing their duty, but the Captain gets off on it. The captain sicks his MPs on Bucky and they learn why Bucky is Cap's sidekick (to draw fire away from him, of course).



Bucky runs out into the camp and hops into one of the buildings, where he finds families crowded together, trying to make things livable. He asks after Dr Sabuki and is pointed to his locale.

Meanwhile, the Invaders return to London and the Falsworth estate, where they meet up with Lord Montgomery and Oskar, and are introduced to the new Destroyer.....



...Roger Aubrey. He has been restored to full size, but the German super soldier formula still courses through his veins. He turns down membership in the Invaders to go back behind enemy lines and continue the fight against the Nazis, in the occupied territories.

Meanwhile, Torch wants to head to California to look in on Toro. Lord Montgomery gets them clearance to borrow a bomber, to fly to America (via several stops, as a Lancaster doesn't have the range).

Meanwhile, meanwhile, Bucky has found Dr Sabuki and his daughter, having tea and wearing kimonos, because they obviously wouldn't have assimilated that much. Dr Sabuki agrees to help, despite his daughter's obvious anger and questioning, when they are interrupted by tremors which do not originate at the San Adreas Fault. It is a "mole machine," with some armed goons inside, with a liking for purple....



The trio of goons are German, Italian and Japanese and they are there to collect Dr Sabuki, who refuses to go. Gwenny Lou (his daughter) tries to defend him and gets slapped away. Bucky dives into the fight and starts kicking Axis. He tries to get Dr Sabuki to safety, while another resident of the building calls for help, from the MPs. Bucky is forced to halt when one of the goons puts a Luger to the head of Gwenny Lou. This turns out to be a fourth man, the leader, Agent Axis!. Gwen kicks away his gun and Bucky attacks, but Agent Axis has the strength of three men, because he is More Than Human.



Someone get that band a bottle of Prell!
(Portrait of a band who couldn't stand their frontman, by that stage)

The goons scoop up Dr Sabuki, Gwen and the unconscious Bucky and retreat, just as the MPs arrive. Who will operate on Toro now?

Paging Dr Zorba!

Thoughts: So, Roy is dancing in a historical minefield, here, as he tries to show the wartime attitude and prejudice against Japanese Americans and the hysteria that facilitated rounding them up into "internment camps" which were pretty much the same concept as the German concentration camps, minus the overt murder emchanisms. The camps did not have proper facilities or rations and limited medical care and the prisoners had to often lodge protests and organize their own administrations to try to improve conditions. Even where resources were better, you had innocent people living behind barbed wire, with guard towers and sentries armed with machine guns. This mainly happened on the West Coast, as Hawaii was a different story, even though they were the scene of the Japanese attack. In Hawaii, officials mainly interned community leaders, religious leaders and teachers, who still had contact with Japan, at the start of hostilities and access to transportation off the islands. Some 2000 Japanese Americans were interned in Hawaii; but, the majority were not, nor where they deported to the mainland. Hawaii existed under martial law, from December 7, 1941, to October 24, 1944. However, the authorities realized how vital many Japanese Americans were to the economy, as they comprised nearly 1/3 of the population and labor force. By contrast, the West Coast faced mass incarceration of all Japanese Americans, which was vigorously pursued by Lt Gen John L DeWitt. In fact, Roy quotes DeWitt and his attitude, via Capt. Simms, who tells Bucky that "A Jap is a Jap!"

In Congressional testimony, DeWitt uttered these words:

"I don't want any of them [persons of Japanese ancestry] here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty... It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty... But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map."

Despite these attitudes, many Japanese Americans volunteered for military service and would form the nucleus of the 442nd regimental Combat Team, in the European Theater, who would go on to be the most decorated unit in the US Army. These men fought with unbelievable bravery, to prove they were Americans, to those who denied them citizenship.

It is a deplorable episode in American history, but one that doesn't get taught enough in schools, so that future generations can learn from the mistakes of those that came before. You can justify it with all kinds of excuses, from over-reacting to the attacks, to real security concerns, to any number of excuses; but, it all boils down to the fact that Japanese Americans were more easily identifiable than German or Italian Americans. Some of those groups were also interned; but in vastly fewer numbers.

Agent Axis debuted in the Invaders Annual, a couple of months before; a spy who is a gestalt entity, composed of three Axis agents. The basic premise is taken from Theodore Sturgeon's novel, More Than Human, about a gestalt entity, comprised of 6 beings. In the novel, they combine their minds; but, here, Roy combines the physical beings of the three agents.

Dr Sabuki and Gwenny Lou (ugh, hate that name...sounds like a character in a hillbilly sketch) are shown eating their dinner, dressed in kimonos, with Gwen dressed entirely in traditional garb, while Dr Sabuki, wears a suit, under his robe. It was not unheard of; but, a large segment of the immigrant population tried to assimilate and wore modern clothes, even in Japan, let alone in the US. Traditional garb was more often reserved for special occasions in such families. You could argue that Dr Sabuki was more of a traditionalist; but, I suspect a top surgeon at a hospital, pre-war, is a bit more likely to wear modern dress at home. It just feels like bad comic book shorthand to signify "Japanese." I suppose if the doctor had been German, he and his children would be in lederhosen and be eating knockwurst.

Roger is now restored and takes up the mantle of The Destroyer, so the character can continue with his wartime adventures, even if he is still not Keen Marlow. That also frees up Brian Falsworth to continue as Union Jack. Well, except in Right-To-Work States.

Roy says the Lancaster will stop for fuel on the East Coast, before heading to California. They will have to do more than that, as it didn't have the range to make an Atlantic crossing on a single tank. So, they would need to land and refuel before getting to the East Coast and would still need to refuel on a cross-country flight.

Civilians!

The letters page has a writer asking what happened to Biljo White, last seen being freed at Berchtesgarten, but not seen leaving the area, what happened to Toro after the war. They answer the Toro part, but skip over Biljo, as Roy seemed to forget all about him after he was sprung loose from his cell. My guess is that he was shot and killed, while escaping and the Invaders hushed it up to keep from looking incompetent.

Next time, we learn why Agent Axis targeted Dr Sabuki and we meet yet another new character. All this, plus more retroactive speechifying.

I only learned a few years ago that we also rounded up and deported to camps in Texas and New Mexico Japanese residents of Peru (close to 2,000) and hundreds more from nearly a dozen other countries south of the US-Mexico border, which we justified because they were described as a security risk. The last camp remained in operation until 1948.

An exception was made for Brazil, where the quarter of a million Japanese living there were crucial to the agriculture business. Deportation of that many people was also deemed impractical. In any event there was violence committed against them and there were bans set in place against publications in Japanese and even speaking the language.

"Go For Broke" is indeed groundbreaking, considering when it was made. As old-fashioned as it might be by today's standards, it would probably be considered "woke" by way too many people today. I saw it a million years ago on TV as a kid and it was absolutely startling to however-many-years-old me. It got me very interested in the 442nd, whose stories are just extraordinary, one of which is that of the heroism of future Senator Daniel Inouye. The 100th, which was essentially the Hawaiian National Guard, was incorporated into the 442nd in Italy when it arrived in 1944, having already participated for several months in the Italian campaign.

Most Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were not subject to deportation and imprisonment, because, as with those of Japanese ancestry in Brazil, there were simply too many to make such an operation practical. The islands were put under martial law, which accomplished almost the same result. A couple of thousand were, however, generally teachers of Japanese, some religious figures and various community leaders.

Invaders #27



Nice old timey (or Timely) cover, reminiscent of Alex Schomburg, except less grisly.

Creative Team: Roy Thomas-writer/editor/revisionist, F & F Express-artists, John Costanza-letterist, George Roussos-colorist, Archie Goodwin-isolationist. Tallest land-based mountain-Everest.

Notice I said land-based and not from the sea floor.

Archie doesn't get a contributing editor credit; hence, isolationist.

Synopsis: Agent Axis, along with his Italian, German and Japanese henchmen, have captured Bucky, Dr Sabuki and his daughter Gwen. Agent Axis reminds us of who he is, though not what he was after, with Sabuki. He questions why Bucky was there and he gives it all up, without even a name, rank and Sons of Liberty member number. When AA learns that the Human Torch's sidekick is lying on a hospital gurney, he changes course for the hospital.



Meanwhile, at the hospital, the helpful nurse argues with the racist doctor and gets nowhere. A passing African-American delivery boy overhears that Toro is on the table and he looks in on him.



The young man is Davy Mitchell, who has an epiphany that death is color blind, when the hospital starts shaking and Agent Axis' mechanical mole drills through the floor and his goons jump out and grab Toro, shaking him around, while he has a bullet lodged near his heart. Davy is spotted, tells the goons that he didn't see a thing, but gets grabbed for his trouble. They escape before the security guards turn up, taking Davy with them.

Underground, Dr Sabuki tells Bucky how AA came to him to help cure him of his combined identity. Sabuki refused and does so again and AA threatens to shoot the kids, starting with the Black guy, to maintain the cliche. Gwen has had enough and launches an attack and Bucky follows her lead, then Davy elbows a goon in the gut; but, AA turns his pistol on the prone Toro and everyone stops. Sabuki gives in, as long as the children are spare.

Meanwhile, the Invaders finally arrive in their Lancaster (told you it would take more than a single refueling) and they spot the flagship, at the "relocation center." They land and then Cap sees Americans behind barbed wire and Roy goes into full on revisionism....



Cap tells Captain Simms off, after they learn that it was Agent Axis who took Dr Sabuki and Bucky and Namor plays a hunch. he checks the flagship and learns that Bucky took a homing beacon with him and they follow the signal.



The kids get to know each other. Davy is an orphan, but figured early on that he could survive by being useful to white folk. Gwen is plenty POed about her situation, though has sympathy for Toro. Dr S apologizes for her harsher remarks and Bucky says he is the one who should apologize, for the concentration camp, without due process of law, then AA tells them to stow it. Dr S makes demands and gets concessions from AA that he be allowed to save Toro first, before operating on AA. The schweinhund agrees.

The drill into AA's secret mountain cavern citadel and prepare to operate on Toro. He performs the operation and eventually extracts the bullet. AA tells him to prep for the next, when Toro comes to. AA has Davy and Gwen strapped into some machine and tells Dr S that any slip up will be repeated on them, by the machine.

While all this goes on, Toro rises from his bed and disrupts things, with fire, which is probably not a good thing around anesthesia.



Bucky attacks, Toro hits the machine and all hell breaks loose.



Gwen starts glowing and hits AA with sunbursts, from her hands. Davy starts spinning, at high speed, like a top....



...and, before you know it, we've got ourselves an origin story.

AA goes loco and orders everyone killed, starting with Dr Sabuki. The Invaders burst in, to save the day, but that has to wait for the next issue.

Thoughts: Now we have more new mystery men, or cryptic kids, I guess, as we get a junior auxiliary for the Invaders. For whatever reason, Roy Chooses not to call them the Young Allies (probably just as well, as he would feel compelled to bring Whitewash into the story and then you'd have scenes of Davy calling him an Uncle Tom, written by a white guy from Missouri, and it would not go well), but they aren't named yet.

As origins go, it'll do the job, but there is a lot of plot convenience at work here.

Roy has added an African-American male to this, for some diversity, just as Gwen now being a Nisei superhero, which is laudable; but Roy really goes overboard with the revisionist speeches. let's face it, Captain America spouted the same propaganda slogans as everyone else, in the 1940s and was bashing Commies, in the 50s (briefly, thankfully), before he was taken over by Baby Boomer liberal writers, in the Bronze Age. Now, I am a liberal, myself; but, I am also a student of both real history and comic history and you can't just ignore that to make a point about injustice, in retrospect. Better to show things as they were and have a character go through an arc of enlightenment and let those who are suffering the injustice voice their own dissent with the situation. It smacks of Whitesplaining, though I give points to Roy for letting Gwen get a few verbal licks in about the situation. He's not quite as good at letting Davy suggest that the Black Man didn't have any better a situation, other than not being herded into camps, though you have to ask yourself if housing projects were much different?

This is the problem of writing a historical series; do you present things as they really were, including the really bad elements and let them speak for themselves, do you try to have characters address it, especially the wrong ones, or do you present a fantasy world where it wasn't really there, like having Gabe Jones in the Howling Commandos, without every addressing segregation in the US Army? I think you do have to be accurate to the history, if for no other reason than to acknowledge the suffering of those that endured such things, but also make it clear that it was wrong and point to changes that came from it. WW2 was a major element in spawning the civil Rights movement, as Africa-American soldiers fought against fascism and totalitarianism abroad, then turned their sights on it, at home. Even the Nisei heroes of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team came home to face discrimination from a nation it served, while their families were held as prisoners.

If you ever needed a voice to remind you the debt this nation owes to a group of people, there is none better than the late senator Daniel Inouye.....



Daniel Inouye was born in Honolulu, in 1924, to an American-born mother and an immigrant Japanese father,a jeweler and grew up in Honolulu, with a mix of American and Japanese customs, speaking English at home and attending a private Japanese language school. Inouye left the school, in 1939, after disagreeing with the anti-American rhetoric of a teacher and attended William McKinley High School. Inouye was a Red Cross volunteer, at his school and when the attack on Pearl Harbor came, he witnessed it and reported to Lunalilo Elementary School, to aid in the treatment of civilians, who had been injured by falling anti-aircraft shells. he continued working as a medical aid, while finishing his senior year of high school and working after school as a medical aid. He wanted to enlist, upon graduation, but was legally denied because he was classed as 4C: Enemy Non-Combatant. Here is someone who came to aid those injured in an attack by people of his ancestry, yet he wants to enlist to fight them, because they attacked his country, the United States of America. He was an American, first and foremost. He enrolled at the Univ of Hawaii, as a pre-med student, with an eye on becoming a surgeon.

In March of 1943, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was established, by order of President Roosevelt, to be a Nisei unit. Inouye was initially turned down, because of his vital work for the Red Cross, but was accepted a month later and began his training, at Camp Shelby, in Mississippi. It was during that time that he visited the Rohwer War Relocation center, in Arkansas, of which he speaks in the clip. As he said, he was a corporal, at the time. The 442nd shipped off to Italy, in May 1944 and took part in the liberation of Rome. Inoue was promoted to sergeant within 3 months of arriving in Italy. The 442nd was transferred to Eastern France, liberating several towns, before fighting in the Vosges Mountains. It was during the operation to rescue the Lost Battalion that Inouye was given a battlefield commission, to 2nd lieutenant. he was hit in the chest by a sniper bullet, but it impacted with two silver dollars that he carried in his chest pocket, saving his life.

The 442nd was called into the Apenine Mountains, in Northern Italy, to attack German strongholds and on April 21, while leading an attack on a German machine gun position, Inouye was wounded int he stomach. he continued to lead the attack, despite his serious wound, which destroyed two machine gun positions. While his men drew the fire of a third machine gun, he crawled to within 10 yards of the command bunker and prepared to throw in a grenade, when he was hit in the elbow by a rifle-launched grenade, which failed to explode, but amputated most of his right arm, at the elbow, from the blunt force. He lost control of the hand, which was still clutching a live grenade. His men tried to reach him but he warned them away, because of the grenade. The German soldier was reloading his rifle with live ammo (a rifle grenade is fired with a powder round, to propel it, but the round has no projectile) and Inouye was able to prise the grenade from his right hand, with his left, and hurl it into the bunker, killing the German rifleman. Inouye rose to his fett and continued the attack, before receiving his 5th wound of the day, rendering him unconscious. he awoke to find his men hovering over him, looking worried, when he ordered them back to their positions and the fight, saying "Nobody called off the war!" The position was finally taken, with no losses among Inouye's men. His arm was fully amputated at a field hospital, without proper anesthesia, because he had been given too much morphine, at an aid station, and they were afraid the anesthetic would induce a heart attack. he survived and began a long road to rehabilitation. During that period, he spent time at a facility in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he met future senator Bob Dole, also injured, and they became fast friends, playing bridge together and talking of their plans. Dole intended to run for public office, with an eye towards ultimately running for Congress and Inouye, his dreams of being a surgeon destroyed with his arm, became inspired by Dole to take up public service, via public office.

Inouye became a territorial representative and then senator; and, after Hawaii gained statehood, became its first representative, in the US House, in 1959, and then the US Senate, in 1962. He served in the senate until 2012, never losing an election. He served as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Commerce Committee and the Appropriations Committee, during his tenure. He was involved in the Senate Watergate Committee and the Iran-Contra Investigation, during which he got into a heated argument with Lt Col Oliver North's lawyer, and spoke of a "Shadow government," operating without the rule of law.

For his actions in 1945, Inouye was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. This was not an uncommon occurrence for a minority soldier to receive a lower award for actions that would result in a Medal of Honor nomination for a white soldier. In 2000, upon review, the award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor and it was presented to him by President Clinton. Inouye later appeared int he film The Next Karate Kid, in a ceremony honoring the 442nd, where he remarks on Mr Miyagi being his sergeant.

Proving that he was human, with foibles and negative character traits, Inouye was later accused of sexual harassment of female staffers, on several occasions, which were hushed up due to his power and status, especially in Hawaii. A Medal of Honor does not excuse dishonorable acts and it illustrates that even our heroes can be complex and deeply flawed people.

Roger McKenzie did a lot of great work, including Daredevil, when Frank Miller started drawing it.  He wrote the initial Bullseye story, that started Miller's Run.

Billy Tucci did a Sgt Rock mini-series, about the Lost Battalion and the 442nd coming to the rescue.