Weird War Tales (Volume 2) #1 is an issue of the series Weird War Tales (Volume 2) with a cover date of June, 1997. It was published on April 16, 1997.
Synopsis for "The Survivor"
On August 3rd, German U-Boat U-40 was sent on a secret mission for the Kaiser and encountered a wreckage. The crew discover a crazed survivor, who vaguely warn the U-Boat's captain with the words "rising and rising... giant lobed eye... coming to get us... coming to get you." Captain Gunther Von Harsch is needlessly offended and heartlessly kill the survivor, stating that he personally survive drifting in the ocean without suffering hallucination. Suddenly, out of the mist, a large landmass with an unbearable stench emerge.
As ordered on their mission the crew of U-40 are to explore and seek a potential base on the landmass. Once continuing on the landmass, the crew began to have ominous feelings about this landmass and even one man swears that the rocks are moving.
The party soon discover strange, very ancient geometric ruins that strangely resembles to bunkers. They are then attacked by large, sentient red fungi, the landmass' true inhabitants. The fungi killed the party except for the captain, who escape back to the submarine where he see the fungi makes up the landmass. Gunther fired the fungi with the U-boat's main gun, but is swept away by the ocean's waves from the receding living landmass.
Sometime later, Gunther, now insane, is shipwrecked and is found by a British warship, the HMS Hornblower. Gunther tries to warn the ship's captain of what he saw, but his raving words are incoherent. He then madly waves his pistol, threatening to kill the British captain if he doesn't stop the ship from heading towards where the landmass is. He is then shot to death by the Hornblower's captain.
The body of the German captain is dumped into the sea, as the Hornblower's captain writes in his logbook about the encounter and notice a strange smell...
Appearing in "The Survivor"
Featured Characters:
- U-40 crew
- Kapitan Gunther Von Harsch
Other Characters:
Locations:
Vehicles:
- U-Boat U-40
- H.M.S. Hornblower
Synopsis for "Ares"
A gangbanger name Tony is newly released from prison for four years for killing a member of the Vice Lord, a rival gang, and is returning to his gang the Sixty Tray. Tony sees himself as a "frontline soldier" in his gang war.
Tony returns to his family, his girlfriend, and his gang. His gang give him an Uzi and then they plan on getting back at the one who ratted Tony to prison, Twenty Ze of the Vice Lords. Throughout the night Tony is obsessed about "the mission".
The next day, Tony and the Sixty Tray drives to Twenty Ze's home where they expected to ambush him. However, they themselves are ambushed by the Vice Lords, who has been expecting for their arrival. Tony's gang are killed, and Tony, realizing the hopelessness and reality of his desire of his "mission" force him to run for his life into an alley where he once in his life prayed. Remarkably his prayer is answered in a vision of an entity that resemble to a Norse god that represent gang violence throughout the ages. Tony is in awe by this being and realizing its nature, which perpetuate "soldiers" like him the desire to fight.
Tony pick himself up and shoot the Vice Lords. But in the end he is killed with a shot to the head by another member of a gang. In death, Tony saw what is coming for him: "blonde bitcheson flyin' horses."
Appearing in "Ares"
Featured Characters:
- Tony
Supporting Characters:
- Sixty Tray
Antagonists:
- Vice Lords
Other Characters:
- Rochelle
Locations:
Synopsis for "The Willow Warriors"
Setting in Feudal Japan, two shoguns, on orders from their masters, have been waging a bloody war against each other for generations. But their war has remain indecisive. This impatiently frustrated the shoguns and they sought another way to satisfy their pride. They decided to have their most mightiest champions to fight against each other on their behalf.
The two chosen samurais face off on an islet as both the shoguns' armies watch. The samurais took stance. However, the samurais remained on their stance for hours, which turn to days, and then turn into months. During that wait both the shoguns' armies have settled camp together to watch this in mutual fascination as they completely abandon their enmities for each other.
Finally once the season changed into winter, the shoguns, their patience wore thin, confront their champions. To their shocking discovery, the samurais are already dead. The samurais were so powerful that they are evenly matched between them, and they don't know what each others' intentions on their move, which their honor forced them to stood their ground and waited and die from the elements. All for their masters' pride. The shoguns took this as a sign from the gods, and declared that there would be peace between them. To seal that peace, they buried their champions where they stood, marking each grave with the seed of a willow tree.
Over time, the trees reached maturity to resemble as if they are bowing to each other.
Appearing in "The Willow Warriors"
Featured Characters:
- Samurais
Locations:
Synopsis for "Tunnel Rats"
A unnamed Vietnam War veteran talks to a psychiatrist of his problem, which he points out that this is entirely not a typical post-war traumatic story. He tells the reason why he came for therapy because last week he got a call from his former comrade Gopher who told him two words: "Cu Chi".
His story begins in 1967. The veteran and his unit was stationed in the Cu Chi district, northwest of Saigon, which is in Vietcong territory. The unit has been trying to clear the area of enemy forces several times, but the enemy have been keep coming back. It is not until that they realize that the Vietcong had been living in underground tunnels throughout the war, which the veteran in hindsight knew that America can't win in this war.
As more tunnels are discovered, Operation Cedar Falls was initiated with Cu Chi evacuated and aerial bombers unleashing napalms, agent orange, and etc. in annihilating the district. The tunnels, however, were still there. The veteran and his unit became one of the Tunnel Rats in clearing out the tunnels. Once in the tunnels, the Tunnel Rats discovered corpses of fallen Vietcong that were buried by their members as they have been living in the tunnels for an unprecedented time given the constant aerial bombardments. But the long captivity also winded down their food supplies. The veteran and the Tunnel Rats discovered something worse than they imagined: the Vietcong that lived under have become cannibalistic creatures and have been eating their dead. The cannibals see the Tunnel Rats as new food, overwhelming and taking one of them. The veteran and Gopher escaped and bombed the tunnels. Afterward, they went back into the tunnels to make sure that every living thing in there is dead before dynamiting the tunnels for good. However, this wasn't the end of it.
The veteran then explains that the tunnels went too deeper than they had previously thought. According to Gopher, it is believed that the tunnels stretches into a huge network that spreads out under the Earth, and that there are more creatures who have been breeding and digging for years. The veteran at first laughed at this thought, but Gopher insisted that they are down there, and they have caught their scent and he can hear them scratching through the dirt under his house. Two days later Gopher disappeared and the police were baffled to find a large hole dug in the basement of Gopher's house. The veteran reveals that he too had been hearing scratching sounds coming from under his own basement and believes that the creatures are coming after him as well. Having told everything to his psychiatrist, the veteran doesn't care if he consider himself crazy and all that matters is that he will be ready for the creatures.
After the veteran left, the psychiatrist report his case of the veteran, who despite no previous history of mental illness, and diagnosed him of suffering from bathyphobia (fear of subterranean spaces) that caused him be delusional to see the creatures he saw during the war (also which there hasn't been any existing evidence to support the "Cu Chi cannibal incident"). He requested immediate psychiatric counseling and monitoring as possible suicide risk following Gopher's recent disappearance.
Once returning to his home, the veteran went down to his basement with his assault rifle ready and patiently waits as scratching sounds are heard coming from the ground... with a tiny hole finally chipping through.
Appearing in "Tunnel Rats"
Featured Characters:
- Tunnel Rats
- Gopher
- Elmer
Antagonists:
- Cu Chi cannibals
Locations:
Notes
- Weird War Tales (Volume 2) is a four-issue limited series published under DC's Vertigo imprint. Suggested for mature readers.
See Also
Recommended Reading
- World War II Recommended Reading
- Adventures in the Rifle Brigade (Volume 1)
- Adventures in the Rifle Brigade (Volume 2)
- All-American Men of War (Volume 1)
- All-Out War (Volume 1)
- Blackhawk (Volume 1)
- Blitzkrieg (Volume 1)
- Capt. Storm (Volume 1)
- Four-Star Battle Tales (Volume 1)
- G.I. Combat (Volume 1)
- Men of War (Volume 1)
- Military Comics (Volume 1)
- Our Army at War (Volume 1)
- Our Fighting Forces (Volume 1)
- Sgt. Rock (Volume 1)
- Sgt. Rock (Volume 2)
- Star-Spangled War Stories (Volume 1)
- Unknown Soldier (Volume 1)
- Weird War Tales (Volume 1)