Number 2079: Two tragedies

In Battle #4 (1951) from Atlas Comics, artist Joe Maneely is represented with a cover and two stories. The stories are different in tone. One is a light story about a horny soldier vying for a young woman, but outranked by a superior. The other story is about a tough major on the battlefield of Korea, and a young man he constantly rides. It has a surprise ending, yet I am sure I have read a version of the story long before reading this one. That wouldn't be surprising, because comic book stories are often swiped. “Battleground of Hate!” is an old tragedy.

The second tragedy is not a story, but real life. Joe Maneely, one of Atlas’s top artists, died young. Dying of natural causes, in war, or by accident like Maneely, at age 32 with a wife and young family, is always a tragedy.

In the same Wikipedia entry on Maneely, there is this: Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee opined in the early 2000s that had Maneely lived, "he would have been another Jack Kirby. He would have been the best you could imagine."

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