When I was a boy, notwithstanding my mother’s earnest attempts to get me into Jane Austen, I subsisted almost entirely on a diet of Commando comics. These were British war stories, often written and drawn by real W.W. II veterans, and fans like me accordingly looked down on their fantastical American-superhero counterparts.
There were, and probably still are, several unbreakable rules to these fortnightly comics, with their garish covers and lurid titles. First, all Cockneys were cheeky; all lieutenants posh but unblooded; and all sergeants, grizzled. Second, the Jerries in Rommel’s Afrika Korps were honorable adversaries, while those in the S.S. were murderous, sneering bastards who cried Achtung Schweinhund! and looked like that blond, super-Nazi major in Where Eagles Dare.
