G.I. Combat #196

A brilliantly tense cover by Joe Kubert sets the stage for this November 1976 installment of DC's long-running war anthology, featuring The Haunted Tank. A bound, helmeted tank crewman emerges from the hatch in the foreground, while a group of German soldiers surrenders with hands raised behind him — their enemy tanks looming on the smoke-filled horizon — and the cover's caption cuts right to the heart of the dilemma: if the other enemy tanks discover they're surrendering to a dead man, everyone's finished. Robert Kanigher's "Dead Men Patrol," rendered inside by Sam Glanzman, promises exactly the kind of taut, morally charged combat storytelling that made G.I. Combat a cornerstone of DC's war comics line.