{"id":630,"date":"2006-02-02T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-02T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/2006\/02\/02\/our-fighting-forces-153-devastator-vs-big-max\/"},"modified":"2006-02-02T20:23:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-02T20:23:00","slug":"our-fighting-forces-153-devastator-vs-big-max","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/archives\/630","title":{"rendered":"Our Fighting Forces #153 [1975] &#8211; Devastator vs. Big Max"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is probably the silliest of Kirby&#8217;s dozen Losers stories. In this European based story we begin with Hitler, Himmler and Rommel examining the new German super-weapon, a hundred-foot long gun with a 38-mile range called &#8220;Unser Max&#8221; (Our Max). An allied agent is detected among the German soldiers and killed, but mentions the allied weapon &#8220;The Devastator&#8221; before he dies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3499\" alt=\"Our Fighting Forces #153 [1975]\" src=\"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975-680x1024.jpg\" width=\"448\" height=\"674\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975-680x1024.jpg 680w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975-624x938.jpg 624w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2006\/02\/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Devastator turns out to be the idea of Private Rodney Rumpkin, aka Rocketship Rumpkin, a fan of sci-fi pulps and comics and the fanciful weapons in those stories. The allies build a hollow model of such a super-weapon in order to make the Germans use Big Max in daylight, revealing its location for a waiting airstrike.<\/p>\n<p>As I said, a bit silly, but with a lot of charm, and some great art, from the scenes of the Max-induced destruction to the fanciful pulp covers.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Royer inks the 18-page story, as well as the 2-page feature on WWII uniforms and insignias. D. Bruce Berry inks the cover, and Kirby also writes a text page, &#8220;Before the letters begin&#8230;&#8221; talking about how the stories will reflect his own experiences and welcoming feedback.<\/p>\n<p>Published 1975<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is probably the silliest of Kirby&#8217;s dozen Losers stories. In this European based story we begin with Hitler, Himmler and Rommel examining the new German super-weapon, a hundred-foot long gun with a 38-mile range called &#8220;Unser Max&#8221; (Our Max). An allied agent is detected among the German soldiers and killed, but mentions the allied [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genre","category-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}