Spotlight:: Adventure Comics #255

Issue: Adventure Comics #255

Title: "The War That Never Ended!"

Credits: Dave Wood (script) Jack and Roz Kirby

Cover Date: December, 1958

Synopsis: Green Arrow and his partner Speedy are on a Trans-Pacific flight, headed to Japan for the "International Crime Convention" (I want to see the Bonnie and Clyde cos-players!) when their plane has engine trouble and ditches in the ocean. In raft with no paddle, the duo drift away from the other survivors, fighting off a shark attack and washing up on a desert island.

Suddenly, The Emerald Archer and his sidekick are ambushed by a group of Japanese soldiers! When a typhoon destroyed their radio in June, 1945, the soldiers were cut off from the outside world. Convinced the war is still ongoing, and that GA and Speedy are enemy spies, the soldiers attack, detaining Green Arrow (Speedy manages to escape).

The Japanese major explains that after their radio was knocked out, a typhoon destroyed their heavy weapons. Spotting an American fleet on maneuvers, he demands Green Arrow use his engineering abilities to build them arrow-based artillery to attack the fleet.

GA complies, building them catapult powered Mine Arrows and Bomb Arrows. Just as the weapons are launched, Speedy commences with a rescue operation. The Japanese are defeated, and it turns out that GA weapons are harmless, and serve only to signal the fleet of his presence.

Finally convinced that the war is over, the Japanese major and his men honorably surrender to GA aboard the American ships.

Thoughts: Another "Japanese soldiers trapped on an island who don't know the war is over" story, but well done and fun. Some of the arrows are especially trippy, even for the Silver Age, especially the Bomb Arrow, which deployed a giant Green Arrow instead of exploding. How Ollie managed to pull that off while the Japanese soldiers were watching is another story in itself :)

Again, excellent art by Jack Kirby and his wife Roz, but that pretty much goes without saying.