So here's some more of those early as well as new titles and some fabulous Ken Barr covers (some of his finest imo) and a sneak preview of some covers which slipped through the wire, including issue 94 Jump or Die with fantastic Barr cover and delicious interior art by Alfredo Sanchez Cortez.
Commando No 4447
Colours Of Courage
The proudest possessions of any regiment are its colours — the flags which it carries into battle. Its history is recorded on these colours, the victories it has won.
A regiment guards its colours fiercely. To have them captured by the enemy is a terrible thing. But when a man hands over the colours to save his own skin it is a disgrace that brave soldiers can hardly bear think about.

If there are two things difficult to get right in a Commando they are French Resistance stories and ghosts. Resistance stories could easily be 63 pages of skulking about avoiding searching German soldiers and ghosts could easily look like normal characters drawn without enough ink.
Thanks to ace story-teller Cyril Walker, Colours Of Courage cracks along with plenty of action to break up the tension. And Arthur Fleming — an art teacher from Glasgow — manages to skilfully depict a glowing figure despite only having black ink and white paper to work with.
Wrapped in one of Ian Kennedy’s superbly drawn and laid-out covers it’s got all it needs for a cracking Commando.
Colours Of Courage, originally Commando No 1182 (December 1977), re-issued as No 2412 (October 1990)
Story: Cyril Walker
Art: Arthur Fleming
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Commando No 4448
The Four Scars

But there was no escape for him. With only the vast empty ocean and the sharks circling the raft for witnesses, they grappled in a fight to the finish.
Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor
I’ve mentioned before that I my childhood Commando issues at the back of the garage a few years ago. Some I had to look at again to refresh my memory, but not this one. I don’t know how many times I read and re-read this in the 60s but it must have been a lot because I had almost total recall.
Ken Barr’s cover with its ethereal hand hovering over the action, Victor de la Fuente’s action-packed, high-energy inside art and Eric Hebden’s crackerjack of a story with its startling twist were just what the doctor ordered in 1965…and are equally so today. I think so anyway and I hope you’ll agree.
As an aside, Ken Barr used a sheet of transparent plastic sheet with the outline of the hand painted on it to get that ghostly effect. I certainly didn’t know that in 1965.
The Four Scars, originally Commando No 185 (October 1965), re-issued as No 831 (April 1974)
Story: Eric Hebden
Art: Victor de la Fuente
Cover Art: Ken Barr
Commando 4449
Days Of Danger
Simon Katz was a young German and a fervent anti-Nazi. A brilliant mathematician, he escaped Germany by the skin of his teeth and went to work as a code-breaker for the British.
Not long after, Sergeant Barney Taft also made an escape – from the bullet-strafed beaches of Dunkirk.

Story: Stephen Walsh
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Nicholas Forder
Commando No 4450
The Nightmare War


Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page
All images © DC Thomson 2011
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