Star Spangled War Stories

"Vengeance is a Harpy"

Cover Date January 1969
Issue #142
Pages 23
Type Original Story
Cover Price 15¢
Featured Character Hans von Hammer
Guest Characters The Hangman, The Harpy (Countess Denise de Sevigne)

Synopsis

The psychological weight of the war turns deeply personal. Consumed by grief and a burning thirst for vengeance following the apparent combat death of her brother, Count Andre de Sevigne (The Hangman), Countess Denise de Sevigne takes to the battle skies herself under the deadly mantle of The Harpy. Flying a heavily armed Allied fighter, she relentlessly hunts down the Rittmeister over the Western Front. Locked in a tragic, emotionally grueling high-altitude interception, Hans von Hammer faces an impossible moral crisis: he must defend his life in a kinetic dogfight against the very woman who previously saved his life behind enemy lines, all while his strict code of honor forbids him from firing back at her.

Collector Notes

A masterpiece of Bronze-Age thematic scripting that subverts standard combat tropes by introducing the franchise's first prominent female combat aviator. Joe Kubert's kinetic aerial choreography and panel sequencing reach a brilliant peak in the extended dogfight, capturing both the blistering speed of the aircraft and the agonizing, intimate emotional horror of the duel. This is a highly sought-after key issue among Silver/Bronze Age collectors for its profound expansion of the Sevigne family blood feud

Creative Team

Writer Robert Kanigher
Penciler Joe Kubert
Inker Joe Kubert
Letterer Ben Oda