The Creature Commandos! Part 8 (WWT #110)

It's finally here; with this issue, the CC team is complete! Er, I guess I've spoiled this one more than enough already, but suffice it to say, in this issue Dr. Myrna Rhodes joins the team. And, again, I've been pretty straight with you up to this point, she has living snakes instead of hair.

As a sidenote, WWT #107 also had a cover story about women with snake hair. In that case, they were the Furies of Greek myth (uh, conflated with Medusa and her sisters I guess), but it still seems like an odd concept to run twice in four months.

For the first time in a while, this is the first story of the issue, which means Death is here to show us around. He shows us the CCs' dossiers, which sum up their origins and such. I think we learn a little new information for once, namely when and where our heroes were born, but it's mostly stuff we already know.

Anyway, as you may remember from last issue, the Creature Commandos' mission was to blow a dam, using the ensuing flood to take out German armor divisions. The explosives went off early and the CCs were caught in the flood

New artist Dan Spiegle draws Shrieve like he's kind of old, but according to that dossier I mentioned he should only be 33 right now. Oh, and Velcro has red eyes now, just go with it. Everyone survives the flood, but Shrieve was badly battered and lies unconscious or maybe sleeping. Lucky carries Shrieve as they head to a battlefield hospital, and I think it's pretty interesting that they'd even bother since they all hate him.

Oh, and they steal a German half-track to expedite the journey. And Lucky busts up an artillery gun on the way.

Yeah, this is Bob Kanigher, and it's pretty damn flowery. Velcro, Lucky, and even Griffith are haunted by the scene, according to said flowery narration. They get to the hospital, and turn a now-awake Shrieve over to plastic surgeon Dr. Myrna Rhodes, who vows to fix his face up good as new. Shrieve, being Shrieve, has two lines before he's wheeled into surgery, and uses both of them to insult the "freaks". A month later, when he takes his bandages off, he indeed looks just as he did before the flood. Rhodes is very kind to the CCs throughout their meeting, probably because she's seen her share of men uglied up by the war.

They ask Rhodes to operate on them, make them at least look human again, but she tells them their conditions are irreversible. They angrily charge off, knocking down everything in their way, as Rhodes tries to calm them down. This culminates in, well, Rhodes' origin.

Soon the hospital is evacuated, but Rhodes doesn't come out. Lucky decides to repay her kindness by saving her, rushing into a cloud that Griffith describes as "like breathing flame" and coming back out with an unconscious Rhodes in his arms. A week later (why are they still there?), Rhodes, with her head wrapped up like a mummy, asks the CCs, Shrieve included, to meet her outside at midnight. She reveals that she's been barred from practicing medicine and wants to join them.

So a German night bomber lands, full of commandos there to snatch up a renowned Allied general. The CCs and Rhodes see the whole thing, and Rhodes saunters over to do something about it, in the process showing her Creature Commando credentials.

Yeah, snake hair. Unlike the other Commandos, Rhodes isn't super strong or agile, but those snakes are venomous and seem to attack whomever she wills them to. This might seem like a power with fairly limited range, but these are the Creature Commandos; besides Shrieve they don't even carry guns and just wreck stuff with their bare hands. So the CCs rush to her aid, taking care of the bomber's crew and keeping the plane from escaping.

In the aftermath, Rhodes states the obvious, saying the chemical bath she took mutated her like crazy, and asks if she's good to join the team. Everybody agrees that they could use her -- even Lucky gives an emphatic thumbs up.