Crossing Boundaries (King Kirby 024)

Jack Kirby was, of course, a master of classic comic form horror stories, having spent many years creating them. By their very nature, they gave a certain freedom to let his imagination go galloping where other genres might keep things more tightly leashed. That very freedom must have held great appeal for him as an artist at times.
Let take a look at this little tale...

Now, what's this? The (disrespectfully named) Losers? Yup. Jack's decided to go classic horror story in the middle of the horrors of war.

It's a classic tale of an officer who lost all his men in an ancient temple seeking to redeem himself. The team makes their way to the temple, barely skirting Japanese troops along the way. The Major's tensions build until, as they're hiding from enemy troops above the temple, he freaks out and breaks away as the fighting erupts, and finds himself cut off and alone after the explosions...

I enjoyed being caught by surprise when opening up what was expected to be rather more generic war comics. The cover only kinda-sorta tangentially refers to them being underground in the temple. That's about as close as it comes to giving any clue to what happens in the book.

Though we've focused only on the horror story aspects of the tale here, The King mixes the genres effortlessly and probably had fun running free outside the typical war story constraints. It certainly had to be more fun than revisiting his old war experiences for a different tale.

Unless, y'know, his war experiences were a little weirder than we suspect...

Bonus!
Since i avoided all the action in this issue, here's a two-page spread of our heroes avoiding the action in Our Fighting Forces #151 (the first issue that Jack Kirby took over the title):

The Major's Dream by Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry in Our Fighting Forces #161, bottom panel from #151 (1975)