Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Saturday, May 8, 2021

THE ALL NEW ADVENTURES OF DAVY CROCKETT, FRONTIER FIGHTER #5 (1955)

 A number of liberties have been taken with "the greatest frontiersman of them all" in this British reprint of stories first published by Charlton Comics, but then, Davy Crockett took a number of liberties with his own story in real life.

Here are three tales of Davy, plus one about a different Davy...Davy Carter, Indian scout.

To lead things off, Davy is attacked by a group of Injuns (we were not too P.C. in the fifties) and is holding his own until Jeff Marlin, a white renegade, sneaks up behind Davy and knocks him unconscious.  Marlin uses this as an opportunity to gain power in the tribe and is urging the redskins (still not P.C.) to attack white settlers, against whom he has a personal vendetta.  Davy is tied to a pole and is about to be killed, when he tries to tell the chief that Marlin is only out for power and revenge.  There is only one way to settle this.  Davy, in his weakened condition, must fight Marlin.  Well, a weakened Davy is still more dangerous than a grizzly who hadn't had his morning coffee.  Davy gets the best of Marlin.  Marlin knows that tribal rules allow Davy to kill Marlin if he chooses.  Marlin begs Davy in english to let him go:  "Just let me up!  I'll tell 'em the truth!  How I've been achin' for revenge against the settlers...just like you said!  The I don't give a hoot about those pesky Injuns..."  Having won the fight, Davy lets Marlin get up.  When Davy's back is turned Marlin goes to kill him with a knife but is stopped by an Indian who Davy saved from a bear when he was younger.  The chief, who knows a little English, heard Marlin's confession to Davy and now proclaims peace.  And all that fighting made Davy a tad hungry.

Next, Davy, his friend Jed Turner, and his son, Davy, Jr., are invited to the expanding town of Little Rock ("At this rate they;ll be big like Cincinnatti some day") by the mayor to atke part in Davy Crockett Day -- "And don't forget  to bring your rifles.  We are going to have a shooting contest."  Dacy, Jr., hopes to meet up with the Helen, the mayor's daughter because she surely will have grown since the last time he saw her.  The townspeople try to pull a prank on Davy, rigging ti so that Davy "misses" the target while a townsman gets a bullseye with his eyes closed.  Davy catches onto the prank and sees how it was done.  On the meantime, Davy, Jr., and Helen are yonder renewing their acquaintance when a mountain lion decides to attack them.  Davy spots the mountain lion, shoots, and kills him mid-leap.  the moral:  "As long as we are alert like Davy Crockett we can meet any danger or trouble."

The third tales has Davy riding into a Pawnee camp.  The natives are restless and are about to go to war against the white men.  Their chief, Bent Nose, has had enough of white men's mistreatment.  Davy, who has come to broker peace, tries to pacify his old friend but Bent Nose is determined.  His men capture Davy and intend to kill him.  So what does Davy do?  He starts spipnning a tale, remembering that Bent Nose used to love Davy's storytelling back in the day.  This time Davy tells of a bear so large that its paw print was as loond as three men.  Dvy comes across the bear and. since Davy Crockett is the only man in the world who can speak bear, he asks it how it got to be so big.  The bear says that he was onery and mean, the badness in him just grew and grew and, as it did, so did the bear -- all to allow him to kill the greatest bear hunter who ever lived.  Well, Davy allowed the since all the badness in him allowed to bear to grow so large, all the goodness in Davy might allow him to do the same.  And so Davy grew.  He grabbed the bear by the hind legs, spinned around, and chucked that bear all the way to the middle of the ocean.  Nice story, Bent Nose admits, but they are still going to kill Davy.  Surprise!  Davy had spent so much time drawing out his tale the army was able to sneak up and surround the Pawnee camp.  Bent Nose decides to go for peace.  (Though it has nothing to do with the story, one of the Pawnee tents is decorated with a reverse swastika.)

In the final story, Carter, an Indian scout, tries to look put for his younger brother Davy, also a scout.  Davy and others are attacked by Apache, and Davy is feared dead, but the little borther disguises himself as an Indian and makes it back in time for his brother's 21st birthday.  Meh.

This British edition is printed in black and white -- no color -- and has two pages of ads for various joke and gag items.  The stories are drawn by different artists who have different takes on what a coonskin cap looks like.

Enjoy.


https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=78650&comicpage=&b=i


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