Commando This Week: 5279-5282

Brand new issues of Commando, issues 5279 – 5282, are on sale this week from DC Thomson Media.

Here's the details and covers, with issue 5279 sounding like a standout story!

5279: Home of Heroes: A Boy Goes To War 
Story | Iain McLaughlin | Art | Manuel Benet | Cover | Manuel Benet

In World War One “as many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British Army…” according to the BBC. This Commando is inspired by them as the hero, Tom Cowrie, illegally signs on to do his part. Spurred on by his brother’s heroic letters, Tom runs away from home only to find out that the war is nothing like his brother had described, and in the harsh reality of the trenches he was just a boy who went to war.

5280: Gold Collection: The Savage Sky 
Story | Staff | Art | Mira | Cover | Ian Kennedy | Originally Commando No. 772 (1973).

A stunning aerial Ian Kennedy cover sits atop this classic Commando issue from 1973! With amazing artwork by Mira depicting the Commando staple tropes of a reluctant hero and a pilot attached to a bomber squadron when he’d rather be flying fighters. In this case, Pilot Officer Andy Seymour is booted off Hurricanes and onto a mammoth Boeing Fortress – but Seymour will soon learn the flying beasts are equally as dangerous in the sky!

5281: Action and Adventure: On Your Bikes! 
Story | Ferg Handley | Art | Morhain & Defeo | Cover | Ian Kennedy

Ferg Handley tackles comedy in this World War One story. The Army Cyclist Corps wasn’t Lieutenant Arthur ‘Gormless’ Gormley’s first choice to join, but he was determined to do his bit — even if he did fall off his bike again and again. He had originally wanted to join the cavalry but that’s a different story!

5282: Silver Collection: The Paras Are Here! 
Story | McDevitt | Art | Keith Shone | Cover | Phil Gascoine | Originally Commando No. 2544 (1992).

Phil Gascoine’s fiery cover for ‘The Paras Are Here!’ is very emblematic of McDevitt’s tumultuous plot within, which focuses on two sergeants before D-Day who lay the groundwork for the invasion. Sergeant Joe Cougan is already stressed, but when the young, clumsy PIAT gunner, Private Andy Bruce, is around Joe’s stress levels go through the roof! And it’s only made worse when his rival Sergeant Sam Gleeson, tells him to cut the kid a break!