Joe Yank #12 (1953) story page 1 by Andru and Esposito

"Photo Jet Fracas" by unknown writer. One-page story. Pines. Cover date August 1953.

A couple of milestones. It's my first Korean War MiG Alley page, a top five on the want list. MiG Alley is what the UN pilots called the area along North Korea's border with China where they tangled with Soviet MiGs.

It's also my first Andru and Esposito, who are known for their work on Amazing Spider-Man but also did war comics in the 1950s for DC, Marvel, and Pines. Their career as a penciling and inking team includes more than 320 war stories for DC. 

This one-page story has plenty of aerial action. I like the surprised expression in panel 3-- Mongols coming in at six o'clock!

Did Andru and Esposito know what a fuselage was? Panel 4 says the plane is shot through the fuselage, the central body to which the wings and tail are attached, but shows the round going through the wing.

The F-80 Shooting Star was indeed used for photo reconnaissance during the Korean War. The MiG, however, with its swept wing design was a superior aircraft; MiG is short for the Soviet Union's Mikoyan-Gurevich Experimental Design Bureau that designed the plane. The US sent swept-wing Sabre jets to meet the MiG threat.