Though I read them occasionally as a boy, I have never been overly interested in comic books, especially the American sort, the ones featuring superheroes dressed in super-tight costumes fighting super villains, none of whom ever seemed to receive super-long jail sentences for attempting, yet again, to destroy Our Way Of Life. A junior realist, I tended to read, instead, the British-produced, four-times-a-month Commando comics, which were generally set during the Second World War. Commando — whose fabulous titles included Hun Bait, Iron-Cross Yankee, Ghost Stuka, and the unforgettable Deserters Deserve Death! — abjured those pathetic ads one saw in...