Commando For Action and Adventure, formerly known as Commando War Stories in Pictures, and colloquially known as Commando Comics, are a series of British comic books that primarily draw their themes and backdrops from the various incidents of the World Wars I and II. The comic, still in print today, was a Spiritual Successor to the earlier Battle Picture Library and War Picture Library series, which have since been discontinued. The comic is noted for its distinctive 7 × 5½ inch, 68 page format that became a standard for these kinds of stories.The general tone is more The Guns of Navarone than Saving Private Ryan; the horrors of war are still there, but they don't overpower the stories. Over the years, the "Boy's Own Adventures" attitude has been toned down a bit, but it's still a mostly optimistic view of war, viewing it more as a necessary evil than a fun time for the boys.
Break Out The Museum Piece: In Charlie's Tank, a group of plucky British soldiers trapped in occupied France liberate a World War I tank from a museum and use it to escape the Nazis.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Averted... kind of. Not only has D.C. Thomson & Co. started putting out oversized trade paperbacks of some of classic stories, but every month they usually have at least four stories that are reprints of stories that are at least a few decades old.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The standard reaction to anything which possibly affect fate, such as good-luck charms.
The Neidermeyer: Officers who aren't well liked by the enlisted men often show up. If they're seen from the perspective of the troops, they're usually of the aforementioned General Failure type, but when they're an important character themselves, their story is typically about them winning the respect of their troops. A relatively popular example is to team up a unit of rough and ready ANZA Cs with a by-the-book Englishman.
It's not too uncommon to have a Sergeant Rock mistaken for a Neidermeyer.
Pin-Pulling Teeth: Not featured as much as you'd think, but they're certainly there.
Recurring Character: Usually averted, owing to the fact that that there's too many to keep track of. However, Commando has been sneaking in a few recurring characters over the years, mostly by writers who are so established within the company that they can more or less get away with it.
World War II: For the most part; due to both writers and readers getting a little bored with nothing but stories about six years of human history, writers will branch out with stories set as far back as Ancient Rome, and other eras relevant to Britain's history, such as The English Civil War, The Second Boer War and World War One.
Interestingly, although not too surprisingly, The Holocaust has only been mentioned in a few issues.
The most recently-set issues were about a cell of Western Terrorists taking over an oil rig in 1990 and 2008's #4123: Nightmare Holiday; set in the same year, it deals with a Japanese civilian fleeing North Korean troops after 30 years of imprisonment.
There's another contender - #4404, Misfit Squad, a story that partly takes place in 2011.
Yellow Peril: With the success of The Bridge on the River Kwai, this became more popular during The Seventies, and considerably less so afterwards, thanks to a healthy dose of Values Dissonance. in fact, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy seem to have disappeared altogether from modern Commando issues.
Not counting reprints, the last time was probably in 1993. And even then, it was mostly about a Japanese-American being The Mole for the Allies.
#4002 Borneo Prince and #4003 Island Of Terror! are both from 2007. Both involve the Japanese.
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