G-2 OF THE ARMY INTELLIGENCE

G-2 of the Army Intelligence is an agent with the U.S. Army Intelligence.

Bit of a "duh" there, I know.

When we first meet Don Leash, the man who calls himself G-2, which is also the designation for the military intelligence staff in any unit in the U.S. Army, he is a very eager but obviously still quite young captain stationed at the Intelligence headquarters.

Two statements made by him when pushing for an important assignment seem quite contradictory but interesting.

The first is made when he barges into the office of the unit commander and offers his services saying "I have a right to ask for that assignment. I've never failed you!" That implies he has been on missions before and successfully completed them. When his bosses agree to his working the case, however, Leash responds with "Thank you, sir. This is the chance I've been waiting for!" which certainly sounds like he is just getting started.

That very important first mission shows Leash coming up immediately with a plan to draw out an enemy submarine, which works, getting a bomber to assist dropping bombs on it, which works, and then parachuting out for really not logical reason at all. From that point on the mission gets a tad illogical. But it does show young Leash to be an enterprising, daring, and eventually successful spy-buster.

And then, halfway through the mission, the world of Don Leash changes dramatically and quite strangely. Without any preamble or warning, he peels off his army uniform to reveal his skin-tight superhero garb beneath, complete with a chest emblem of a red circle and the yellow lettering of G2 in the center. The outfit looks like a one-piece blue body suit connected to red swim trunks and including a face mask covering the back and top of his head. Around his waist is a black belt with a yellow buckle and hanging from the belt on the right side is a holster for his automatic pistol.

No mention is made as to why Leash is now operating as a costumed spy hunter but whenever he encounters someone, they seem to know about G-2 and do not act the least surprised. As the rest of the twenty adventures take place, it is reasonable for him to become better known but having him be almost legendary from Case #1 is a tad off considering that he is supposedly so new.

We learn nothing else about Leash except he is all work and no play.

In my imagination, I see a writer/artist coming up with a new character, one who could fight the new enemies of America and dwell in the gray world of the Intelligence operative. He picked a young, ambitious army officer as the protagonist and goes to town with it. It is accepted and he sets out to pen the adventure. Then the editor muses for a moment and tells the creator, "You know what would be better?" Next thing you see, the spy hunter is draped from head to foot (literally) in a skin-tight blue outfit complete with head covering and a bright, gaudy emblem across his chest.

Of course, I just picked the editor as the culprit. It could have been the writer who decided to spiff up the hero. Don't know. Whoever it was, wrong! Let's take what promised to be a mediocre concept and turn it silly. Silliest to me was his always having his costume on under his uniform. Sweat much? And was the pistol in the holster under the uniform as well because it sure isn't over it. Yeah, I know. I am overthinking this.

Now the stories were pretty good ones, all told. And the author was given enough pages to actually develop the plot sufficiently to make sense, leaving out the costumed spy hunter concept.