SOURCE: "The Real Thing: New Images of Vietnam in American Comic Books," in Vietnam Images: War and Representation, edited by Jeffrey Walsh and James Aulich, Macmillan Press, 1989, pp. 160-69.

In the following essay, Huxley discusses Savage Tales, In-Country Nam, and other examples of post-Vietnamera war comics.

Since 1980 there have been a wide range of texts in the field of American popular culture which have laid the groundwork for a recuperation of the Vietnam War. Many of these texts took the form of television series in which Vietnam was presented as part of the credentials which formed the background of heroes in violent professions—for example, Magnum, Airwolf The A-Team. These were followed by comic books such as Jon Sable, Freelance, which used the idea of Vietnam in a very similar way. Gradually the influence of Vietnam moved from the background of some of these texts to the foreground...