Jody, Jody, six-foot-four...
A foul beast that lurks in the shadows, never tiring, ever vigilant, with craned neck vigorously leaning to hear the magic word that unleashes his sinister powers: Deployment.
The malefactor’s skulduggery, known all too well throughout military history, has claimed divisions’ worth of saddened spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends as victims, forever helpless to the mischievous god of infidelity.
Seaman Joe Lynn was well on his way to joining the ranks of these victims while deployed aboard a destroyer during World War II, a story featured in a 1943 Superman comic buried in the archives of Washington’s Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
In this harrowing tale, Jody takes the form of Fred Fore, a hopelessly idiotic and overly aggressive miscreant in relentless pursuit of ol’ Seaman Joe’s gal back home — the lovely, yet terribly named Muriel.
Far out to sea and utterly desperate, Seaman Joe calls in a favor from the Last Son of Krypton — the one and only Man of Steel — to check in on that rat bastard, Fore.
Superman finds Muriel in no time, and wouldn’t you know it, she’s being trailed by Fore, who has been fully possessed by the spirit of Jody and is in the middle of some classic 1940s dirty talk, calling Muriel “the cat’s pyjamas [sic]." Take it easy, Fore.
Jody (Fore) proceeds with more sweet talk in the second frame, upping the stakes substantially by begging to gaze at Muriel’s “classic features from every possible angle." Not creepy at all, Fore.
Confronted by Superman and interrogated as to why he is chasing after Muriel and avoiding military service, Jody recoils, then offers the stammering “I... I... I wanted to join the military, but—” explanation that has never fooled a single person in possession of brain matter.
In true recruiter-desperate-to-meet-a-quota fashion, Superman casually overlooks Fore’s fainting problem and recommends him for some forged-by-the-sea enlistment action anyways.
Still at sea and unaware of Superman’s encounter with Jody, Seaman Joe swears, by the old gods and the new, to slay bodies upon confronting Fore, a classic finish to a classic deployment love story.
With the help of Superman, Fore would go on to enlist and become a Navy diver, but would faint during his first dive and die.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
