Piracy #1

Credits:
Cover dated November 1954
Cover by Wally Wood

"The Privateer" - Art by Reed Crandall/Writer Unknown
"The Mutineers" - Art by Wally Wood/Writer Unknown
"Harpooned" - Art by Al Williamson & Angelo Torres/Writer Unknown
""Shanghaied" - Art by Jack Davis/Writer Unknown

The final new comic title produced by EC prior to the end of the New Trend, Piracy focused, naturally, on pirates. The comic appeared shortly before the start of the New Direction comics first started getting published by EC and is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a New Direction title (although it was included with the New Direction set in the EC Library). In my mind Piracy has a fairly strong first few issues but isn't as interesting later on, which I suppose isn't that surprising considering later issues had to go through the comics code.

"The Privateeer" - Ballard James, an English Plantation owner becomes a privateer in England's war against Spain. Insistent that he is a privateer, not a Pirate, James insists on directly striking the first Spanish ship they come across rather then feigning friendship at first as a pirate might do. Weeks go by without coming across another ship however, causing James to decide to strike an allied French ship when they come across it. Rather than publicly declare himself a pirate, James attacks ship after ship, regardless of country, reporting only occasionally to England to provide the government the required part of the bounty. Eventually James attacks even a British man-of-war, turning on the very government that commissioned him. His last goal to capture merchant ships such that he can retire, James eventually comes across a trio of them only to be tricked, as all 3 are pirate ships, who defeat his crew and kill him. A decent start to Piracy with a strong art job throughout. Crandall would often do the lead off story for Piracy as well as several covers, and was probably the strongest artist at doing pirate-based stories.

"The Mutineers" - This story features a first mate aboard a ship who frequently finds himself in the middle of the captain and the crew. The captain gets upset with him for not reprimanding a crew member, while the crew wants to mutiny, which he denies them. When the ship hits a big storm, the captain refuses to adjust the sails to help them out of it, thinking it can put off a mutiny. Eventually the mutiny arrives and O'Hara helps the captain in keeping the men from taking over the ship. When the captain sends up a young crew member to climb the top of the ship and he falls to his death, O'Hara has decided he's had enough, and he leads the entire crow on a row boat away from the ship, leaving the captain all by himself. At 8 pages this would typically be the first story of the issue but it has been moved to second here. Overall its a fairly good one, although not as strong as the first and last story.

"Harpooned" - This story takes place on a whaling boat. The first mate of the boat is very upset at the captain, particularly when he comes out with the men on a row boat in an attempt to harpoon a whale. When the whale surfaces the men harpoon it, but the first mate manages to get the rope on the spear tied around the captain's neck, which throws him overboard and causes him to drown when the whale heads below water. The whale later resurfaces however, destroying the boat, and causing the first mate to be impaled on the spear sticking out of the whale. A rather poor story, but some really strong art here by Williamson and Torres. This was one of their rare collaborations in the late days of EC when Torres started doing more credited work for EC. Unfortunately they only did one more for Piracy, in the next issue.

"Shanghaied" - A ship captain named Walton is approached by a man named Pigott who has brought him some shanghaied men that can act as crew members for him once he's on the open sea. Walton is against shanghaiing and is about to send him away but notices one of the men and has Pigott bring him on board. As Pigott carries the man to Walton's cabin, Walton reveals that the man actually shanghaied him over ten years ago. Walton tells Pigott how he was shanghaied and forced to work on the open sea for several years. This started a quest of his where he searched for the man who shanghaied him, and he eventually rose through the ranks, becoming a sea captain. Pigott thinks that Walton will exert some violence on the man when he awakens, but surprisingly he shakes his hand and thanks him for getting a successful career at sea started for him A good story to wrap up the issue, with a decent surprising ending.