Kanigher, in addition to his long history with DC Comics, proves atypical among comics-creators in that he long displayed a determination to use female characters prominently, even in the unlikely venue of war-comics. To be sure, Kanigher was a formula writer, and he turned out so much work that it's almost inevitable that a lot of it is "underthought." Still, the two stories I'll examine here show some fascinating motifs, for all that they don't get developed.
In Kanigher's first script for the COMMANDOS feature, he chose to add a female member to the all-male monster-team.This two-part story, appearing in WEIRD WAR #109-110, used the same lengthy title "Roses are Red, But Blood is Redder" (with subtitles for each segment, no less). The first story is for the most part a standard commando-mission, in which Kanigher introduces his more acerbic version of the group-leader Matthew Shrieve, where he continuously calls his men "freaks." However, that mission ends with all of the commandos being swept into a raging river.
At the start of the second part, the three monsters emerge from the river more or less intact, though they briefly imagine that they see themselves as normal-looking in the river-waters. Then they scout around and find Shrieve, whose face has been severely injured by the torrent. The Commandos take their fallen leader to a medical convoy. There they conveniently find a doctor of plastic surgery, Myrna Rhodes, and turn Shrieve over to her. Griffith remarks that "he'll be a perfect partner for us now! We've heard the last of him callin' us stand-ins for monsters!" However, Rhodes has worked a miracle, returning Shrieve to his usual handsome self. Shrieve mocks them, and they leave. Rhodes tries to reach out to the embittered soldiers, but the enraged monsters stampede over a table full of chemicals. The result is that the woman who saved Shrieve's looks loses her own, as she grows a headful of Medusa-snakes. She doesn't have the Gorgon's traditional power to turn people to stone-- perhaps because Kanigher felt this would prove hard to work with-- and in fact, the only thing she can do is shock people with her looks, and (if she gets close enough) let her hair-snakes bite her enemies. Despite this limited formidability, she takes the name of "Doctor Medusa" and more or less forces her way onto the team. From then on she serves as Kanigher's vehicle for soulful femininity.
Medusa's addition to the stories doesn't really make them much better, but "Doorway to Hell" is a weird combination of banal war-action and archaic mythology. It starts by referencing the Graeco-Roman myth of Persephone, in which the hell-lord Pluto abducts the mortal maiden to force her into marriage. Then, in contrast to the classics, Kanigher invents a daughter from this union. Inferna is a fire-goddess, playing not to Greek ideas about the afterlife but Christian associations of hell and fire. Inferna makes many fruitless attempts to find mortal bridegrooms, but since she's made of fire, they all end badly.
The Commandos never interact with Inferna until the final three pages of the story, most of which is spent with them seeking out a weapons-cache in Italy. Then Inferna shows up, sans fanfare, and grabs hold of handsome Shrieve, intending to take him down with her into Hades.
For some reason, Shrieve doesn't burn up when Inferna picks him up, though it's implied that eventually he would. However, Doctor Medusa-- who apparently knows all about this made-up goddess-- talks Inferna out of her plans with some feminine sympathizing. Inferna goes away, bemoaning her solitary fate, much as Medusa does. Had this story been longer or better organized, it might've touched on the role of beauty in the female of the species. But in all likelihood, Kanigher was just trying to bang out another quick tale, using some of his favorite tropes.
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