intro
And the Rest
Captain Daring (II) (Lee Bradford, USA Comics #7, Alex Schomburg) – Bradford was the leader of a group of fighter pilots called the Sky-Sharks.
Captain Wonder (Professor Jordon, Kid Komics #1, Otto Binder) – Jordan developed a wonder fluid, which gave him super strength. He took up the superhero identity Captain Wonder, with troublemaker Tim Mulrooney as his kid sidekick.
Imp (Imp, Captain America Comics #12, Stan Lee and Chad Grothkopf) – The Imp was a miniature creature that lived in the ear of his human companion, Jefferson Vandermeer. Somehow the two found themselves repeatedly drawn into adventures, with the Imp carrying the day with his incredible strength.
Marvel Boy (II) (Martin Burns1, USA Comics #7, Bob Oksner) – During a field trip to a museum, Hercules’ mummy fell on Burns and a vial of his blood broke, mixing with Burns’. That night Hercules’ spirit came to Burns and gave him the costume to become his champion in the modern world: Marvel Boy.
Pinto Pete (Pete Webster, Kid Komics #1, no credits) – Webster was a western kid hero.
Subbie (Subbie, Kid Komics #1, Otto Binder and Carl Pfeufer) – Subbie is the nephew of Neptune, who wanted to explore the surface world and was given a PT boat and sailor’s outfit.
Tough Kid Squad (Wally and Tom Danger, Derrick Dawes, “Butch,” “Eagle,” Tough Kid Squad Comics #1, Mike Sekowsky) – The Danger twins were injected at a young age with a super serum. After their father’s death, Wally was raised by a colleague of his father’s, while Tom was kidnapped and raised as a criminal. Reunited shortly before high school, the two and their high school friends were brought together in an adventure fighting off the interest of their father’s rival.
Victory Boys (Maxie, Gus, Warren, Hans, Kurt, Victor, Comedy Comics #10, Ernest Hart) – The Victory Boys were a group of orphans living in the Black Forest and working against the Nazis from their hidden base.
Final Thoughts
As expected, the portrayal of Japanese people did not improve as the US war machine geared up. Between the fact that nonwhite characters were already portrayed unfavorably and attitudes toward the Japanese were decidedly unfriendly after Pearl Harbor – and these comics were wartime propaganda – racist cariactures are hardly unsurprising. A little more shocking is that they actually published stories of a character by the name “Jap Buster Johnson,” or a sequence in Sub-Mariner Comics #6 where Namor disguises himself as a “sappy Jappy.” Meanwhile, the final Young Allies story of 1943 had Whitewash drawn less ridiculously and brought his father in – sadly, the improvement wouldn’t stick, but it shows they could do better when they tried.
Electro was long gone, but the problem of the heroes being too powerful persisted. It was the Destroyer who became the most incapable of failing, while just about everyone developed problems of “hardened criminals who have few issues with killing civilians and cops decide shooting is too simple for the heroes and come up with some elaborate death mechanism that never, ever works.” As noted last time, if they would just shoot the heroes… well, they’d need a lot more of them.
Here’s the framework of a Patriot story: Jeff, Mary, and Jack are investigating a news story together. The story turns dangerous, and Jeff ditches the other two, turns into the Patriot, and begins snooping around. He finds some answers, gets in a fight, and is knocked out by a sneak attack. He comes to, gets out of any danger he was left in, gets the rest of the answers, wins round two against the bad guys, decostumes, and returns to Mary and Jack who are annoyed at him for once again disappearing when danger shows up. It’s not bad, but with most of the other heroes being equally formulaic, and the number of unique heroes dwindling, it becomes harder to ignore.
All that said… if I was really not having a good time with this, I would drop it and move on to the Silver Age. Some characters – Captain America, Namor, Human Torch, and the Angel – are consistently better than others – the military guys, the Young Allies. The (sadly seemingly ended) occasional book with a bunch of new characters and maybe one or two familiar faces are a lot of fun, even if none of the new guys actually captures my attention.
Italy was a distant third in appearances to Germany and Japan. Coincidentally, a Young Allies comic with the team working behind the scenes in Italy to bring about the downfall of Mussolini was published the day after Mussolini was removed from power. With Mussolini removed, Italy left the war, leaving the western Allies free to focus on Germany. Germany wasn’t faring better in the east, as the Soviet Union invasion had failed and the Germans were driven out by the end of the year. Led by the US, the Pacific theater was also firmly leaning toward an Allied victory. Hitler’s downfall was still a year and a half away, and Japan would keep up the fight a few more months after that, but the end was in sight.
Next: ___________