Featuring: All Winners Squad
Release: July 24, 1946
Cover: Fall 1946
10 cents
43 pages
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Dictators! We’ve had enough of them! Atomic power must be used for peace, not war! It must be used to make life better for all people! The coming Atomic Age is not for one man– it is for the common man– for all mankind!
No credits are given. The GCD credits the writing to Batman/Green Lantern co-creator Bill Finger and some of the pencilling to Syd Shores. The Bill Finger credit comes from the writer’s own recollections in the 1960s, related to historian and “father of comic book fandom” Jerry Bails.
I’d been debating when to read this. We’ve done some overview read-throughs of Captain America and Sub-Mariner, and are in the middle of one for the Human Torch. The other main characters to appear in this issue are Miss America and the Whizzer, whom we haven’t met yet. And I don’t have a good reason to introduce them anytime soon. The best excuse will probably be their return in Giant-Size Avengers #1 from 1974, but this blog won’t be getting there anytime soon at the rate I’m going.
This would also pair well with the introduction of the Invaders, but that’s not until 1975.
So let’s read this now along with our Human Torch read-through. It’s an important comic in Marvel history. We’ll just try to figure out who Miss America and the Whizzer are as we go. Something something mongoose something.
Roy Thomas described this comic as “a great idea whose time had gone.”
Commenter BH369 recently noted it was a shame how rarely the superheroes of the 1940s met each other. And I find it odd that given how often Marvel and DC have copied each other over the decades, including at the time, that a prominent DC concept went years without a Marvel imitation.
We’ve seen for both companies how sometimes the covers reflected crossovers not present in the comics. The covers of DC’s World’s Finest Comics showed a team-up of Batman and Superman, but the interiors just featured two separate stories. Marvel Mystery Comics often featured Human Torch and Sub-Mariner teaming up on the cover, while they teamed up in the interiors only sporadically. Marvel put out All-Winners Comics #1, which seemed on the cover to show a team-up of several of Marvel’s heroes, but it was promoting an anthology where each hero on the cover would star in their own story.
Similarly, DC’s All Star Comics #2 showed us Spectre, Green Lantern, and Flash, not because they would meet in that issue, but because they each had a story in that issue.
But All Star Comics #3 did not mislead. This comic from 1940 actually showed everyone’s favorite heroes meeting as part of a group called the Justice Society of America. Where was Marvel’s version of that?
Now, the Justice Society didn’t really adventure together in that issue. They had a meeting where each hero related individual adventures to the others. And a lot of Justice Society comics would have a format where the heroes got together briefly in the first chapter, but then split up to each have an individual adventure, perhaps related to the others.
Finally when Marvel comes out with its own Justice Society analogue 6 years later, they will use a similar format.
We learn in the opening chapter the All Winners Squad exists. But then they separate with each hero investigating different but related crimes, before finally teaming up for the final chapter. DC’s modern take on the Justice Society, the Justice League, will use a similar format in their early adventures.
1960s Marvel has so far avoided this trope. The Fantastic Four and X-Men comics are a different concept, as they don’t bring together normally solo heroes, but Avengers is the heir to concepts like the Justice Society and All Winners Squad. And the title has wisely avoided this particular trope so far as of our reading in 1966. It will mimic a similar format soon enough.
Why does Thomas think the time for this concept has gone? Well, first of all it’s 6 years late compared to the competition. But it’s also missed the height of the superhero genre. Post World War II other genres like humor, westerns, etc. were gaining popularity as the superhero genre was waning.
And Marvel had its team of kid adventurers which included superhero sidekicks Bucky and Toro as early as 1941, the Young Allies. So where was the adult version?
So it was that Marvel’s first adult superhero team would only have two adventures, with the title being canceled in between the two issues.
The series was scrapped after this issue and its numbering given to the new All Teen Comics, a teen humor book vaguely in the mold of Archie.
But then Marvel canceled its superhero youth series Young Allies with issue 20, and decided to resurrect All-Winners Comics and the All Winners Squad with #21 (so there was never a #20). But then it got canceled again, to be replaced with the “girl” comic Hedy De Vine.
More than enough preamble, let’s meet the All Winners Squad: Toro, Whizzer, Miss America, Bucky, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, and Human Torch.
Note this isn’t their first adventure, just the first we see. The narrator describes the team as already famous, and we learn the villain of the issue has been scheming to defeat them for at least a year.
After Everett left, later artists like Syd Shores seemed to be in competition with each other to figure out just how pointy they could make Namor’s head.
It’s also interesting that Namor is just a crimefighter at this point. Rather than focusing on his undersea realm and its conflicts with the surface, he seems ready to tackle petty crimes in America.
A museum exhibit on the Ages of Mankind has been vandalized. The ages in question are: Ice, Stone, Iron, Bronze, and Steel. The exhibits are weirdly ordered as the Bronze Age predates the Iron Age.
Captain America notes the villain’s name Isbisa is weird. Perhaps he’s being culturally insensitive. He suspects it’s a clue, and tries reversing the letters to no avail.
I spotted the clue immediately though. Maybe you did too.
If you put the Ages from the exhibit in proper chronological order, they first letters spell ISBIS. Only missing the final letter of the villain’s name. Could their be one more age that begins with an A, perhaps the Atomic Age. This is 1946, after all.
Pay attention to the mousey assistant to the professor appropriately named Meke.
I appreciate that Miss America pauses to apply makeup. One must have priorities.
Another clue seems to implicate Namor as a possible accomplice. The group immediately fights over this, and Namor leaves in a huff. Toro is angry at the group and his mentor for turning on Namor, so also leaves. This infighting in superhero teams is characteristic of 1960s Marvel, but has its roots right here.
Human Torch says this is his first squabble with Toro. I don’t agree. We just saw Human Torch trying to murder him. But I guess he was under the Python’s control, so it doesn’t count. But in Toro’s second appearance in Human Torch #3, they had a whole tiff about these criminals trying to adopt Toro by posing as dead relatives.
Each hero gets their own clue to a crime in progress, and each crime will have a motif tied to one of these ages. So we then get a series of chapters featuring the individual heroes solving age-themed crimes.
First up is Captain America and Bucky investigating a bronze-themed crime.
And finding a bronze-themed solution. As they use a penny to defeat the crooks, and Captain America notes pennies are made of bronze. (This was true in 1946.)
After each hero’s victory, Isbisa makes cryptic remarks that everything is going according to plan.
Whizzer’s iron-themed clue leads him to movie director Cameron. I think this comic was written a few decades before the first films of James Cameron or Cameron Crowe, so this must be another Cameron. Cameron’s film involves a train robbery. An old train also being called… an iron horse.
Whizzer makes a WHIZZ sound when he runs. I guess that’s why he’s called the Whizzer.
Without his partner, Human Torch must investigate steel-themed crimes. He ends up talking to himself and missing Toro.
He isn’t alone for long as he meets policewoman Bobby Lee on the job. We see judo is a standard part of police training.
Bobby Lee is engaged to a detective on the force, but obviously they can’t marry until she quits her job. But she wants to solve one big case first.
The Torch helps her solve this case, so now she can quit doing unladylike police work and go be a housewife. And live happily ever after. She gives the Torch a kiss on the cheek for making all her dreams come true.
Miss America, “America’s girlfriend”, investigates stone-themed crimes. As the Calcium Master has turned a police chief to stone.
Notice this team sets the template Marvel has held to in the 1960s: precisely one woman per superhero team.
Spoiler, the Calcium Master can’t actually turn people to stone. He is a rogue sculptor who kidnaps people and replaces them with stone statues, making others think they’ve been turned to stone.
It’s disappointing not to actually see our favorite heroes really teaming up. But at least we get an interesting pairing between Namor and Toro investigating ice-themed crimes. They naturally match because neither wears much in the way of clothes.
Their relationship is frayed, as Namor is distrustful or Toro. Also Toro’s heat saps Namor’s water-based strength. Though that makes me wonder how Namor ever posed a threat to the Human Torch.
Namor recovers with the old “please don’t throw me overboard into the water” routine to a criminal who apparently has no idea who Sub-Mariner is.
In ironic justice, Namor summons a whale to take out a whaling boat.
The conclusion gives us what we’ve been waiting for, our heroes teaming up against Isbisa. Unfortunately the last chapter is only 4 pages long, the first two of which are spent in a meeting, so I feel a bit ripped off here.
Isbisa’s plan was to distract the heroes with assorted age-themed crimes while he pulled of an atomic age crime, stealing a nuclear bomb. But his plan was foiled because the A in his name was a clue.
With that, I’d like to continue our Human Torch reading with a jump forward to 1949 and his final adventure.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
I thought I might not get this title out this week, as it’s not on Marvel Unlimited, and I don’t have any of the collections. But I ordered from mycomicshop.com a 1999 reprint called Timely Presents: All Winners. And the comic arrived on Friday, just in time to prepare this week of posts.
Ray Lago painted a new version of the classic cover for the reprint.
Characters:
- Toro
- Whizzer
- Miss America
- Bucky
- Captain America
- Namor the Sub-Mariner
- Human Torch
- Isbisa/Meke
- Professor Saba
- Cameron
- Bobby Lee
- James Flore
- Calcium Master
Minor characters:
- Porky (one of Isbisa’s goons)
- Cellini (one of Isbisa’s goons)
- Shiv (one of Isbisa’s goons)
- Clark (actor)
- Shut-Eye (one of Isbisa’s goons)
Story notes:
- Narrator tells us there has always been crime, but there have also been champions like the All Winners Squad.
- Human Torch sky-writes to summon Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Miss America, and the Whizzer to the city museum. “That should bring the gang in a hurry,” says the Torch. But wouldn’t Namor be more likely underwater somewhere not in view of that city skyscape?
- Bucky and Cap see Miss America flying. Whizzer speeds as Namor swims.
- Exhibits in Ages of Mankind panorama smashed: Ice, Stone, Iron, Bronze, Steel.
- Note left for All Winners Squad, apparently a well-established team. Signed Isbisa. The Game of the Ages.
- Captain America notes Roman spelled backwards is Namor. And then Whizzer suspects Namor is colluding with Isbisa.
- Namor indignantly leaves; Toro angry they were mean to Namor and so joins him.
- “Isbisa, Criminal of the Ages”.
- Chapter 2: The Age of Bronze, featuring Captain America and Bucky.
- Captain America and Bucky follow clue to Musuem of Art.
- Museum director notes “Idol with the Starry Eyes” is a valuable Bronze Age piece; a Chinese idol with star sapphires for eyes.
- Cellini pretends to be mad frustrated artist as distraction.
- Cellini left note that buckshot was coated with particles of bronze disease which infected idol.
- Museum director notes piece must be removed to not infect other pieces. He calls the plating plant to perform electrolysis.
- Idol was red herring. Crooks really after paintings. Cap not fooled.
- Cap notes that pennies are composed of copper and tin, which makes them bronze.
- Cap and Bucky bust up Isbisa’s goons.
- Chapter 3: The Iron Age, featuring the Whizzer
- Cameron on the flatlands, making a new picture about train robber Mal Brennings.
- Criminals take the place of actors.
- Whizzer sees the actors have real bullets.
- Whizzer defeated by lubricating oil.
- Cameron offers $25K to Whizzer’s charity if he can film Whizzer stopping the crooks. Whizzer selects Warm Springs.
- Whizzer not super strong, but his speed allows him to pull train because of science.
- The real Mal Brennings had hidden the stolen gold in the train floorboards. That’s what Isbisa’s men were after.
- Chapter 4: The Steel Age, featuring Human Torch.
- Human Torch directed to a manhole cover. He follows crooks into sewer and secret entrance to bank.
- Torch meets policewoman Bobby Lee; judo a standard part of police training.
- Fiancee detective wants her to quit and become a housewife, but she wants to solve one big case first.
- Torch and Lee talk to architect James Flore about secret entrance.
- Flore places them in giant fan in reverse that will kill them.
- Model of Fasset building jewely exchange is next clue to where Flore went.
- Chapter 5: The Stone Age, featuring Miss America.
- Note sends Miss America to chief of police of Millstone.
- Miss America finds police chief turned to stone. Apparently his wife didn’t notice for days.
- Note from Calcium Master offers to restore the chief for $1000.
- Miss America follows carrier pigeon to Calcium Master.
- Police find Miss America turned to stone.
- Calcium Master’s secret is he’s a sculptor. Not turning people to stone, just making sculptures of them and kidnapping them.
- Grindstone helps Miss America escape.
- Calcium Master falls to death. Tombstone reference.
- Chapter 6: The Ice Age, featuring Sub-Mariner (and Toro)
- Namor sent to major eskimo trading post north of Bering Sea. Toro follows.
- Namor and Toro find eskimo trappers being hijacked.
- Namor thinks Toro is spying on him.
- Crooks use whaling ship as hideout.
- Toro’s heat vaporized Namor’s strength.
- Chapter 7: Conclusion.
- Isbisa had planned all the crimes in exchange for 25%. But really the crimes were bait for the All Winners Squad.
- Isbisa’s plans go back a year, so the Squad is at least a year old.
- Ruse to send All Winners after small crimes while he planned his big crime, stealing an atomic bomb.
- Isbisa unmasked as Museum director’s secretary Meke.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Human Torch #8 | PRELUDE | Marvel Mystery Comics #92 |
| Fantastic Four #56 | Reading order | Fantastic Four Annual 4 |
