Featuring: Captain America Release: February 10, 1941 Cover: April 1941 10 cents By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby 15 pages
Notice that for the second issue in a row, Captain America is attacking Adolf Hitler on the cover. A disappointing thing about the first issue was that the scene was not reflected inside the comic. This comic makes up for it with this second story. Which is of course why we are reading it. To actually see Cap sock Hitler.
Note that it’s February 1941. Still 10 months before America enters the war. But Joe and Jack aren’t shy about letting their opinions out. They inform us that Cap and Bucky head to “Nazi enslaved France”. Quite the strong language.
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: September 10, 1963 Cover: December 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: George Bell 22 pages
The cover tells me not to dare reveal Hate-Monger’s identity. I fear that I am going to have to do just that. Spoilers ahead.
This is George Roussos’ first time on Fantastic Four and the effects are noticeable. He makes less effort than the other inkers to smooth out Kirby, and if anything only emphasizes the sharp angles of the faces, creating a more exaggerated style. The first page is meant to show the FF looking angry and hate-filled, so perhaps is not the ideal introduction to his take on the characters.
The first page lets me know this will be the most unusual, thought-provoking tale I will read this season. Often, Stan uses hyperbole in these opening pages. But I think the ending (yes, the one I plan to spoil; you are warned) more than lives up to Stan’s promises.
Featuring: Captain America Release: December 20, 1940 Cover: March 1941 10 cents By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby 8 pages
Here he comes. (Here comes the Captain)
Ladies and Gentleman! (Here comes the Captain)
The moment you’ve been waiting for! (Here comes the Captain)
The pride of Camp Lehigh! (Here comes the Captain)
Steve Rogers!
The 1940s had more Marvel superheroes than I could name. We’ve looked at some of the miscellaneous ones like the Angel. Some would be brought back for small roles by later writers. Many would lend their name to later characters. Despite the vast numbers of them, there is a “big three”. We’ve discussed two of them at length.
Jim Hammond, the Human Torch, would lend his name, likeness, and powers to a new character, Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four. Namor the Sub-Mariner would return in the pages of Fantastic Four, often as an adversary.
There is a third big one we have left out until now. But it’s time.
I’m not certain that what we are looking at up above isn’t the best comic book cover ever. To appreciate it, you must look at the date of release. December 20, 1940. It was completed prior to that date; thus, it was completed over a year before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. America’s official position toward the wars of Europe and Asia at the time was neutrality, as codified in various neutrality acts based by Congress over the previous 5 years. And yet, here was a hero garbed in the American flag punching Adolf Hitler in the face.
Jack Kirby is obviously a name we’ve seen a lot in our reading, as he created the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, etcetera. Before that, he defined the romance genre within comics. And long before that, he created Captain America. Born Jacob Kurtzburg, the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants, he was 23 when Captain America #1 reached the stands. Two and a half years later, he would join the US Army and go fight Hitler’s forces in Europe himself.
Joe Simon, born Hymie Simon, was a few years older than Kirby, also the son of immigrants, of Russian-Jewish heritage. He joined the Coast Guard for the war and spent the war years in America. Simon and Kirby would be partners for 15 years and together shape American comics as we know them.
Featuring: Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner Release: March 1, 1941 Cover: Spring 1941 10 cents By: Bill Everett 20 pages
My goal with this blog is to read through all the superhero comics that make up the Marvel Universe starting with Fantastic Four #1 in 1961. But there’s an oddity to that goal: the company had been making superhero comics since 1939. Of course, they stopped making superhero comics in 1949, to very briefly revive the idea in 1953. So 1961 isn’t exactly the beginning, but it sort of is. Most of the superheroes we know will follow in the wake of the Fantastic Four. We’ve already met Hulk, Ant-Man & Wasp, Thor Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Sgt. Fury… and more will come.
But some of our heroes predate 1961. Johnny Storm is not the first Human Torch. There was another and we’ve peeked at his stories. But the FF comics have yet to mention the existence of a previous Torch, so those stories are not crucial to the task at hand. We’ll very soon be meeting one more important character from 1941, but I’ll not jump ahead. The big thing we’re missing so far is the story of Sub-Mariner, who appeared in about 300 comics prior to 1961. Reading all of them would consume a huge amount of effort when I really want to push forward. But the gap is also nagging me.
So I’m going to read a small smattering of them. Try to get a sense of who Namor is and what he’s about. We’ve already read his earliest appearance as well as his first epic battle with Human Torch.
When the Fantastic Four met Namor in Fantastic Four #6, I wrote: “All posts regarding Fantastic Four comics featuring Namor are henceforth dedicated to my mother.” I may as well broaden that dedication to all Namor comics and include the next few we cover.
Sgt. Fury, and His Howling Commandos/Seven Against the Nazis!
Featuring: Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos Release: March 5, 1963 Cover: May 1963 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 21 pages
I read this comic in Sgt. Fury Epic Collection vol. 1: The Howling Commandos.
So why are we reading this comic in with the superhero stories? Well, the answer is probably obvious, but let’s think it through a little. What else is Marvel putting out in March of 1963 that I could be reading?
Two western comics: Gunsmoke Western and Rawhide Kid. And a few later time-travel stories will intersect these heroes with our superhero comics, so they’re not irrelevant. The problem is there are so many western comics, going back to well before we started our reading in 1961. The original Two-Gun Kid debuted in 1948, the same month as Annie Oakley #1. Kid Colt, Blaze Carson, Tex Morgan, and Tex Taylor debuted soon after. Point is, we are nowhere near a good jumping on point for the western stories.
There are two romance titles out this month, Love Romances and Patsy and Hedy. As we’ve mentioned, Patsy Walker will eventually become a superhero. But there are also a lot of these comics going back to the 1940s. Patsy’s had a regular feature since 1945.
(Notice that’s also Jack Kirby on the Love Romances comic. So he’s telling a lot of stories in a lot of genres this month.)
There are four fantasy anthology titles, each with a superhero feature we’ve been reading as the lead story. One pure superhero comic.
And now a war comic set in World War II. Why read the war comic with our superhero reading and not the westerns or romance comics?
