PRELUDE: Captain America’s Weird Tales #74

The Red Skull Strikes Again!

Featuring: Captain America
Release: July 4, 1949
Cover: October 1949
10 cents
Editorial Consultant: Jean Thompson, M.D., Psychiatrist
6 pages

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Captain America Comics #61PreludeYoung Men #24, Story B
Sgt. Fury #16Reading orderTales of Suspense #65

No credits are given, except for Dr. Jean Thompson, the psychiatrist whose name assures parents this comic is okay for kids to read. Something I’m not even convinced about.

We saw her name before when we got to this time period in our Sub-Mariner reading. I don’t know a lot about her, and the internet isn’t telling me much. In attempting to search for information about her, my own blog was one of the top hits. And that was just me saying I don’t know much.

It’s 1949. Kids don’t read superhero comics anymore. They want horror comics now. Marvel tries to split the middle with Captain America. The title changes its name from Captain America Comics to Captain America’s Weird Tales. It opens with a horror-tinged Captain America story, and then continues as a pure horror anthology: “The Frozen Ghost!”; “The Thing in the Swamps!”; “The Tomb of Terror”.

In his last appearance, Red Skull died. He died in almost every appearance, then his next appearance showed how he actually survived. Not this time. This issue opens with the Red Skull dead. And in Hell.

He will drag Captain America down to Hell with him. Sorry, the “Lower Region”. I forgot this comic has been approved for children by a psychiatrist. It’s also referred to as the “Flaming Pits”. But never H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

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PRELUDE: Sub-Mariner Comics #32

The Birth of the Sub-Mariner

Featuring: Sub-Mariner
Release: March 20, 1949
Cover: June 1949
10 cents
By: Bill Everett
12 pages

I can’t find any credits in the comic, but it seems to pretty clearly be by Bill Everett, and the internet seems to agree.

This is the end of the Sub-Mariner’s story. After a decade, he’s getting cancelled along with all the other superheroes. Romance, humor, crime, western, horror… that’s all the company that will become Marvel is publishing come April 1949.

For his final issue, they look backward. This story tells of the origin of Namor. The next story in the issue covers the same events as Namor’s first story in Marvel Comics #1.

The story begins with a ship which has lost its Captain. Commander Leonard McKenzie is injured and lost. His ship has to abandon him. He is saved by his new wife, a woman they rescued who turns out to be more than she appears. She is Fen, Princess of the Sub-Mariners.

The Sub-Mariners wish him put to death for the crimes of humanity, but she is in charge in the absence of the Emperor and insists he live.

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