Quality 1941 Week--National Comics #13 (Part 1)!!

....

Oh, great, where am I now??

Sigh....still in 1941, just shifted sideways over to the Quality universe. Man, I'm never gonna make it to 1981.

Still, while I'm stuck here, this is a good opportunity to look at some forgotten comics. Because I'm going to go out on a limb and make this assertion:

Despite far fewer characters who survived the Golden Age, and certainly far fewer well known characters, Quality Comics was well-named, and for the most part they were better than Fawcett, DC or Marvel comics of the same period.

There, I said it.

I'll try and support that throughout the rest of the time that I'm stuck here in 1941. Today, through the auspices of National Comics #13, I can compare and contrast with the Fawcett comics I looked at earlier this week. Compare/contrast? I knew all the English class essays would pay off someday!!

We start with the cover boy of National Comics:

OK, I know, Uncle Sam seems to violate my rule against liking characters with seeming infinite yet undefined powers. But come on, he's Uncle freakin' Sam!!

One thing to note in that splash actually is two fairly strong points of comparison between Quality and Fawcett: A) Their creators were much more likely to sign their work (albeit often with pen names), and B) perhaps not unrelated, their artwork was lots, lots better than most of Fawcett's at the time.

That's not a huge surprise, with Will Eisner's studio handling a lot of Quality's comics, and people like Eisner, Jack Cole, Gil Fine and others contributing. One the whole Quality's art was more detailed, used color more interestingly, and utilized more creative panel layouts than many other contemporary comics did.

Back to our story--what kinds of lessons is Uncle Sam teaching his young sidekick, Buddy?

Bombing and killing, eh? What have you been teaching him, Sam?

Anyway, they come across a town where all the menfolk are missing, and quiz a local youth:

Slavery!! White slavery!! Americans kidnapped and forced to work in the mines!! This is a job for...oh, never mind, as Sam immediately gets captured.

Don't worry, though--while being marched to the mine, he gets a chance to fight an alligator!

Once tossed in the mine, he of course starts preaching freedom to the enslaved townsfolk:

But when the evil mine owners try to suppress him...well, you can't shoot the spirit of liberty!!

So, they try to gas him!

So, in a scene clearly meant for the ladies, Sam takes off his shirt and literally digs his way straight up through hundred of feet of earth with his bare hands!

And then he kicks evil mine owner tail!

And once again, freedom rings!!

Next up--

Sally O'Neill, Policewoman, is exactly what is says. She's usually plainclothes, but in this story she's in the standard uniform for some official function when she comes upon a robbery:

She carries a gun, and she can drive!!

Eighty? Ooooh......

Unfortunately, despite her gloves, when she touches an electrified window pane:

But the copper dame awakes and fights like a she-cat!!

Next--Kid Patrol!!

This long running feature starred a group of kids (Suzy, Sunshine, Porky and Teddy) who got into all sorts of hijinks. Sadly, Sunshine is quite the Sambo character, and this plot involves them going on a plane trip to an island of offensively stereotyped cannibals, so I think we're just going to skip the rest of that story.

Next, Prop Powers!!

Our premise?

Lank? Lank?!? We need more people nicknamed Lank, methinks.

Anyway, they get to Greenland, and are suspicious of a film company making a movie there:

Because our heroes are rather dim, they need a lucky break, and they get it, as one of the villains breaks one of the cardinal rules of spying:

Don't mutter to yourself so loudly that the good guys can hear you. That's a pretty elementary rule, generic spy!

Hey, don't blame "loose-brained females"--it was your muttering that gave up the game!

So, after confirming that the film company isn't legit:

What?!?!? You're going to BOMB them??? Why not just, you know, arrest them or something??

But the evil spy fake film company somehow has their own fighter planes!!

Hah!! Good guys win!!

Yes, they certainly learned that a fake film company can film a secret US military base AND smuggle multiple fighter planes right next to that base, and can only be tripped up by muttering too loud and if the US Coast Guard happens to be making bombing runs in Greenland. Valuable lesson!

Next up: single-page comedy strip!!

Quality ran a lot of those--several per issue, usually--sometimes with continuing characters, sometime a one-timer.

Next--boxing!!

That's another thing to note--generally speaking, Quality had a greater variety of stories in their anthology titles than did Fawcett. Boxing??

Yup. Donny "Kid" Dixon is a quite the rarity--a boxer who had his big payday and retires to his dream life before suffering debilitating injuries:

The problem--everyone thinks that because he retired before he got brain-damaged, he's a big chicken:

Even the kidnapping gang, who snatched one of the kids, thinks he's no threat:

Ah, but Dixon still has his moves:

Plus, the early retirement saved his brain so he could make sharp quips while punching bad guys:

Sadly, his success means that, like Michael Corleone, he's just sucked back into the life:

And that's the first half of National Comics #13--tune in later today for Part 2!!