Fawcett/Quality 1941 Week--The Bitter Dregs

OK, not really bitter dregs. But let's wrap up our sojourn in 1941 by looking at a few interesting things I wasn't able to get to in previous posts.

From Wow Comics #2:

**Wealthy playboys had really strange ideas in the 30s and 40s. Alan Lanier, inspired by the Hunchback Of Notre Dame, decided to put on a hunchback costume and fight crime. Apparently, this sent the underworld "into spasms of fear and trepidation."

From Smash Comics #24:

**Among his other powers, The Ray could fly...so why is he always running everywhere?

**I know The Purple Trio was just yet another non-powered group of friends who went about solving crimes--hey, why not--but...

...when you get a team of a strong man, a ventriloquist and a midget, you have to take notice. Plus, they kind of remind me of a Golden Age version of The Enforcers.

**An awful lot of policeman also put on costumes back in the day. I guess they didn't have a lot of faith in their own system. Rookie cop Chuck Lane, however, decides to dress a little more gaudily than most:

Yes, crooks will be scared of that--just look:

If a caption says it, it must be true!!

Like many of his Quality compatriots, the Jester got a couple of cameos in All-Star Squadron, and name-checked in an issue of Starman.

Sadly, like too many other Golden Age Heroes, he was turned into a homicidal madman by modern writers: in the most recent run of Freedom Fighters, Palmiotti and Gray reveal that Lane went on to become head of the "uber-patriotic" terrorist group the Arcadians who kidnapped the Vice-President and took out a team of federal agents with a suicide bomb. Good on you, Palmiotti and Gray.

**The Golden Age made for some very...odd...racial situations, none odder than the Scarlet Seal. Former actor and current police lab tech (see!! cops again!!) Barry Moore decided that the best way to fight crime was to dress up as a Fu Manchu, Yellow Peril-type villain, the Scarlet Seal.

Yeah, it was even odder than it sounds, as something of a Clark/Lois/Superman triangle developed between Moore, his girlfriend, and the Scarlet Seal:

This issue was the Seal's last story, and the girlfriend figured out the ruse. So, brace yourself for the most uncomfortable word balloon of the week:

**Last up was the cover star of Smash Comics, Bozo The Robot:

He was a robot. He was named Bozo. He fights crime. DC has done nothing with the concept in the past 70 years. There is no justice.

From Feature Comics #46:

**Doll Man was the cover feature of Feature Comics. Doll Man--Ant-Man without the interesting part of the powers!!

**Samar was, of course, yet another Tarzan clone. And I know you all have dirty minds, but...

...those two are fighting there, no matter what that pose may look like. Really. Fighting.

**From the Bruce Blackburn, Counterspy strip, we see that Nazi spies will use everything--literally everything--to bring down America:

**Then things get weird:

In 1777, an unnamed little girl died while trying to deliver threads from the first American flag to her uncle, Sam (no relation?). Her ghost was unleashed in 1941, and the entity (?) became USA, The Spirit Of Old Glory, the living embodiment of the US flag!!

Really.

How does she know when there's trouble?

As...odd...as the concept is, this girl/ghost/living flag can kick ass:

**Now, presenting, the BEST evil villain plot ever:

Freaking. Brilliant.

**In Bulletman #1, we learn that Bulletgirl's dad is pretty damn dense:

**Finally, this was a DC title, but I just have to comment:

Not only is More Fun Comics a great title for a comic, and DC should revive it immediately; but each issue featured Doctor Fate and the Spectre, fighting demons and extracting vengeance upon murderers--so that definition of More Fun pretty much fits in what 21st century DC thinks fun is...

1941 Notes--Text Pieces

If you read enough pre-Silver Age comic books, you're going to see these:

Ah, the text pieces. Stuck right in the middle of all the pretty pictures and colors, just sitting there, begging not to be read.

What was up with those?

Well, in order to qualify for cheaper postal rates, any magazine (comics included) had to include at least 2 pages of non-advertising typeset text. Why? Ask Ben Franklin!

I have no idea how many comics were actually mailed back in 1941, or how much of a difference those postal rates would have made. But obviously, the answer is pretty substantial, because every publisher did them, without fail.

Sometimes the actually involved characters from the comic...just as often not, though. If you were lucky, the piece would be in the same genre as the comic (although in 1941, when most everything was an anthology, that mattered less).

Who wrote them? Fawcett basically had one guy in charge of theirs--you can see that both of the above were authored by "Larac (or La Rac) Semrof." which is just Carl Formes spelled backwards with an extra A thrown in.

It's hard to tell because of all the pen names, but other companies seemingly made anyone sitting around the office write some. That was Stan Lee's first published work--the text piece in Captain America Comics #3, starring Cap himself!

As you can imagine, these obligatory pieces often weren't good--turgid prose at best, unreadable at worst (Still better than Bendis' Oral History of the Avengers, though...). Frankly, even I rarely bother to read them, and I read EVERYTHING in a comic book.

Maybe that's a good project for someone--gather and publish an archive of the best of the text pieces. That could be interesting, and surely most of them are public domain by now.

By the Silver Age, the companies realized that they didn't have to pay writers to do this--letters pages and Bullpen Bulletins were enough to satisfy the post office. Fans would give them their text requirements--for free!! And so, farewell to the text pieces.

Of course, by running letters columns, the comic companies created the delusion amongst fans that their opinion mattered, and thus was created the fan entitlement that has destroyed the comic industry...or so some would have you believe...

Fawcett 1941 Week--Captain Marvel Adventures #2 (Part 2)

And, we're back with the second half of Captain Marvel Adventures #2, as we look at comics from July 1941, and more specifically, look at how Fawcett dealt with on of the first instances of having to fill a whole 64 page book with stories about just one character.

Answer? Padding!! These stories were 4-6 pages longer than Captain Marvel's usual lead stories in Whiz. And they hadn't quite got the hang of it, so they tended to feel these stories with repetitive fights and noodling around.

In this, the third story of the issue, we begin as an unknown sailor is murdered for his treasure map:

Look, kids, comics!!

Billy Batson goes down to the wharf to investigate, but...

"Evilish One"?? Evilish???

So Billy is shanghaied, and gets to go on a great adventure:

Billy decides to play along to get the story...but he's under the command of the next great character find of 2011: Mozo!!!

Did Mozo just call Billy a lazy crack head?

Well, enough is enough, so Billy says the magic word when Mozo isn't looking, and...

Man, I love Mozo!! I've got big plans for him.

Anyway, after undergoing the same routine once more with Mozo (he's mean, Billy changes and beat him up, Mozo repents...like I said, padding), Captain Marvel has to spend several pages saving the ship from a typhoon. Padding.

They finally reach the island, where the evil pirate tries to force natives to dive in shark-infested waters to retrieve the treasure for him. Marvel objects:

That native girl looks familiar...anyway, Marvel goes down (in a diving helmet!!) and battles a shark!!

Hey, wait a minute!!

OK, I see what happened now!! Earlier this week, I was pretty mean to Whiz Comics #19 for using a cover that I called a complete lie, depicting a scene that wasn't close to anything in the comic:

Now it's obvious what happened: either this story was supposed to run in Whiz #19, or that cover was supposed to run here...something got switched. So, not a lying cover, but a misplaced one. That will teach me to be so judgmental. Apologies, Whiz Comics #19!!

While Marvel is underwater, another pirate ship shows up, and suddenly we're at world's end:

Using the distraction, Cap finds a good home for the treasure:

Socialism!!!

Then the good Captain decides to end the pirate battle--by sinking both ships:

Nooooo!!! Not Mozo!!!!!!!!!!! Please, DC, revive him in the New 52!!!!!!

Oh, and one final note on this story:

Listening to WHIZ Radio must have been one hell of a trip, back in the day...

Our final story features an honest to gosh super-villain of sorts:

The Arson Fiend!!! OK, so they weren't very good at naming super-villains yet...

We start with a failed sales attempt:

Given the splash page, I think you know the result:

This makes Heat Wave look like Mr. Sane. So Billy says the magic word:

Really? The very core of the Earth is shaken each time Billy changes?

So, Captain Marvel rescues the residents of the hotel, and gets the thanks of the ladies:

"Just as I was getting places"?? Oh, Billy, you could have scored!!

And leaving the scene of the crime?

Can you guess his secret? Can you?!?!?!

Tweedle and the Arson Fiend (oops--SPOILER) pulls this routine twice more....as I said, these stories were padded. We have a nice little fight finally:

But he gets away! And apparently, Arson Fiend travels the entire Eastern Seaboard:

Billy tracks down Tweedle, gets hit on the head and gagged (of course), and Tweedle shows Billy how he does it:

Well, Billy manages to escape, and we're set up for an epic battle at an oil storage facility:

You know what I love about this era's Captain Marvel? The way he walks away from near death so casually. "Pretty good fight." Not even an exclamation point!!

Well, that's it for this comic...and I'm pretty sure I've got the Wayback Machine repaired, so tune in tomorrow, as we finally get to Marvel 1981!! Cross your fingers, and be here!!