Many a hero has clad themselves in the colors of our nation.
But few went as far to tie themselves to the flag as...
The Flag!!
It begins thusly:
Just in case the reader hasn't been able to follow the
litany of coincidences over the first page and a half, we get a convenient summary:
Oh, wait, and John has a nickname, too:
So, a crippled veteran flag maker known as "
Old Glory" finds a baby with a flag-shaped birthmark on
Flag Day. I sense a theme emerging...
Well,
John names the baby
Jim, and raises him to be as patriotic as all hell. And on Jim's 18th birthday:
And now, the
greatest Golden Age Idol panel ever!!
Man, when
Washington and
Lincoln are recruiting you, you had best listen!!
Uh, fight
Nazis. Duh.
Jim wakes up, and no, it wasn't all a dream.
His flagmaker father makes him...
a flag costume. Kinda inevitable, right?
Can't say I'm crazy about that sash tied around his waist--why give enemies something to grab onto?
Otherwise, there was nothing too original or exciting about the Flag's adventures--fighting German spies and saboteurs and Nazi sneak attacks...
Well, wait. There was
one interesting wrinkle--Jim could apparently
give his powers to anyone who touched his birthmark!
Get a room, you two!!
There are some intriguing story possibilities there. What if someone refuses to give the powers back? What if an enemy touches his birthmark? What happen when he and a companion are in bed? What if gets a wound that mars the birthmark? Sadly, these were never explored, as the Flag only made 5 appearances.
Oh, and when called upon, the Flag could do
skywriting, as in this story when he was trying to keep a Nazi cut-out from stealing an election:
Where the
hell were you last November, Flag?!?
From Our Flag Comics #2 (1941) & #4 (1942)
