Number 1484: Swastika over New York!

The Boy Commandos spent the World War II years kicking Axis butt, and in the postwar era they spent at least part of their time kicking surviving Nazi butt. Nazis were a great subject for comics — and fiction in general — in those years directly after the war. In real life many top Nazis had escaped justice after the Allied victory, and there were always those persistent rumors that Hitler was still alive.

“Swastika Over New York” is from Boy Commandos #29 (1948). Art is by Curt Swan and Steve Brodie, according to the Grand Comics Database...which also makes a guess the story is by France Herron.

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Here is another postwar Boy Commando story, this time about Hitler. Click on the thumbnail.

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Number 1181: Robin Crusoe

How old is Batman's ward, Robin, anyway? I've seen stories where he seems very young and then stories like this, where he appears to be sixteen or seventeen. It wouldn't matter except that he's allowed to fly the Batplane on a high altitude test flight. "Hey, Bruce, can I have the keys to the Batplane today? I'd like to take it for a spin, you know, see what it can do."

"Okay, but remember to wear your seat belt and no texting on the Batphone while you're flying."

You think Batman would just let Robin take off in an expensive plane without him along? Robin must've sneaked it out of the hangar when Batman was busy with something else. Teenagers — always getting into trouble.

Robin took the Batplane quite a distance before it cracked up and he ended up on a tropical island. There probably aren't any tropical islands close to Gotham City. Robin used his survival skills to kill game and when he encountered an enemy, Nazis no less, from a submarine looking for a secret oil base, he was able to fight adult sailors using his Bat-training. Even I learned something when Robin demonstrated how to swim out of quicksand. Next time I find myself being sucked into a quicksand bog I'll know what to do.

Robin is on the island long enough to grow a mullet, and in that kind of time you know Batman was frantic with worry. Which brings me to the question, how close were Batman and Robin? This page of original art from Batman #13, the scan provided by Heritage Auctions, has Batman telling Robin he'd "rather lose both arms than you."

In the splash panel of "The Trial of Bruce Wayne" from Batman #57 (1950), they reach for each other when in danger of being separated. I'd say these examples show they were mighty close. So I imagine during the weeks Robin was missing Batman was anxious and upset.

"Robin Crusoe" is from Star Spangled Comics #72 (1948). According to the Grand Comics Database it was written by Bill Finger, and drawn by Curt Swan, ghosting for Bob Kane, and inked by John Fischetti. The cover is by Curt Swan and Stay Kaye.

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Number 1163: The Secret Fate of Adolph Hitler!

I've shown several stories over the past couple of years showing what "really" happened to Hitler. Because his body was recovered near his Berlin bunker by the Russians there was always a suspicion that Hitler had gotten away from the allies, and was still alive somewhere. If he was alive, he might be plotting a comeback. And so it goes. It was a perfect theme for postwar fiction, including comic books.

This particular tale, written by Horace Leonard ("H. L") Gold, was drawn by Curt Swan and inked by Jon Small. I don't know about your sense of fictional revenge, but the ending just doesn't seem either ironic nor punishment enough. Hitler was, after all, someone who enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

Gold did scripting for DC from 1942 to '44, went in the Army, and did some more comic scripting for a few years. He also wrote science fiction and fantasy prose, and is probably best known for founding and editing Galaxy Science Fiction, beginning in 1950 (the year this story was published). Here's a scan of the cover of Galaxy #1, which I picked up in a used bookstore a few years ago.

According to biographical information, Gold, who was born in 1914, suffered later in life from agoraphobia, and became reclusive. He died at age 81 in 1996.

From Strange Adventures #3 (1950):

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I'm debuting a new masthead next Friday, June 1, and here's a preview.

I've adapted the cover of Red Seal Comics #14, published by Harry "A" Chesler in 1945. The hero barging in at just the nick of time, the Black Dwarf, wasn't black, and he wasn't a dwarf. He was Shorty Wilson, an ex-pro football player without super powers who hated crime. He put on the cloak and hat and strapped on a gun.

I looked at hundreds of covers and panels and settled on this one. The cover is reminiscent of great pulp magazine covers with similar themes: sex, bondage, a mad doctor and a hip-shootin' hero! Paul Gattuso, the artist, isn 't a household name, but he was one of the journeymen comic book artists of the era.

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You Can't Judge a Book By Looking At the Cover?

I decided to test that old saw by looking at the covers of several books I haven't read in many years and don't remember the story. Of course, I do have an advantage in that I know Weisinger's tricks.

Looking at the cover: My guess here is that Superman XXX didn't really commit those crimes; they were misinterpretations of actual events that were harmless.

Inside the book: Close. Superman did not commit those crimes. The other man on the cover is a descendant of Luthor, who oddly enough runs a Superman museum in the future. While he's not evil like his ancestor, he's upset at the Lad of Steel for helping out a competitor and thus is showing him an illusion created with that helmet he's wearing.

Looking at the cover: I'd guess it's some sort of trick to fool the aliens.

Inside the book: Nope, it's an effect of Red Kryptonite.

Looking at the cover: Must be Red K again.

Inside the book: Dingdingding, although Weisinger did throw a curve at me. It's an imaginary tale about what might have happened if Superboy had been exposed to Red Kryptonite on the day he announced his presence to the world.

Looking at the cover: It's clearly some sort of fakeout. We know that nobody could invent anything that would harm Superboy other than Green K. I'm going to guess in this instance that it's a plan to fool some crook.

Inside the book: Bzzt! It's the adult Luthor, who has brought back Superman's Fortress of Solitude in time to Superboy's era, complete with weapons from Kandor that can harm Kal-El.

BTW, note the bit about the Agony and the Ecstasy.  It's clearly intended as a reference to a 1965 movie of the same title.

Looking at the cover: Mort gives this one away. Since Superboy and Clark are one and the same person, they must have been split somehow, and Red Kryptonite seems the logical culprit.

Inside the book: Dingdingding, but with still another curve. In the story, Superboy is turned into a monkey by Red K, and later grows enormously in size. Beppo, the super-monkey is affected by the same Red K, and turns into a human. While human-sized (he later grows giant, just as Superboy had) the scene on the cover happens.

Overall I was 3 for 5.

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Number 1043


The monsters that weren't


Halloween is tomorrow, so I have a couple of Halloween-style stories today from DC; kind of a trick, or a treat, depending on your point of view. In House Of Mystery the stories, which start out looking supernatural, usually turn out to have a "logical" explanation. The monsters usually turned out to be not what they looked like.

A couple of examples are "The Mark of X," from HOM #2, 1952. "X" is the creation of a writer that appears to have come to life. "X" reminds me of the monster from a Bugs Bunny cartoon:



The story is drawn by Curt Swan* and George Klein. "The Weirdest Museum in the World," drawn by Bob Brown, is from HOM #10, 1953. It starts out looking like a werewolf story.

There's nothing wrong with these stories, but I wonder if readers of the time felt cheated by them being "fake" supernatural. House Of Mystery apparently sold well, so perhaps not.















*I showed four more of these tales by Swan in Pappy's #757.

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