Stupid Comics

1942 was an onslaught of a year for America, and it needed a fresh start after spending the whole thing in WWII. Who better to screw up this new chance than the Nazi villain known as America Smasher, who formally went by the handle Mailed Fist because he wore a pail of spiked gauntlets. His previous attempts at smiting his enemy Spy Smasher were all for naught, but his final appearance in Whiz Comics #39 gave him one last chance. On New Year's Eve, Alan Armstrong was a rich sportsman partying with his love interest Eve along with her father Admiral Corby who wastes the young lovers' time with his plans on testing a new kind of tank branded the Axis Smasher, which goes to show you how far writer Otto Binder was willing to go with the whole Smasher motif. American Smasher kidnaps Corby and Alan changes into his Spy Smasher getup to bust in on the Nazis' scheme to steal the Axis Smasher plans. Spy Smasher saves the Admiral but has to chase American Smasher down to a military o...

After making her premiere in Captain Marvel Adventures, Mary Marvel was Billy Batson's long-lost twin sister who now shares the same powers as him in The Marvel Family. She also began her own feature in the pages of Wow Comics #9, written by Supergirl creator Otto Binder, which was also her first Mary Marvel comic feature. Up until then, the headliner space in Wow was taken up by the Jack Kirby-created superhero Mr. Scarlet and his manly sidekick Pinky, but now they are regulated to second billing from that point on, even though it begins with them literally giving Mary Marvel the keys to the comic's front door. Mary Batson was adopted by the rich Bromfields, so she carries out some of her filthy rich foster family's charity stunts so they can claim them as a tax write off by inviting some orphans over to her palatial residence as guests on Christmas Eve. Mary and Mrs. Bromfield visit a dept. store to get some gifts for the visiting children, but the ticked off clerk is rea...

Having one supervillain picking up the world domination gig after a previous one was ultimately defeated is a rare occurrence in comics, but this was almost unheard of in 1945 with Planet Comics Issue #36. The previous few dozen issues had the actual god of war Mars in his own segment in the comic where he would possess people and cause discord throughout the galaxy. His last scheme had nearly succeeded as he had caused all the universities on Earth to be destroyed, but the clever heroine Mysta Of The Moon was able to use her accumulated knowledge and handy robot partner to thwart Mars once and for all. In Mysta's first solo adventure we see her match wits with a totally different villain who was featured in Fiction House's other title of Rangers Comics. Super-Brain was the adversary of the Rangers Of Freedom, a special military group put together in WWII to fight this bizarre telepath who had actually set up the Axis Powers to start the whole war in the first place. Super-Brai...

Racism was unfortunately not something that Great Comics Publishing in the early 1940s could keep out of their pages what with WWII going on and anti-Asian propaganda playing a huge part during this time. One such character was created by someone going by the name “Char-Lee“. Shanghai Shea is an American pilot in China referred to as an Ace of the Orient who with his thick glasses-wearing Chinese partner Wing Low is asked to lead the Purple Dragon Squadron against the opposing Japanese forces. Shanghai has a plan to get captured by the Japanese navy, but Wing Low stows away on his plane and helps free him. The whole Shanghai Shea adventure is deep in nationalism and dehumanizes the Japanese with our Ace character referring to them as yellow gangsters, but since he’s the shining white knight in a foreign land he gets away with the occasional xenophobia. Other incidents of racism run throughout both Great and Choice Comics, one of which was the less-than-heroic efforts Andrew Jackson use...