The Great Superhero Team-Up Of 1942

A few years after the Justice Society had already gotten together, Harvey Comics decided to pull their own Avengers Assemble moment in Fall of 1942 less than a year after America had entered WWII. In the pages of Issue 23 of their Speed Comics anthology, the Black Cat segment had the ferocious feline in the middle of an all-star crossover drawn by Argentinian artist Arturo Cazeneuve who was simultaneously working for Harvey as well as DC Comics. Based slightly on actual events, this particular story was inspired by the Bombardment of Ellwood and the Great LA Air Raid, except this time the hype is real in the fictional Harvey Universe. Hollywood's own heroine Black Cat who in reality is starlet Linda Turner has to defend her home turf from invading Japanese forces. Now, this was in the thick of WWII, and American's were fiercely ticked at Japan for Pearl Harbor, so they did refer to them as Japs and drew them with yellow skin and buck teeth as was common among most Asian stereotypes that ran in American cartoons at the time. Since the yellow peril was about to paint Tinseltown red, Black Cat decided to blow the horn and get the majority of the Harvey superheroes as well as a few other random good guys to protect their valuable real estate. The roster includes the patriotic Captain Freedom, Pat Parker known as War Nurse and all of her Girl Commandos squad along with their colleague Dick Lane, the electrical Shock Gibson, Ted Parrish who was an actor-turned-Man of 1000 Faces, plus Black Cat's sturdy boyfriend Rick Horne. Now, how Black Cat knew how to contact all these do-gooders over the radio is a total mystery, least of all Ted Parrish whose disguise gimmick wasn't open to the public, but somehow she manage to get in touch with all of them decades before the Superfriends first had their Trouble Alert, plus they had to get the plot moving since it was only an 8-page story. Ted Parrish shows up disguised as a Japanese officer with a totally fake accent to free Black Cat from some of the invaders while the other heroes parachute into town via army planes. Since she made the call, Black Cat is automatically made the Patton of this group of slapdash supers and lures the Japanese soldiers to a tall building by raising their flag up on it, and Ted Parrish once again proves to be the most competent out of all the heroes dressing himself as a random Nazi officer and tricks the Japanese into destroying the whole structure with their forces still in it. Black Cat and the Girl Commandos confound some of the other soldiers with some movie sound effect already set up with a big labeled switch, all while Shock Gibson is lightning bolting the Japanese submarines out of the water. After the day is saved, the newly unified defenders decide to go back to their own solo adventures since superhero teams weren't in style at the time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Super Science Isn't White Magic

Image
Vernon Miller headed up Maple Leaf Publishing which was the first comics publisher in Canada which opened its doors during the Golden Age, the majority of which were called Canadian Whites because they were mostly all done in black and white to save money. One of Maple Leaf's titles started out being called Name-It Comics which they allowed the readers to vote on the ongoing name for that eventually became Rocket Comics. One of the regular features in this anthology was by Spike Brown titled Cosmo And His White Magic about a rich scientist named Cosmo Grant that used his parents' old creations to fight evil as a freelance defender alongside his partner Captain Tom Hadden with the nickname of Hoot, so Cosmo and Hoot where the Dynamic Duo of their time. Similar to Batman, most of Cosmo's arsenal of freedom were given his own personal branding often referred to something with moniker of "Cosmo-" at the beginning of it. One of Cosmo's cases in Issue 9 had him thwa...
Read more

Hitler Vs. The Walking Dead

Image
Aside from its hit Vampirella magazine, Warren Publishing also had a few other horror anthologies. The creators of Famous Monsters Of Filmland had a comics publication titled Creepy hosted by the ghoulish Uncle Creepy, and there was a sister title called Eerie with the equally cryptic Cousin Eerie as its acting emcee. Russ Jones acted as the first editor after convincing publisher James Warren to come out with its first horror compilation in the spirit of Tales From The Crypt while avoiding the highbrowed Comics Code by printing the stories in black and white magazine format. One short but memorable story in Issue 35 got right to the point that many comic fans look for, zombies vs. Nazis! Army Of The Walking Dead came out over thirty years before Robert Kirkman's iconic urban horror comic and was drawn by former Captain America artist Syd Shores. Taking place during WWII, Nazi egghead Dr. Tumbler has developed a way to reanimate dead soldiers as zombies with augmented strength much...
Read more

This Ain't Your Dick Tracy Wrist Radio

Image
Dick Tracy might heighten the concept of the wristwatch radio, but only the Honor House Products Co. had the coconuts to really try to make a working one for fans of the comic strip detective. Edwin Wegman's mail order company ran from the 1950s-80s that was responsible for some of the biggest scams in comic book ads including Sea Monkeys, X-Ray Specs, and the outdoor child-sized Polaris Nuclear Sub, so their place in exaggerated advertising is cemented in infamy. Their "Amazing Wrist Radio" was not really a watch, but a miniature radio receiver that was powered by a germanium diode which does emit low level radiation, so hopefully nobody actually got cancer from this little doodad. It comes with a private earphone which probably could get lost really quickly in the bustling era of the Space Age. The $2.98 price wasn't much for when this ad ran in the 1960s, which nowadays would be around $30.00, even though the plus is it had a broadcast range of at least 50 miles. H...
Read more