Miss Victory Returns

It might not be July anymore, but that's no reason not to wear red, white, and blue.

At least that's true if you're a superhero. Follwing up July 4th's post, here is Miss Victory with two more stories.

First up, strannik01 has posted a story from Captain Aero #9 . Check it out, if only to see the sheer glee on Miss V's face as she beats up the bad guys. While you're there you can admire the gaping plot holes this story has.

Now from Captain Aero #15...

Read smaller scans in the post on scans_daily or read it in HQ page by page below.

09 // 10// 11 // 12 // 13 //14 // 15

Believe it to not, Nazi Gorillas are more common in comics than you might think. I may even have to do a post on them.

More Links...

Miss Victory - Public Domain Super Heroes

UPDATES

I was asked on another site about it, so I'll address it here too. Original scans of Veri Best Sure Fire Comics #1 are available via digitalcomicmuseum. I had the scans of the reprints, so I used those. You can go see it in all its original glory. She also appeared in Holyoke One-Shot #5 in a reprint from Captain Fearless #2.

I've updated the Betty Bates, Lady at Law page. You can now read the story again!

Miss Victory Steps In!

Washington D.C., August 1941...

Taking her cue from the August 1941 explosion of superheroines, Miss Victory dons some patriotic tights in hope of cleaning up Washington D.C. She has the clout of being called the first patriotic superheroine.

She has superhuman strength and some invulnerability. She can survive explosions, break down most anything in her way. To the best of my knowledge it is never addressed how she came by these powers, but hey, if you can punch though bricks, why put on a cape and punch bad guys too?

She is a creation of an unknown author at Helnit (who would soon be Holyoke Publishing Co [Wiki] ). Her staring artist and regular artist was Charles Quinlan of Cat-Man fame. Her debut comic, Captain Fearless #1, only lasted two issues. She was moved along with the rest of the characters form the tittle to Captain Aero (Dec. 1941) where she stayed until its end at #26 (Aug. 1946).

Now, introducing Joan Wayne, stenographer...

To read the whole Captain Fearless #1 go to digitalcomicmuseum.com, but you can check out Miss Victory's #1 right here. (These scans are great. I didn't edit at all!)

01 // 02// 03 // 04 // 05

I don't normally do reprints here, but for the 4th, I'm making the exception. Here is another Miss Victory story, a reprint of her story in Veri Best Sure Fire Comics #1 (1945, only lasted one issue) from Femforce #119.

01 // 02 // 03 //04 //05 //06 // 07

You just have to love the glee on her face here. Also not the costume change, but that will become clearer in the next post later this month.

Miss Victory Links...

Don Markstein's Toonopeida: Miss Victory

Comic Book DB - Charles Quinlan

The major of the links I crossed were for the "reimagined" hero by AC Comics.

Also I've fixed up the Captain Battle page. The whole story has been reposted. I'll be fixing some of the other broken links later this month.

Strange Fantasy #9 (Dec 1953) Highlight Reel

Strange Fantasy 9 has an interesting history to check out.

Story One: "Dream of Horror" by unknown people. Read it here.

Story Two: laserpotato posts "Hair Yee-eeee" by Bruce Hamilton and Steve Ditko

Story Three: A text story called "Magic Formula"

Story Four: " Portrait of Doom" by unknown

Story Five: "Mirror of Death" by unknown

"Daffy and Deke."

Staring in Smash Comics #41 (March 1943), Gill Fox began a humor strip called "Daffy and Deke." Daffy Dill is a lady wrestler, moved from a small town to find Deke Parsons. Deke is her crooked wrestling manager. He fled to the big city to escape people he owed money. You can check out their first story below.



























































After Gil Fox left to fight in World War II, Bart Tumey took over duties for the title. He continued on the comic till Smash Comics #85 in 1949, the last issue. The writer is listed as Tumey by Comic Book DB for a number of issues after he starts his run, but it is a good bet that he continued to do them the rest of the run too. (Not proven, do not quote me.)

As of Smash Comics #43, the comic was renamed to just be "Daffy." The strip underwent more changes in the coming years. Daffy stayed tall and strong, but slimed down and began to reflect the times more in dress and looks.

In Daffy size jokes are a consent, and many of the plots over the years are about losing weight.

If you're still looking for more Daffy check out Smash Comics - Daffy and Deke on Flicker for the story from #42

Captain Battle

Thanks to and written by strannik01

"After being injured while fighting in World War I, John Battle swore that he would never let another world war happen again. To that end, he set up a mountaintop headquarters filled with weapons and gadgets of his own design. Most notably, he had a "curoscope" (which allowed him to see anywhere on Earth) a super-fast jet pack and a Dissolvo gun that, as one exposition box put it: "a color concentrate, the vibrations of which melt down nerve and bone tissue into a gelatinous mass." Using this and other plot-required episodic gadgets, John Battle fought spies, saboteurs and other enemies of America. When the World War did, in fact, happen in real life, he became a more generic superhero.

He also had the worst secret identity in the history of superhero comics."

Story taken from Captain Battle #5 (1943), Picture Scoop Inc.

Page1.jpg // Page2.jpg //Page3.jpg // Page4.jpg // /Page6.jpg // Page7.jpg // Page8.jpg // Page9.jpg //Page10.jpg

[Links fixed July 04 2011)

For More on Captain Battle....

Captain Battle and Captian Battle Jr's Profile page

Captain Battle on International Hero

Comic Book DB - Captain Battle

Blackhawk: The Man in the Iron Mask

At a time when comics were mostly doing one shots Blackhawk started throwing in multi-part stories.

It starts in Military Comics #3 which introduces “Chop-Chop.” Why they chose this plot to go with that introduction, I will forever wonder.

Part 1

Part 2 (Military Comics #9)
Part 3 (Military Comics #10)

The Origin of Blackhawk

History has proven that whenever liberty is smothered and men lie crushed beneath oppression there always rises a man to defend the helpless…liberate the enslaved and crush the tyrant…such a man is Blackhawk…out of the ruins of Europe and out of the hopeless mass of defeated people he comes, smashing the evil before him...

Read the Origin of Blackhawk here.


*Note: This is not a scan from the reprint.

Blue Beetle #10 Highlight Reel

Looking at Fox's Blue Beetle #10 stories:

"The Case of the Burning Death" Story #1 Writer "Charles Nicholas"; Art by Ramona Patenaude.
"The Monster of the swamp" Story #4 Writer "Charles Nicholas"; Art by Ramona Patenaude.

Ramona Patenaude, a female artist, turned out most of the bondage covers for Fox titles. (Ramona Patenaude is not a house name.) Writer "Charles Nicholas" could be one of three people. This might be Jack Kirby here, I'm not sure.

Check them out here!

Jill Trent, Science Sleuth in Wonder Comics #13

Wonder Comics #13 (August 1947)
Art by Al Camy

Edit: Trying it on Flicker his time. Blogger's cut tags are too hard.

Wonder Comics #13 Jill Trent's Story

X of the Underground

Agent X was a female member of the European underground resistance movement. She worked undercover across the nations to perform acts of sabotage, create a network of people (mostly women) to help subvert the Naiz effort, and free people from Nazi tyranny.

X was created by Vernon Henkel (The Space Legion, Marvel titles during the early 1950s, mostly stuck to art after the 1940s). She had a short run in Military Comics, only appearing in six issues.

Military Comics #8 (March 1942): Introducing X
Military Comics #9 (April 1942): The Berlin Express
Military Comics #10 (June 1942): A Brother's Betrayal
Military Comics #11 (August !942): The Cholera Serum
Military Comics #12 (October 1942): The Gestapo's Costume Ball
Military Comics #13 (November 1942): "There Are More than One Way To Skin A Cat"

You can read #8, #10, and #11 online here.


Check out Military Comics 12 here.

Military Comics #7 (February 1942) Text story!

I will figure out a good way to do these pages yet.

Blackhawk text stories!

From Military Comics #18 "The Giant of the Air" (1st Blackhawk text story)

Military Comics #20 "The Way of Blackhawk"

Military Comics #21 "Fate Fights For Freedom"

Women Outlaws #3 (Nov 1948) Highlight Reel

A Fox Features Syndicate's Women Outlaws was created to take advantage of the popularity of comics featuring bad girls. The book earned a spot in Seduction of the Innocent.

Checkout the full story of "Cowboy Maggie Queen of the Barbary Coast" with run downs and clips from the other stories. Read more...

After eight issues the title continues as My Love Memories #9 (then to Hunted, into Western Outlaws, into two other changes). For more check it out on the Grand Comic-Book Database.

Inferior Man

Inferior Man was a creation of MAD's Al Jaffee. This is long before the magazine and early in his career.
From Military Comics #11...

Dr. Fung —Super Sleuth of the Orient

From the same company and time period that brought you Chen Chang, I give you Dr. Fung

Written and drawn by Bob Powell, under the pseudonym Arthur Dean, Dr. Fung started showing up in Wonderworld Comics in 1939. Dr. Fung is a old man with a hobby for solving mysteries around the world with his sidekick, Dan Barrister. They travel around, do detective stuff, and get attack by snakes a lot.

Scans from Wonderworld Comics #3, 13, 18, and 30.

This isn't nearly as bad you're probably thinking.

The Origin of Flame Girl

When The Flame's popularity began to fade a attempt was made to refresh the Big 3 member with partner in Wonderworld #30 (Oct. 1941). Writer Basil Berold is actually Lou Fine. He took over all the work on the The Flame after Will Eisner left.Flame Girl has one of the most over dramatic introduction ads I have ever seen. I looked for the issue because of the ad.

Go check it whole story out on Scans_daily.
The Flame lay there, on the ground, helpless, dying… and if he passed on, so would all those innocent people whom he had sworn to protect….But there was still one way could come to their rescue, by passing the secret of his flame powers on to the one person he could trust the most….Linda Dale…

The Black Terror & Tim

When it was superhero chic to wear gold and purple one brave pharmacist would jump on to the scene dressed in black, a skull and crossbones across his chest.

The Black Terror joined the superhero boom in Exciting Comics #9. Six months after his introduction, he had his own comic. The only other character from the publisher to have the honor being the Fighting Yank.

Since his golden age run he has been echoed by imitators and revived to make a number of appearances. Most recently, he is appearing in Project Superpowers. Since I made a post for Flame Girl, and I plan one for Miss Masque, I knew I had to make one for him and Tim. I wanted to show off how much of a loser interesting he was.

Now, you can see how it all got started.

Go read it on scans daily!