A M E R I C a N C H R O N I C L E S the 1940-1944
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AMERICAN CHRONICLES THE 1940-1944 By KURT F. MITCHELL with ROY THOMAS Table of Contents Introductory Note about the Chronological Structure of American Comic Book Chronicles ................. 4 Note on Comic Book Sales and Circulation Data ......................................... 5 Introduction & Acknowledgements ............. 6 Chapter One: 1940 Rise of the Supermen ......................................... 8 Chapter Two: 1941 Countdown to Cataclysm ...............................62 Chapter Three: 1942 Comic Books Go To War................................ 122 Chapter Four: 1943 Relax: Read the Comics ................................ 176 Chapter Five: 1944 The Paper Chase ............................................. 230 Works Cited ...................................................... 285 Index ................................................................. 286 Rise of the Supermen America on January 1, 1940, was a nation on edge. Still suffering the aftershocks of the Great Depression despite Franklin D. Roosevelt’s progressive New Deal nos- trums—unemployment stood at 17% for 1939—Americans eyed the expanding wars in Europe and Asia nervously. Some tried to dismiss Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as comic opera buffoons, decrying the hostilities as a “phony war” because not much had happened since the blitzkrieg dismemberment of Poland the previous September. These naysayers did not see it for what it was: the calm before the storm. Before the first year of the new decade was out, Nazi Germany seized Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Nether- lands, and ultimately France, while attempting to bomb the United Kingdom into subjection. The British held out defiantly, and Hitler reluctantly abandoned his plans to invade England. That small victory brought no cheer to the conquered nations, where Der Führer’s relentless oppres- sion of Jews and other scapegoated minorities was in full force. Il Duce, too, continued his aggression, as Fascist Italy invaded Egypt and Greece. The Soviet Union, the Marxist- Leninist people’s paradise that replaced the brutalities of Tsarist Russia with mass starvation and bloody political purges, was no better. Soviet strongman Josef Stalin— 1940 named Time’s Man of the Year in its first 1940 issue— signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in August ‘39, then helped himself to a piece of Poland and completed his de facto takeover of Finland. The Japanese Empire’s seem- ingly insatiable appetite for territory was also cause for alarm. Its brutal occupation of vast swaths of China was in its third year with no end in sight. Once Paris fell, Japan marched into French Indochina. That the warlords had their collective eye on the United States’ Pacific possessions was an open secret. At home, Republican congressmen and a majority of Dem- ocratic legislators remained publicly isolationist, claiming with some justification that they were obeying their con- stituents’ wishes, all while enacting laws expanding the Navy and imposing the nation’s first peacetime draft. FDR, elected to an unprecedented third term later in the year, pledged he would not “send American boys into any for- eign wars.” The public believed him or pretended to: polls suggested the man or woman on the street expected the country to be pulled into the slaughter sooner or later. The American Communist Party, with approximately 75,000 members at the start of the decade, also stood firm for iso- lationism despite internal unrest over Stalin’s pact with CHAPTER ONE Hitler. Fascism and anti-Semitism had their homegrown 8 9 apologists and sympathizers—including prominent and influential citizens like indus- trialist Henry Ford, aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, and radio orator Father Charles Coughlin—but overt Nazism failed to find a foothold. The German-American Bund, despite a rally at Madison Square Garden the previous February that attracted some 20,000 participants, effectively fell apart as a national movement later in ‘39 when its leader, Fritz Kuhn, was convicted of embez- zling its funds. That kind of venality wasn’t limited to would-be dictators. Corrupt political machines ruled many big cities, though New York’s popular mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had finally put an end to the dominance of infamous Tammany Hall. What the bosses didn’t control, the mob did. Prohibition was long over, but the crime organizations it spawned remained. The national syndicate organized by Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, now headed by the “prime minister of the underworld” Frank Costello, had its fingers in more than the usual no-nos (drugs, gambling, loan- sharking, prostitution). It had worked its way By 1940, the major movie studios were coming to see the into many legitimate enterprises like con- value in licensing their films for adaptation to comic books. struction, sanitation, labor unions, and maga- TM and © respective copyright owner. zine distribution, using bribery, intimidation, by the studios. Among the films they saw that extortion, and violence to gain every possible year were The Grapes of Wrath, Rebecca, Fantasia, His Girl advantage. Friday, The Sea Hawk, Kitty Foyle, The Philadelphia Story, Small wonder, then, that Mr. and Mrs. Average American Gaslight, Pinocchio, the anti-Nazi The Mortal Storm, and and all the little Americans sought comfort and escape in a slew of westerns featuring Roy Rogers, Bob Steele, Tex entertainment, turning to three art forms born at the turn Ritter, Johnny Mack Brown, and their fellow Hollywood of the century—the motion picture, the pulp magazine, the cowboys. Feature films were only the tip of the iceberg. comic strip—and their younger sibling, radio, to provide it. Theaters had a complete evening’s program in those days, including newsreels, travelogues, short films equivalent to modern music videos, even the occasional live appearance Media Nation by a movie star. Serials, comedy shorts starring Our Gang Movie factories like MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century- or The Three Stooges, and animated cartoons made the Fox, Paramount, Universal, RKO, and Columbia were happy Saturday matinee a rite of passage for kids of the 1940s. to supply all the entertainment the public could handle. Walt Disney was the undisputed king of American car- Americans spent $735,000,000 ($12.5 billion in 2018 toons—Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were recognized terms) on movie tickets in 1940, often at theaters owned around the globe—but other studios were girding their loins to challenge him. Fleischer Studios had released its own feature, Gulliver’s Travels, at Christmas ‘39. Less ambi- tious producers like Leon Schlesinger, Walter Lantz, and Fred Quimby contented themselves with improving and expanding their own cartoon brands. In addition to new installments of proven favorites Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Barney Bear, Andy Panda, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, 1940 saw the screen debuts of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Woody Woodpecker, The Fox and The Crow, George Pal’s Puppetoons, and a cat-and-mouse duo not yet named Tom and Jerry. Whether your tastes ran to prestigious literary adaptations, high-gloss melodrama, singing cowboys, or wascally wabbits, the movies had something for everyone. A new medium called television would threaten film’s supremacy within pop culture by the end of the decade but Bugs Bunny made his screen debut in the 1940 short A Wild Hare. Animated cartoons would provide a rich vein of material for comics of the 1940s to mine. for now it remained a novelty accessible to few. Not so with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd TM and © Warner Bros. 8 9 June 2: Denny Colt, a.k.a. April 25: The first issue of DC’sBatman “The Spirit,” debuts as the TIMELINE: 1940 quarterly introduces two of the Caped main feature of a 16-page Crusader’s most famous villains: the comic insert for Sunday A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside Joker and Catwoman (originally named newspapers. Created, some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. “the Cat”). Both stories are written by written, and drawn by Will (On sale dates are approximations.) Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane and Eisner, the masked crime- Jerry Robinson. fighter will become one of the January 8 – The first most legendary characters in February 7: Walt Disney’s second full-length animated film, comic book history. installment of the daily Blue Pinocchio, makes its debut in a New York City movie theater Beetle comic strip—written before being distributed nationwide two weeks later. and drawn by Jack Kirby as “Charles Nicholas”— appears in the Boston March 2: Warner Bros. cartoon June 22: Six weeks Evening Transcript. No other character Elmer Fudd debuts in after being invaded and newspaper is known to the Merrie Melodies animated May 10: As Germany suffering over 92,000 have carried the strip which short Elmer’s Candid Camera. military casualties, is cancelled in November. prepares to invade France, Neville Chamberlain France surrenders to resigns as prime minister Germany. of the United Kingdom. He is replaced by Winston Churchill. JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE May 21: All-American #16 introduc- March 5: Detective Comics #38 in- Comics troduces Batman’s sidekick, Robin, es the Green Lantern the Boy Wonder, in a story written by in a story written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane Bill Finger and drawn and Jerry Robinson. by Mart Nodell. June 4: Great Britain May 17: Marvel Mystery completes “Operation February 22: Action Comics #23 introduces Comics #9 features the first Dynamo,” an evacuation Luthor, soon to become Superman’s most battle between the title’s two of over 330,000 Allied famous arch-enemy, in a story produced by star characters, the Human soldiers from Dunkirk, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. Torch and the Sub-Mariner, France, back across in a 22 page story written the English Channel via and drawn by Carl Burgos a hodgepodge fleet of February 12: The Adventures of Superman, starring Bud and Bill Everett. over 800 military and Collyer and Joan Alexander as the voices of Superman/Clark May 15: Two brothers, civilian vessels.