Brian Cronin

by Was Superman a Spy?

  However, while comic book companies could try to change the name of the comic to avoid paying the fee, they had to be discreet, because the U.S. Postal Service certainly did not want to be played for suckers. Quality Comics also had a comic called Ken Shannon, about a private eye (who had a tough-as-nails secretary furnished with great dialogue like, “Oooh, lovely, Ken! Hit him again!”). That, somehow, did not sell too well, so after ten issues, Quality retitled the book Gabby, making the comic a teen comedy à la Archie. The U.S. Postal Service was hip to Quality’s tricks, though, and after one issue, it was both forced to pay the fee and to number the book correctly (so Gabby went from #11 to #2). EC Comics had this in mind, undoubtedly, when it was involved in one of the strangest series of retitlings imaginable!

  In 1947 EC Comics debuted a rare superhero comic book (it almost entirely eschewed the superhero genre) called Moon Girl (the first issue was titled Moon Girl and the Prince, but it became Moon Girl from #2 on). Moon Girl was essentially the same as Wonder Woman: she was from another land and won a contest to leave her kingdom to go fight crime in America. The title was not a huge success, and with issue #7, EC decided to change the book to reflect the hot trend in comics at the time—crime comics! So with #7 the book became Moon Girl Fights Crime. Two issues later, EC changed its mind again, and this time it decided to make the comic a romance book. The title was now stretched well beyond credulity to become A Moon, a Girl . . . Romance. Even this last change did not do much for the title, and it was canceled after #12.

  Retitling kept up well into the 1960s, though, as Marvel retitled all its anthologies rather than starting all over, so Thor took over the numbering of Journey into Mystery, The Incredible Hulk took over the numbering of Tales to Astonish, Doctor Strange assumed the numbering of Strange Tales, and Captain America inherited the numbering of Tales of Suspense.

  The bias against low numbers also continued in the 1960s, as the #1 was intentionally left off of the cover of the first issue of Justice League of America, because DC did not want readers to know it was a first issue. This first issue of Justice League sold significantly fewer copies than the issues after it, because old, at the time, meant proven goodness, while new comics begged the question, “Will this be good?”

  EC COMICS’ DESIRE to save money was also the basis for a memorable encounter between its publisher Bill Gaines and legendary science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

  EC Comics was the brainchild of Gaines, who allowed Harry Donenfeld to buy him out of All-American Publications (in the merger that created the DC Comics we know today). Gaines started Educational Comics with one title that he retained from the deal, Picture Stories from the Bible. Gaines’s plan was to market a line of comics about science, history, and the Bible to schools and churches. At the time he died, in a boating accident in 1947, Gaines’s company was floundering. Upon his father’s death, his son, Bill, was forced to take over the family business. Relying heavily on the existing editors, Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman, Gaines set out to remake the company. Now calling itself Entertaining Comics (that change might have started right before the elder Gaines’s death), the company dedicated itself to high-quality stories in the horror, suspense, science fiction, military fiction, and crime fiction genres.

  Noted titles from this time include Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Two-Fisted Tales, Crime SuspenStories, Weird Science, and Weird Fantasy.

  Putting out so many books often called for shortcuts, and one was taken when Gaines and Feldstein swiped a bit from a Ray Bradbury story for a 1951 comic. The story, “A Strange Undertaking . . . ,” mirroring Bradbury’s “The Handler,” appeared in Haunt of Fear #6. Feldstein made a few more borrowings after that, but it was one year later in Weird Fantasy #13 that caught Ray Bradbury’s eye (and, presumably, a bit of his ire).

  The story, titled “Home to Stay!” was cobbled together from two Bradbury stories, “Kaleidoscope” and “The Rocket Man.” Now, some writers would react to their work being swiped by getting angry. Bradbury, however, decided to play it a different way and sent the following brilliant letter to Gaines in 1952: “Just a note to remind you of an oversight. You have not as yet sent on the check for $50.00 to cover the use of secondary rights on my two stories THE ROCKET MAN and KALEIDOSCOPE. . . . I feel this was probably overlooked in the general confusion of office work, and look forward to your payment in the near future.”

  Gaines was no fool—he quickly sent the money, along with a cordial response, and pretty soon Bradbury was authorizing EC Comics to do official adaptations of his stories. The covers of Weird Science and Weird Fantasy posted in bold letters that they featured official Ray Bradbury stories. These became quite a draw for EC’s science fiction titles.

  Every issue of Weird Science after EC began doing official Bradbury adaptations included these banners, as seen here on the cover to Weird Science #18.

  Sadly, due to the theories of Dr. Wertham (described on page 67) and the ensuing congressional hearings (at which EC Comics’ horror comics were specifically highlighted), the Comics Code Authority was formed. The Comics Code was devastating to EC Comics, and ultimately led to the dissolution of the company. Luckily, Gaines had begun producing a satirical comic book called Mad, mostly as a pet project for Kurtzman. In 1955, in an effort to keep Kurtzman, who had gotten an offer to take over the magazine PARADE, Gaines turned

  Mad into a magazine. In that form, it became a cultural institution and, because it was a magazine, fell outside the purview of the Comics Code—though that was not the impetus of the format change; Kurtzman’s departure was).

  QUALITY COMICS WAS the brainchild of Everett M. “Busy” Arnold, a printer who saw firsthand the demand for comic books in the 1940s and so set out to form his own comic book company. The name of the company matched its product—Arnold had a great many of the most notable artists of the period working for him, including Jack Cole, who created Plastic Man for Quality; Will Eisner, who created a number of superheroes for Quality and also had a deal with Arnold to publish his popular Spirit newspaper strip; and Reed Crandall, most noted for the work about to be discussed.

  During the 1940s, books would be assembled in a rather ramshackle manner, especially when dealing with comic packagers (groups that would create ready-to-print comic book stories to sell to comic book companies looking to quickly put out content). The birth of Blackhawk was a result of that disorderly creative process.

  The stars of Blackhawk were the Blackhawk Squadron, a small team of ace pilots during World War II. They came from various countries but fought together in matching planes. Each character was known by a one-word name, like Andre or Chuck or Chop-Chop (who went from being a fairly offensive Chinese parody to being a more realistic character by the end of the series). The series was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, but writer-artist Reed Crandall was the name most associated with the series. It was a big hit, especially overseas (as each country had a hero to root for), and it soon spun off a radio show, a novelization, and a film serial. It had its own title, Blackhawk, but got its start in 1941 as the lead feature in Military Comics #1. However, amusingly enough, Blackhawk was actually based on another comic—a comic that made its debut as a backup story to Blackhawk!

  As noted above, Jack Cole was the creator of Plastic Man, who is a wonderfully hilarious comedic character. So in 1941, he came up with a comedic war comic, called “Death Patrol.” The story involved a disparate group of criminals who escaped from prison and snuck aboard a plane owned by millionaire Del van Dyne. They were going to hijack the plane, but change their mind when they learn he was headed to England, where they would be free from U.S. law. Once there, though, van Dyne convinces them to help in the war effort, and they ultimately agree, under the theory that being killed fighting the Germans is better than life in prison, hence their colorful name. So they each steal a German plane and fight together as the Death Patrol (their prison uniforms are their team uniform). Well, after
handing in the story, the other creators at Quality liked the idea and thought that a more serious version of the story would work well—thus the Blackhawk Squadron was born! After the Blackhawk story was finished, it was determined that it deserved the lead feature and cover spot over “Death Patrol,” which is how it was released.

  In 1956 Arnold sold Quality to DC, and Blackhawk was one of the titles DC continued to publish. “Death Patrol” was not (to date at least), but it can feel some comfort in being the influence for such a long-running series!

  AS MENTIONED a few times before, in the early days of comics a popular method for making comic books would be to hire a studio of artists who would “package” (produce) any type of comic for anyone who paid their fee. One of the most notable of these studios was the Eisner-Iger studio, formed by Will Eisner and Robert Iger in 1935.

  The pair would deliver a number of series over the next few years, from secret agents to jungle girls to pirates, but in 1939 they received a bizarre job offer. For one of their first (if not the very first) superhero characters, they were asked to rip off Superman!

  Many a story has been told about Victor Fox, most of them not very flattering, but in a way Fox’s lack of scruples was what made him successful (except when he was indicted in 1929 for mail fraud). When he saw the success of Superman, he hired Eisner to flat out rip off Superman. The resulting character, Wonder Man, debuted in Wonder Comics #1, a mere year after Superman’s debut (a remarkable turnaround, really).

  The issue was notable for being the first copyright lawsuit in comic book history, as National Comics quickly sued Fox and gained an injunction over the use of Wonder Man until the suit was resolved.

  Fox had prepared Eisner’s testimony for him, but when it came time for him to testify, Eisner told the truth and Fox was sunk. Wonder Man’s comic book career ended up being one issue. However, Fox was undaunted, and his company went on to create a number of heroes (most of them unmemorable), with the lone bright spot being Blue Beetle, which he sold to Charlton Comics when Fox went under in the mid-1950s. (Like Quality, when Charlton went under its comics went to DC, which now owns Blue Beetle.)

  AS MENTIONED (on pages 56-9), Captain Marvel and his related titles were hugely popular during the 1940s, and one of the most notable influences it had apparently was on none other than the King of Rock ’n’ Roll himself, Elvis Presley!

  Mac Raboy was an intriguing artist. He was a master at portraying lighting, and as a result his panels were dynamic and had a polish that other artists could only dream of achieving. However, such work takes time, so Raboy would often resort to various time-saving techniques to get his books out on time, including using the same panels over and over again.

  Still, despite his panel recycling, Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr. was a huge success, and is an acclaimed series to this day. The comic was about a younger version of Captain Marvel. Freddy Freeman was a crippled teenager who could transform into a junior version of Captain Marvel, and back, by saying, “Captain Marvel!” becoming, as a result, the only hero who couldn’t say his own name without reverting back to his secret identity! Captain Marvel Jr. had a distinctive hairstyle, and apparently Elvis Presley used it as the guide for his famous hairstyle.

  In her biography Elvis and Gladys, Elaine Dundy wrote that Elvis Presley grew up as a big fan of Captain Marvel Jr. and took the character’s hairstyle as his own when he became older. According to Dundy, “Behind Elvis there was another great legend: the metaphysical world of double-identity comic book heroes. Elvis’s favorite was Captain Marvel Jr., who looks, in fact, exactly like Elvis will make himself look for the rest of his life.” It sounds bizarre, but Elvis was definitely a huge fan of Captain Marvel Jr., and his collection of Captain Marvel Jr. comics still sits in Graceland. His hairstyle really does look like Captain Marvel Jr.’s.

  Later on, during the Vegas years, Elvis incorporated more Captain Marvel regalia into his look, including the distinctive cape he wore.

  IN THE EARLY days of comic books, pretty much any idea could turn out to be the “next big thing.” Lev Gleason was one of the few publishers out there who would actually share with his artists the profits of coming up with the next big thing. He told them, “If you come up with something that is a hit, you will make a lot of money.” Perhaps inspired by this, two of his editors, Charlie Biro and Bob Wood, came up with an idea that ruled the comics world of the late 1940s and early ’50s—crime comics.

  When Biro and Wood pitched the idea to Gleason in 1942 (supposedly inspired by an incident where Biro and Wood saw a man with a woman one night at a bar and then saw the next day that the woman was a kidnap victim), he thought it was a great idea and allowed them to turn Silver Streak Comics (a standard superhero title) into Crime Does Not Pay with issue #22.

  The comic was a massive hit, and led to spools of imitators. Years later, though, sales in the crime genre were slowing, and due to the strict new Comics Code installed by the comic publishers the gore of the standard crime comics was toned down and, in fact, even the word crime could not be set bigger than the other words in the title! So in 1955, with Crime Does Not Pay #147, the series limped into oblivion. It is a real shame, too, that the comic folded at the time, because only a few years later, in 1958, one of the creators of the comic was himself involved in a true crime story!

  Comic writer-artist Bob Wood was always involved in the somewhat seedier side of life in New York City, with gambling debts constantly piling up. However, in the summer of 1958 (years after the successful Crime franchise he helped create was over), Wood was arrested for killing a woman in a drunken argument.

  A cab driver picked Wood up near Gramercy Park in New York, and Wood told the driver that he needed to sleep for a few hours and then he’d throw himself into the river. The cab driver asked if he had killed somebody, and Wood replied that yes, he killed a woman that was giving him a hard time. He told him the room number and told the cabbie to call the story in and earn a few dollars for his troubles.

  When the police came to arrest Wood at the Residence Hotel the cabbie drove him to, his suit was so blood soaked that the cops had to lend him a pair of pants to take him to jail. When they went to the room that Wood noted, they found a collection of empty whiskey bottles and a woman in a negligee who had been beaten to death.

  Wood pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and served three years in prison. A year after he was released, he ran afoul of the wrong crowd over some unpaid loans and died under suspicious circumstances, likely murder. It was a tragic end to a real tale of crime truly not paying.

  OFTEN COMIC BOOK history seems to focus on the atypical, the rare breed of artists who become lasting successes, when really the majority of comic creators during the golden age of comics in the 1940s and ’50s have been lost to obscurity. They typically spent their time cobbling together whatever assignments they could get before ultimately being forced to give up on comics entirely. Dick Briefer was such a creator, who stands out now because his work has gained critical appreciation in the decades since he left the comic book field, but at the time Briefer was taking any assignment he could find, including a superhero for Communists!

  Briefer broke into the industry working for Eisner-Iger, doing fairly nondescript work. It was not until 1940 that he gained some measure of acclaim (and much more since) for his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which he set in America in the twentieth century, as the story of a horrific rampaging monster (much like the Hulk) actually named Frankenstein. Eventually—like every other character—Frankenstein began fighting the Nazis, and then, in 1945, Briefer did a complete about-face and turned Frankenstein into a hilarious humor magazine, with Frankenstein and his fellow monsters having jolly adventures, even calling himself Frank N. Stein! This ended in the late 1940s, and, in an even odder turn of events, the series had a brief revival in the 1950s when horror comics became popular, once again as the horror comic of its beginnings.

  Frankenstein was not a big enough hit fo
r Briefer to work on it alone, so Briefer had to look for other work, and at one point in the 1940s he created a hero for the Daily Worker, the popular newspaper of the American Communist Party!

  Writing as Dick Floyd, Briefer created Pinky Rankin, a fairly good-humored character who fought Nazis while also teaching lessons of socialism through repeatedly stressing the power of standing together as one solid social front.

  After the Frankenstein revival of the 1950s fell flat, Briefer retired from comics and worked in advertising until his death in 1982. Briefer’s Frankenstein has been reprinted in deluxe formats in recent years, but Pinky Rankin has yet to be given the same treatment.

  AS NOTED ABOVE, the majority of comic book creators during the golden age of the 1940s and ’50s ended up spending only a small amount of time in the industry, but because of that, a great many of these creators had popular success in some other form. For instance, Mickey Spillane (author of the popular Mike Hammer series of crime novels) and Patricia Highsmith (author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and the ensuing series of Ripley novels) both worked writing comics during the 1940s. One could think of a number of people who might be believable comic book creators, but one person who has recently been reported, in a number of places, as having done comic book work did not, in fact, work in comic books, although he did work in comics period. That person is Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau!