This fantasy comes to us from the Simon and Kirby studio, and features the Boy Commandos. They have survived the war only to succumb to a mine on the International Date Line, and find themselves fighting the souls of dead pirates. Holy Pirates of the Caribbean.
It is from Boy Commandos #14 (1946). The Grand Comics Database attributes the art to Louis Cazeneuve, and the writing to Joe Samachson, both with question marks because the GCD isn’t sure.
It has been a few years since I last showed a Boy Commandos story. Click the thumbnail:
11 comments:
Kinda hard to feel sorry for Simon or for Kirby in claims about expropriation made by them or on their behalves, if they were actually signing their names (or having their names signed) to work done by others. I wouldn't suggest that such behavior should void their rights, but it reduces my inclination to sympathy.
And it's kinda-hard to believe that each and every member were exactly over the International Dateline when killed. It's also hard to believe that the Powers that Be would use local time for their records, as opposed to something analogous to Greenwich Mean Time.
An interesting plug for the comic book. I guess that, for all but one issue, at least one reader was sent to the briny deep.
Once again, I wish for my hypothetical meta-hero, who would go from story to story, trashing supposed heroes who dropped the ball.
That was fun, a pleasant change from the plot-heavy war stories, though I doubt I would have brought supernatural elements into this series had I been the writer. But, had I done this particular story, I'm sure I'd have made it more gruesome--letting Captain Kidd cut off Brooklyn's head (what difference would it have made? He was dead!), and having some of the commandos come back to life at the end with missing or blasted-off body parts (they were killed by a mine explosion, after all). I know, that wouldn't have happened at DC; they survived the comics witch hunt of the 50s because they were already tame and never went in for the gory stuff.
I'm a big Superman fan, and, in some of my recent reading, I learned that the cop character "Terrible" Turpin of modern-day Supes comics is actually the boy commando Brooklyn all grown up! It was cool to learn, because both are likeable characters (and both were obviously modeled on Jack Kirby).
This story illustrates the amazing, zany charm of comics, all right. The glimpse of the Afterlife is just as whacky as the comic book handling of Life itself. Heh heh heh. Thanks, Pappy!
Daniel, that argument on who owns what, the publisher or the original creative team working as employees of said company, is what has kept the families of now-deceased artists and creators in court for decades.
Personally, I will always be on the side of the people who did the actual work. It is my 32 years as a dues paying union guy showing.
7f7, it is my observation that when asking people if they believe in an afterlife, no two believers I have spoken with have ever described the same vision of an afterlife. It makes no sense to me.
So, rather than shed any brain cells cogitating on what heaven (or hell) might look like, I just concentrate on my more immediate problems of life in the here and now on Earth.
Ryan, ha...you remind me of comments by Steve "Karswell" Banes on Facebook. He said he watched Turbo Kid on Netflix and gave it "two gory thumbs up." I watched some of it and the blood squirted like firehoses.
Yes, DC did tone down their comics and their contents probably appeared more acceptable than that of comics that exploited blood, death and gore...into a style that one of the commenters to one of my blog posts years ago called "deliberately boring." Like Dell DC had an internal code that worked, and perhaps like Dell, DC could have opted out of the Comics Code altogether.
Ah, those are the guys who re-appered as clones, during the 70's run of Jimmy Olsen (in Kirby's "4. world" universe), right?
Very, VERY odd story!. I'm sure others will point out oddities, so let's skip it.
Agent Axis. Was a male for Marvel and a female for DC. I'd like to see more of the female
J D, been 40 years since I read the Fourth World Kirby books, but what you say sounds correct.
"Agent Axis. Was a male for Marvel and a female for DC." It must be that alliterative name; irresistable to comic book writers.
It was the Newsboy Legion that appeared in the Fourth World saga, if I recall.
And yes, "Terrible" Dan Turpin was revealed to be Brooklyn as an adult, and when he appeared in the '90s Superman animated series, Turpin was deliberately modeled on Kirby.
The children of the original Newsboy Legion, the exact duplicates of their parents (plus a kid of color with the weirdo name of "Flippa Dippa"), did indeed show up in the Fourth World kick-off (Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133). Soon after, the original Legionnaires, the parents (including Flip's retconned father), reappeared as secret government scientists. I do think they were hip to the clone science in particular, though, sweating bullets to bring about the genetically newfangled Golden Guardian. So it's entirely possible that something's up with the suspicious similarity between the two generations (especially since there's no evidence of any Newsmom Legion, natch). But I haven't read the whole saga yet, so maybe it's not that at all.
Ah, Newsboy Legion!
Yes, I remember the Flippa Dippa guy. Thanks.
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