Number 2413: Hawkman and Hawkgirl: the elixir of youth

In the second panel of this story, Hawkman grabs a crook in a car speeding down a mountain and says, “Stop or I’ll pull you out one by one and drop you over the precipice.” I guess being a flying hero doesn’t make Hawkman, secret identity of Carter Hall, less threatening than the crooks he is after.

Hawkman has a hawk friend, Big Red, and a girlfriend, Shiera, who is also Hawkgirl, but sometimes he is on his own. That can result in what happens to him when the gang members in the car get the better of him. Then the story has a flashback to the reason for Hawkman’s plight. It has something to do with Shiera’s uncle and a “glandular elixir” he has invented, trying to make Shiera’s aunt into a young woman. Brainy, a gangster, wants to steal the elixir so he can turn his enemies into babies. That seems less effective than the old-fashioned way of killing enemies.

The elixir still needs work, but I am also thinking of it being used commercially. Can you imagine one of those late night infomercials selling this elixir? I could use about a gallon of it right now.

Drawn by Sheldon Moldoff and written by Gardner Fox. From Flash Comics #25 (1942).

Number 2286: The boy who fooled Hawkman’s hawks

Young Timmy is the son of a rich man. Timmy is an artist. His father is an antiques collector. Timmy’s dad is trying to discourage him from painting, telling him if he quits he’ll buy him a motorboat. Dad would rather have an indolent son than one with artistic talent.

Dad is targeted by a couple of crooks who steal his valuable antiques and young Timmy is kidnapped.

Joe Kubert, about the same age as the fictional Timmy (Kubert would have been 19 when he drew “Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New!”) was something of a prodigy himself.

I have a couple of gripes: Hawkman faces a dinosaur on the cover; the “dinosaur” in the story is one of Timmy’s lifelike three-dimensional paintings. Here he has painted the dinosaur on grass, which caught Hawkman’s attention while flying over. I also spotted the word “shone” mistakenly used for “shown” in one of the speech balloons. Sheldon Mayer is listed as editor by the Grand Comics Database, with Julius Schwartz and Ted Udall as story editors. The letterer and the editor(s) missed it. I mention it because I used the same hawk eye to spot the spelling error that Hawkman’s hawks use in finding Timmy.

From Flash Comics #67 (1945):

Number 2235: Goodbye Black Pirate

All American Comics #102 was the last issue before it turned into All American Western. It featured the first Johnny Thunder story, and the last stories featuring Green Lantern, Dr Mid-Nite, and Black Pirate, which I am showing today.

It was a good run for all of those characters, especially in the here today/gone tomorrow world of 1940s comic books.

Black Pirate appeared in three popular comics titles in his career. Created by Sheldon Moldoff, he first appeared in Action Comics #23, then switched to Sensation Comics beginning with issue #1. After 50 issues, he then moved over to All American Comics, bumping out The Atom. Not bad for a comic book character who never had his own book, or was on the cover of any issues of the comic books where he was a second tier feature.

I have read less than half a dozen adventures of Black Pirate, so I can’t give an opinion of how Jon Valor (Black Pirate’s secret identity) fared as a pirate, but in his final adventure he was inland, and rode away on a horse.

Artwork by Arthur Peddy and Bernard Sachs.

Number 2139: Professor Memory forgets

Professor Memory has a special job, but unfortunately can’t remember what it is. Also unfortunate is how much Professor Memory’s memory problems remind me of...me.

What was a I saying? I remember: Professor Memory. He is helped by Green Lantern and GL’s little buddy, Doiby Dickles. Since we have featured some superheroes with boy sidekicks recently, along with my snarky comments, it is a relief to tell you that Doiby is an adult. Or, presumably so. He is a taxi driver and a good guy, except for mangling the English language. More snarky comments on dialect-writing are in order, but offhand I can’t remember any.

The story, from Comic Cavalcade #10 (1945) is from the period when publisher Maxwell Gaines decided to pull his comic book line, All American Comics, away from DC Comics. Later, as the story goes — if I remember it correctly, and I believe I do — Gaines sold his business, and his paper ration, to DC Comics. The war ended shortly thereafter and Gaines made enough to start another company, Educational Comics (EC), which eventually became the infamous Entertaining Comics (EC), with the late Mr Gaines’s son, William (Bill) Gaines) in the publisher’s chair.

The story is drawn by Jon Chester Kozlak, whose comic book career was mainly for DC in the forties. Also according to the Grand Comics Database, the script is by Alfred Bester. He later became a top-selling science fiction author who did classic novels like The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man.

Here is another tale of Green Lantern and Doiby, originally posted in 2012. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1731: Turtle power

I don’t know why Sheldon Mayer drew the entire issue of Funny Stuff #5 (1945). In other issues each feature was drawn by a different artist. Mayer, who had been the editor, had quit that position in order to write and draw. Maybe this was a special project for him. Whatever the reason, he blended his special kind of cartooning magic into what was already a really good title for publisher M.C. Gaines.

Gaines had split off for a time from his partners, the publishers of DC Comics, and his books were All American Comics. Before the war ended he sold his entire line, along with his paper ration, to DC. It included characters like Green Lantern, the Flash, and Wonder Woman, all of which at one time or another Mayer edited.

McSnurtle the Turtle’s origin from Funny Stuff #1. Just click on the thumbnail.