Number 2410: Facing the Face

Years ago in this blog I criticized the Face’s mask. Why? I thought it was silly. I just didn’t think any criminals or enemy combatants in a war zone would fall over in a dead faint or be terrorized by a rubber mask. Some people disagreed with me, and now, after many years of looking at super heroes from the early years of comic books (1939-42) there were a lot of super heroes who wore sillier costumes, had sillier origins, or even worse, just copied other super powered or non-super costumed heroes. The Face’s mask, for a gimmick, was at least the only one that I have found so far, so I’ll give it credit for that.

The artwork was done by one of the top professional artists from that era, Mart Bailey. He was drawing comic books very early in a style more like a newspaper comic strip artist. When I look at this Face episode from Big Shot Comics # 3 (1940) I see a guy who was far ahead of many of his contemporaries in the field. He shared Big Shot with Ogden Whitney, who drew Skyman in a style that is also more professional than much of the early comic book artwork. (And Whitney kept that style for the rest of his career, until the late sixties at least.) I will also bless Big Shot Comics editor Vincent Sullivan for bringing us Sparky Watts by the off-the-wall Boody Rogers, who made a good counterpoint to Bailey and Whitney.

The Face story is credited to Gardner Fox.

Number 2093: Killer green fog

Skyman, a hero from Big Shot Comics for the duration of the forties, shared something with Airboy. They both flew tricked-out aircraft, and during wartime did not have a problem getting aviation fuel. I don’t know how Airboy got fuel, but Allan “Skyman” Turner was another rich comic book playboy who acted the fop, yet was really the masked aviator fighting America’s enemies, foreign and domestic. (My guess is Skyman might have bought some fuel on the black market, and if he did, shame on him.)

In this story from Skyman #2 (1942), he is up against a mysterious killer green fog. The villain has figured out how to condense various poison gases into the fog. Luckily for the civilians caught in that fog no gas mask is needed, just a wet handkerchief over the face. (Note: it would not work.) The unknown writer, not credited by the Grand Comics Database, not only gave bum information for surviving a poison gas attack, but used dialogue like this: “I’m a fisherman by nature and by inheritance...” Eh? Just “I’m a fisherman” will suffice, Mr Nature and Inheritance.

Nice artwork, as always, by Ogden Whitney, an artist by nature. I’m not sure about inheritance.

Number 2079: Skyman flies in

The Skyman was a charter member of the Big Shot Comics line-up. Columbia Comic Corporation, a small publishing company, had a nine-year run without putting out a lot of product. Big Shot Comics lasted for 104 issues, succumbing finally in 1949. That left adrift not only Skyman (who ended in issue #101), but Tony Trent (formerly the Face), and Boody Rogers’s eccentric and funny Sparky Watts.

Skyman’s initial appearance in Big Shot Comics #1 (1940), shown today, did not explain his origin. Skyman was yet another rich guy who made it his mission to fight crime and bad guys. He even paid for his own advanced aircraft, Wing. As one source explained it, aviation comic strips were popular in the thirties, so not only did comic books feature many of them, like the Skyman they were sometimes costumed characters.

Ogden Whitney did the artwork. He was born in 1918, so he was about 21 or 22 when he first drew Skyman. I have featured many stories with Whitney’s artwork, and to my eyes there was very little change in his style or approach to drawing from this early time until the last artwork he did in comics. Whitney died in the early '70s, according to some accounts. For as long as Ogden Whitney was active in comics, and the wide range of publishers he worked for, there seems to be very little information about him.

What information I have on Skyman has him created and written by Gardner Fox.

Number 1681: Musclebound Skyman

In the early days of Big Shot Comics Skyman, drawn by Ogden Whitney, was presented as a large musclebound hero. Eventually Skyman was drawn as a more lean character. Frankly, I think the big arms and chest make him look a little top-heavy, and perhaps the folks who produced Big Shot Comics thought so, also.

Skyman was a rich playboy (yawwwwnnnnn), who used his tricked-out plane, the Wing, to help him catch criminals. The rich guy who has nothing better to do than put on a mask and costume and fight crime was done to the point of absurdity in those days, but it made it easier to explain how he had the money to get by without having to go to a day job.

From Big Shot Comics #3 (1940):

More Skyman, first with his big muscles, then as he was after trimming down.

Number 1378: Great guns, Skyman!

Looking at the character, The Skyman, I’m flap-jawed at his massive arms...those are some guns! His upper body development looks like one of those padded Halloween costumes to turn the wearer into the Hulk. I don’t have all the Skyman stories, but I have enough to know that he trimmed down after a time. This panel, from The Skyman #3, shows a much more lithe character.

Ogden Whitney, the artist, drew a lot of different features, including superheroes, but he usually didn’t portray them looking so musclebound.

The Skyman was a 1940’s character, created by Gardner Fox and Whitney. The Skyman’s career began in Big Shot Comics #1 and ended in #101 (1949), four issues shy of the comic's last issue. Along the way the Skyman appeared in his own comic for six issues spread over several years, and also in issues of Sparky Watts and The Face.

In this early adventure, from Big Shot Comics #6 (1940), besides the barrel chest and giant arms, we see how the Skyman’s “Atom-atic” pistol works, that his plane will hover and wait for him while he swings through his girlfriend’s window to “scare her,” and about the cancer curing machine — the sole machine in existence — stolen by criminals.

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Here's another early Skyman story I showed a few years ago. Just click the picture.