Number 2417: Black X and the suicide bombers

Black X, master of espionage, decides to resign after falling in love with Madam Doom. Apparently he is so besotted he ignores the fact that Madam Doom’s name describes her. Madam Doom has developed a suicide bomb which works by drinking a liquid, causing the drinker to go out in a big explosion. It is less trouble...no bulky dynamite vests for Madam Doom.

Black X is a spy whose job is known to his enemies. When he meets Madam Doom in a nightclub she asks, “...is it true that you have resigned from the espionage?” Instead of asking where she got her information Black X dances with her.

Will Eisner created Black X, and according to the Grand Comics Database he scripted the story. It looks like one of his Spirit stories, but GCD credits artist Dan Zolnerowich with pencils and inks.

“The Legion of Living Bombs” is from Smash Comics #14 (1940).

Number 2202: America’s future patriotic hero

Like Robert Webb, who drew Sheena, featured a couple of days ago, Dan Zolnerowich was a journeyman comic book artist who began his career with the Eisner and Iger studio. He sometimes signed his name Zolne. Also like Webb, I can’t find much information on him. Fiction House Comics stood out on the racks because of the covers Zolnerowich drew for them during the war years and beyond.

I have noticed online some paintings he did, reproducing some of his early covers, done as late as 1977. If anyone has information on him I would appreciate you sharing it.

Heritage Auctions showed all but the last page of Zolnerowich’s artwork for Super-American, which originally appeared in Fight Comics #17 (1942). My thanks to Heritage for posting these pages. My appropriation of them is shameless, but that’s just the kind of stuff I do and who I am. The last page I took from scans of the printed comic available at the Digital Comics Database.

Super-American appeared in only four issues of Fight Comics, numbers 15 through 18, then disappeared. Fiction House had never been totally comfortable with superheroes, not like their competition. They had many characters who appeared year-after-year, but most of them were like comic book versions of characters out of pulp magazines, which Fiction House also published. Super-American was brought from the future to help America fight their enemies. I have shown a couple more of his stories; check the links below.

As promised, two earlier Super-American stories, including his origin. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 2017: Hitler with a handlebar

Before America formally declared war against the Axis powers, some comic publishers seemed wary of involving their heroes in direct action against the Nazis. The German-American Bund in the U.S. was pro-Nazi, and obviously didn’t care for their countrymen being caricatured in the comics. In this Super-American tale from Fight Comics #16, the Nazis are so thinly disguised they do not fool anyone, but at least the Bund* couldn’t say they went after Hitler directly. In this story, “Hitler” is a leader called Vultro who combs his hair to the other side, and a handlebar mustache instead of the familiar Charlie Chaplin nose-brush of the real-life Führer.

This episode, the second Super-American story,** is a sock-bam-pow fest from first panel to last. The action is drawn very well by Dan Zolnerowich, with an assist on the inks by Lee J. Ames, according to the Grand Comics Database.

From Fight Comics #16 (1941):

*One of the faux-Hitler henchmen in the story is inexplicably named Bund, a word meaning “alliance.”

**The origin story was shown last October in Pappy’s #1954.

Number 1962: Airboy the gladiator

Airboy lands his plane in Tarzan territory (see the link below the story). He and his boss, Tex, are captured by Romans, who have built a civilization in the African jungle. The unknown author of this story was probably inspired by the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, which was published in 1929.

Drawn by Ernest Schroeder, from Airboy Comics Vol. 6 No. 11 (1949). Cover by Dan Zolnerowich.

Here is a story of Tarzan taking a cruise with some ancient Romans. Just click on the thumbnail.