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 2306: Gone in a Flash

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I assumed Captain Marvel was aimed at youngsters, and I believe the same of the original Flash and Green Lantern comics. It has to do with the cartoony artwork, and an attempt at laughs. I say attempt because of the three dimwits, Winky, Blinky, and Noddy, who were the comedy relief for the Flash (just as Doiby Dickles was for Green Lantern). The dimwits were based on the Three Stooges, but there the resemblance ends.

This story stuck out for me because of the plot. A man can see the future while hearing the present.

In spite of the three dimwits, I have an affection for the Golden Age Flash, having first encountered him in the Silver Age story, “Flash of Two Worlds.”

Artist E.E. Hibbard drew a lot of Flash stories. He left comic books in 1947 and went to the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. Later he became a member of the Society of Animal Artists. Gardner Fox wrote the script.

This story appeared in Flash Comics #67 (1945).

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 2147: A Flash of purple lightning

We find out a couple of things in this tale of the original Flash from 1942: the Flash can travel at almost the speed of light (that’s fast!), and he can sew a parachute and save a transcontinental flight full of people before it crashes (that's fast and talented!)

Fast and talented Flash (secretly Jay Garrick) goes up against yet another comic book “scientist,” who uses his genius for bad. In this case, tossing around purple lightning bolts that look just like cartoon lightning bolts (a la Captain Marvel). It is written by Gardner Fox and drawn by E. (for Everett) E. Hibbard, with inks provided by Hal Sharp (per the Grand Comics Database).

The Flash was another of DC’s characters who was popular enough to appear in more than one comic book, and whose career was cut short by the end of the 1940s from sagging sales. He was revived in 1956, and the rest is history.

From Flash Comics #29 (1942).

The Flash had imitators. Here are three tales of speedsters, including Johnny Quick, Quicksilver, and the Flash himself in a 1940s story unpublished until 1972. Just click on the thumbnail.