Number 2336: Iron Jaw bites!

In the early history of comics Iron Jaw rates high on the villain scale. He was created for Boy Comics #3, and continued on until that title went out of business in the mid-fifties. According to some biographical information on the golden age Iron Jaw,* his jaw was blown off in World War I, where he and Hitler were pals. He had an artificial jaw, but in the early days (as in our tale today) the jaw looked different. Iron Jaw must have gotten a new dentist, because in later issues of Boy he went to full-on metal choppers, with which he could bite off a human limb.

In later years Iron Jaw’s jaw looked a lot more iron, as seen in this panel from Boy #76:

That description of Iron Jaw is no more far-fetched than this story from Boy Comics #11 (1943). Iron Jaw pretends to be mentally ill and fools the judge. The law in real life sometimes works in mysterious ways to us outside observers, but even the most rudimentary knowledge would keep us from believing the oddball workings of the local justice in this story. The story rockets along at its own speed, which causes it to leave logic and law behind.

Charles Biro, credited with creating the characters, had a keen eye for making comic books stand out among the multitude of other comic books on the magazine racks. Had I been a comic book fan standing and looking at that week’s new issues, I would have picked up Boy Comics #11, and based on the cover, would most likely have bought it.

*Read the history of Iron Jaw in Comic Vine.

Number 814

The Wild Pursuit

The chase is on! Crimebuster chases down the arch villain Iron Jaw in this breathless tale from Boy Illustories #69, 1951, drawn by Norman Maurer.

The first part of this tale, from Boy #68, was shown last Monday in Pappy's #811. You might want to read it first. Or what the hell, read the stories in reverse order! I guarantee, it won't make one bit of difference.

Number 811

Iron Jaw and the Iron Lung

Iron Jaw, one of the best comic book villains of the 1940s, stars in a two-part story from Boy Illustories (formerly Boy Comics) #68 and #69, 1951. This is part 1. Come back next Sunday for the second part.

I've shown a couple of vintage Iron Jaw appearances fighting Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, in Pappy's #492 and Pappy's #532. Even after the war, Iron Jaw was still the totally ruthless villain he'd been when he was a Nazi agent.

Both stories are drawn by Norman Maurer. I've written about Maurer before. He did a lot of work for Charles Biro and Boy Comics, then teamed up with Joe Kubert to help create the first 3-D comic books.

Maurer married Moe Howard's daughter, Joan, and became the manager of the Three Stooges, moving on to Hollywood. Years later, in the '70s, Maurer did the comic book, Little Stooges, for Gold Key, in the same clean, clear style he'd used on these Crimebuster stories. Biro's comics became dense with dialogue, averaged about nine panels a page, and many of those panels were packed with detail. Notice the crowd scenes on page 10, where Maurer drew a bunch of characters which were haphazardly colored by slapping a single color over them, obscuring the drawing. This was fairly common in Biro's comics of the era, where he apparently demanded the artist draw everything, which was then sabotaged by the usual suspects: bad coloring, bad paper, and bad printing. I hope the paychecks made up for the artist's inevitable disappointment in how all his hard work looked in the finished product.

Number 532


Ol' Metal Mouth is back


Iron Jaw was a great villain who kept coming back to plague Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, Loover of the FBI, and even some crooks who got in his way. He was a take-no-prisoners kinda villain.

This comes from Boy Comics #13, December 1943. It's drawn by Norman Maurer, a staple of Charles Biro's comic book bullpen for several years. Maurer partnered up with Joe Kubert in the early 1950s. At St. John Publishing they unleashed 3-D comic books on the world.

Aside from the grisly splash panel Iron Jaw doesn't show up until late. The first part of the story is taken up by two low level criminals and their fence, Wart.

Try as I might I can't think of any other comic book of this era that had a villain yell "Damn you!" It's on page 15.