Number 2322: Wolverton’s early apocalypse

Page 4 of this early Spacehawk, by Basil Wolverton, reminds me of Wolverton’s later apocalyptic drawings for his church. In the 1950s the Worldwide Church of God, under the leadership of radio preacher Herbert W. Armstrong, commissioned Basil Wolverton, who was then an elder in Armstrong’s church, to do his unsettling series of scenes from the end of the world...or at least Armstrong and Wolverton’s vision of same. Even though it was over a decade after drawing Spacehawk that Wolverton did the drawings, it looks as if apocalyptic visions were in his mind while drawing the early episode.

My father, Big Pappy, subscribed to Armstrong‘s The Plain Truth magazine, where these illustrations first appeared. Those drawings, and Basil Wolverton’s illustrations of biblical scenes, were probably the first work by Wolverton I ever saw.

Spacehawk is a demigod, flying in his spaceship, seeing and defeating evil. It appears that Wolverton may have been channeling some of his religious philosophy under the guise of science fiction. That is not unusual in itself, and Spacehawk may have some of those elements, but it is not preachy.

From Target Comics #8 (1940):

Number 1866: Enter Spacehawk

Last Friday I showed you a Carl Burgos story from Target Comics #5, and today the story that makes the issue so valuable. Basil Wolverton’s Spacehawk is introduced.

“The Creeping Death from Neptune” has been reprinted several times (I have three or four of the reprints in my own collection), but these are scans from the original, which appeared on newsstands in mid-1940. Spacehawk’s mask didn’t last for long, and when it was gone readers found Spacehawk to be a guy who looked a lot like many other comic book heroes of the age, even if in the strip in its early days the creatures Spacehawk encountered — besides a few pretty Earth girls — were as alien as Wolverton’s incredible imagination could make them. In its entry on the character, Toonopedia mentions letters to the editor from parents upset by their children seeing such grotesquerie. While Spacehawk eventually was brought to Earth to fight the enemies of America, the aliens Wolverton drew didn’t get any handsomer.

Number 852

Blazing Death!

I don't know if any story drawn by Basil Wolverton could ever be considered routine, but this Spacehawk episode from Target Comics Volume 3 Number 3, 1942, seems like a standard superhero vs. mad scientist story. Still, it's Wolverton...and even routine Wolverton is better than most other stories of this era. His artwork is so distinctive he hardly needed to put his name on it.

Spacehawk's early adventures were freeform science fiction set in outer space, on other worlds with bizarre aliens and are usually what we remember about the feature. Then someone, the editors or Wolverton himself, decided to put Spacehawk on earth fighting on the side of America during World War II. So Spacehawk lasted just seven more issues of Target Comics after this and was gone. I don't know how long Spacehawk would have continued if the original premise of the strip had been kept. We can only speculate, but Spacehawk was fairly interesting, even in his later earthly adventures. He had the power of anti-gravity, he lived in his spaceship cruising through the stratosphere, and had a pal named Dork. I showed another story of Spacehawk and Dork a year ago in Pappy's #637.

Number 637


Spacehawk and Dork help the war effort


We've had some fun this week, and we'll end the week in the same way. Spacehawk was Basil Wolverton's creation, who started his run in Target Comics #5 as a strictly off-this-world spaceman who fought Wolverton-style grotesque aliens. As World War II began Wolverton's editors told him to bring Spacehawk to Earth so he could fight our enemies. Wolverton is said to have protested this change, and in retrospect he was right. Spacehawk didn't last long after that.

Even after the theme of Spacehawk was changed there were still memorable stories in the Spacehawk canon because they're by Basil Wolverton, who never drew an uninteresting comic in his life. He was famous for his funny dialogue and funny names, and for an alien name "Dork" seems great. In 1942 when Basil drew this he was probably thinking of a good, punchy name, not realizing he would be making us laugh almost 70 years later for reasons he couldn't anticipate.

From Target Comics Volume 3 Number 1, March 1942:









Make sure you come back on Sunday for the beginning of a special Jungle Girl week. We're kicking off with a Sheena story, and will follow each day for six days with beautiful jungle babes.