Number 1248: Rangers of Freedom and the Super-Brain

Some planning was done at Fiction House's comic book line in 1941. War was coming, men were being conscripted, so how to involve the kids and entice them to buy their comic books. In Rangers of Freedom three boys, “the best specimens of American youth,” get the opportunity to battle America's enemies.

The comic's creators probably figured it was a good idea to leave out any parents, because this was fantasy, after all. Many a child may have dreamed of kicking enemy butt in World War II, but their real-life tasks were simple yet important: collect scrap, newspapers, grease and fats, and buy war stamps every week. Use those dimes for defense instead of comic books.

The boys calling themselves Rangers of Freedom are sent to fight an internal, not external, enemy. Some mind force is turning Americans into lunatics. It turns out to be a guy with a really big head called Super-Brain. The artwork on this story is excellent, some of the best Golden Age art of that era I've seen. It's by Joe Doolin, who worked for Fiction House during the 1940s, and whose distinctive covers sold millions of comic books.

Someday I'll show episode two in this story. Rangers of Freedom didn't last long, just seven issues. The name was changed to Rangers Comics, a name it kept until its demise a decade later.

From Rangers of Freedom #1 (1941):

Number 1247: Blondie of the late thirties

Blondie (the comic strip and not the rock band) is now 82. Even though creator Chic Young died years ago, his son Dean keeps the strip going with artists working close to Chic Young's style. And why not? The strip has been successful through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War...and right on up until now, in its own ageless world. You look at the modern Blondie and there just isn't much different from these Sunday strips of 70-plus years ago, taken from Feature Book #29, a reprint from 1941.

I believe with newspapers being replaced gradually by electronic media in a few years the comic strip as we know it may just disappear from print. But I'm guessing that no matter what form it appears in, you'll probably still see Blondie.

Number 1246: The Devil is in Missouri!

The Devil runs rampant in the territory which will one day be known as Missouri. He slaughters families, leaving their corpses branded with his handprint on their chests. It takes hot young frontierswoman, Kit West, in her buckskin miniskirt, to solve the morbid mystery. This story, attributed by the GCD to artist Jill Elgin with possible assist from Gus Schrotter, was originally published in Avon’s Cowpuncher #4 (1948), but my scans are taken from a reprint in Geronimo on the Warpath #2 (1951).

This gory story has knifings, blood, murders, brandings and a burning at the stake! It’s got bad Indians and one bad Spaniard. It’s a lot for nine pages.

Number 1245: Turok kicks out Kong

In its original 1950’s version, Turok, Son of Stone, had a simple premise: Turok and Andar, two pre-Columbian Indians in what is now New Mexico, found themselves in a lost world full of dinosaurs and other anachronistic creatures and people, and couldn’t find their way out. I loved this title as a kid and ape fan that I am, I for sure bought this issue with its King Kong-like cover.

In reading it so many years after its publication it I’m struck by symbolism I didn't see as a kid. The giant ape is living on its mesa minding its own business when Turok and Andar lead a tribe there. They displace the ape, which is what will happen to Turok and Andar’s people once the Europeans land on their “lost world” of the American continent.

The Grand Comics Database lists the cover artist as Giusto, the writer as Gaylord Dubois, and the artist, pencils and inks, as Bob Correa. From Turok, Son of Stone #6, 1957.

The ending seems Comics Code-style, even though Dell had an internal code and did not knuckle under to the Comics Code Authority like other publishers. Perhaps before the Code was implemented the ape would have been killed, not “asleep” as Turok describes his condition after a big fall.