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In the 1st 8 issues of Marvel Mystery Comics.....
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Started by gadzukes,

48 posts in this topic

gadzukes

gadzukes

Posted
Posted
In the 1st 8 issues of Marvel Mystery Comics.....

I was looking at covers this morning and noticed the Angel gets the most appearances on the covers of the first 8 issues of Marvel Mystery Comics (including Marvel Comics 1) 

Is that because at that time the Angel was getting the most feedback from readers?  Did Marvel/Timely/Atlas think the Angel was the breakout character?

Angel Cover on #s: 2, 3, 6, 8

Torch cover on #s: 1, 5, 7

Subby cover on #: 4

I wonder if they came close to having Kazar or Electro on any covers?

 

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sacentaur

sacentaur

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34 minutes ago, gadzukes said:

Is that because at that time the Angel was getting the most feedback from readers?

The Angel was a favorite character of the publisher (Martin Goodman), hence the early cover appearances.

So the story goes.

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

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1 hour ago, sagii said:

This Thread is ripe for examples what with @MrBedrock @Straw-Man and @Cat-Man_America 

I would love to hear what Cat thinks about Marvel #2 and its place in the swastika cover narrative.:popcorn:

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Cat-Man_America

Cat-Man_America

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15 minutes ago, Straw-Man said:

liar, liar, pants on fire.

As battles over prevailing narratives go, the preponderance of evidence still remains in my court,

...but I'll yield to the tall geek's bedrock principles and having successfully cornered the market on breath mints. (worship)

To revive this expired equestrian thoroughbred, I'd assert it's entirely within the realm of possibility that Martin Goodman directed cover/text artist Charles Mazoujian to avoid a direct depiction of the Swastika over concerns that populist Bund support might provoke a backlash against the publisher.  That said, the text story leaves no doubt about the context of those illustrations. 

Another hypothesis ...although a bit of a stretch given the lack of subtlety of early comics... would be that intentionally altering the Swastika on blitz bombers represented Hitler's thinly veiled attempts at plausible deniability.  This kind of manipulation would certainly be in keeping with Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbel's efforts to control the public narrative.

f4f1ef69-b1e5-4c23-86e1-cd4ac7bb54b5_zps

Now the ball is in someone else's court!  (:

 

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Timely

Timely

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1 hour ago, Straw-Man said:

liar, liar, pants on fire.

There is a new book out called Take that, Adolf.  In it, they discuss MMC #2.  The cover is supposed to make you think NYC is getting bombed, but it is actually a town in Poland. In the story, the Angel attacks soldiers who have German names & speak in German accents. In another early issue, the bad guy who is clearly Hitler is called Hiller for the story. So, it seems Martin Goodwin was a little apprehensive in the beginning about directly go after the Nazis, but quickly decided to fight the war properly.

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

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1 hour ago, Timely said:
3 hours ago, Straw-Man said:

liar, liar, pants on fire.

There is a new book out called Take that, Adolf.  In it, they discuss MMC #2.  The cover is supposed to make you think NYC is getting bombed, but it is actually a town in Poland. In the story, the Angel attacks soldiers who have German names & speak in German accents. In another early issue, the bad guy who is clearly Hitler is called Hiller for the story. So, it seems Martin Goodwin was a little apprehensive in the beginning about directly go after the Nazis, but quickly decided to fight the war properly.

It's always been surprising to me, given the strength of Lindbergh's America First movement, that Timely was as willing as it was to use strongly anti-Nazi themes (albeit sometimes thinly veiled) in its books, pre-Pearl Harbor.  Viewed from today, reading history backwards, it hardly seems that it would have been controversial, but at the time you would think it would have cost them some sales and not just from out-and-out Bundists. 

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