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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

N e r V

N e r V

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

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. 

Reading your post I started thinking there was a number of Hollywood films pre Pearl Harbor that had Adolph and/or Nazis as the bad guys too. Not sure how much impact that would have had on them as well. One of my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movies of that decade was Foreign Correspondent which came out almost a year and a half before December 7th, 1941 and it clearly contained a message for Americans about the upcoming war.

 

Having family that lived in several of the countries involved including the US at the time I was told that Americans were both tired and scared at what was happening in Europe and were hoping to avoid it. World War 1 was only 20 years earlier with many knowing the losses it inflicted on them and many other Americans were still struggling daily to get through the depression era. Not a fun time for most. I would think if Goodman had only slight knowledge of what was happening to Jews in Europe at the time he would have been motivated enough to have his books take a stand (my opinion, I'm guessing here).

 

I seem to remember that in Sterankos books he said Hirohito was a fan of Superman even though he was regularly beating up the Japanese and Germans in his comics during the war. Maybe the strength of characters can win over fans despite who they fight?

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Readcomix

Readcomix

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Cat-Man_America said:

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!  (:

 

Umm....maybe the Angel was taking out a renegade crescent wrench manufacturer??? (shrug)

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sacentaur

sacentaur

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

The best of the rest...

marvel1.jpg.aa5145fb40366a1b341a8b71c575a3a9.jpg

I believe this is the very first Nazi cover. 

Notice the black circle under the month - everyone knows that black is associated with Nazis, that the Earth is round, and at the time this book was published it appeared that the German blitzkrieg would conquer the planet. So that's a bingo.

Also, if you take the 'N' from "Human" (Torch), the 'A' from "Angel", the 'Z' from "Ka-zar" and the 'I' from "Raider", that spells "Nazi." I can't imagine any more compelling proof than that.

If that wasn't enough, the publisher chose an artist (Frank R. Paul) who was born in Austria, as was Adolf Hitler. Austria had already been incorporated to the Third Reich when this book hit the stands. Coincidence? I think not!

Clearly the preponderance of evidence is on my side, and while I respect others' right to disagree, I am totally right and everyone else is completely wrong. As usual.

Now that I've changed the history books and torched warmed you all up, I'm off for another cold one. :tink:

 

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Ameri

Ameri

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, sacentaur said:

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

So the story goes.

ah yes, 1939 was the peak years of those mustached heroes of the silver screen...Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, William Powell. They were all the vogue and the detective series like the Saint began in 1939 featuring a debonair George Sanders and later on his mustached half brother Tom Conway as The Falcon. The Thin Man series with Powell was flourishing, The Shadow, Charlie Chan and the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone started in 1939 (he shaved his mustache for that one). So, it's not surprising that Goodman put all his eggs in the Angel basket.   

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sacentaur

sacentaur

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Ameri said:

ah yes, 1939 was the peak years of those mustached heroes of the silver screen...Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, William Powell. They were all the vogue and the detective series like the Saint began in 1939 featuring a debonair George Sanders and later on his mustached half brother Tom Conway as The Falcon. The Thin Man series with Powell was flourishing, The Shadow, Charlie Chan and the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone started in 1939 (he shaved his mustache for that one). So, it's not surprising that Goodman put all his eggs in the Angel basket.   

:applause:

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Straw-Man

Straw-Man

Posted
Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

There's no Rhine or reason to anything you say!

dan!  u be good at this punnin'!

Edited by Straw-Man
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Primetime

Primetime

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, sacentaur said:

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

So the story goes.

Yes and Goodman quickly found out Subby and the Torch were the stars of the title. 

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Cat-Man_America

Cat-Man_America

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, sacentaur said:

There's no Rhine or reason to anything you say!

Dan, you two knuckleheads have a Munich sense of humor, but I wouldn't putsch it outside the beer hall.  (:

 

4 hours ago, Ameri said:

ah yes, 1939 was the peak years of those mustached heroes of the silver screen...Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, William Powell. They were all the vogue and the detective series like the Saint began in 1939 featuring a debonair George Sanders and later on his mustached half brother Tom Conway as The Falcon. The Thin Man series with Powell was flourishing, The Shadow, Charlie Chan and the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone started in 1939 (he shaved his mustache for that one). So, it's not surprising that Goodman put all his eggs in the Angel basket.   

Angel also shaved his 'stache to get cover featured on MM 2 & 3:   :wink:

9da70fc5-6b5c-4aac-bcae-dda3a3c61906_zps

The red color strike isn't as bold as the tall geek's Chicago copy, but a sweet book nonetheless.

 

3 hours ago, Primetime said:

Yes and Goodman quickly found out Subby and the Torch were the stars of the title. 

This!  If you break down cover appearances on all 92 issues of the GA run of this title, the number featuring Torch is pretty staggering.

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