Personal Comics Chronology #1: December 30th, 1942 (Master Comics #35)

CW: Nazis and Nazi iconography, mentions of violent deaths in a comic book, ableism in comic book (both referring to a disabled person as “crippled” and depicting a man with facial differences as a Nazi spy), description of a child being spanked by another child in a comic book (unrelated to the other sexual misconduct mentioned in these content warnings), CTE reference, flamethrowers, World Wrestling Entertainment, David Blaine, alleged sexual misconduct

“Let’s get it poppin’ in this motherfucker!”
–Marshawn Lynch, Bottoms, 2023 (written by Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott)

Master Comics #35
Fawcett Publications
Release Date: December 30th, 1942

I read this when I first got it in 2018, and sadly, I must report before my re-read that the only Nazis who get beaten up by Captain Marvel Jr. (I’m presuming that Captain Marvel Jr. kicks the crap out of them rather than just giving them a stern talking to, because it makes me feel better to think that he does) are the ones on the cover. “THE FLAME” isn’t even in the book, and doesn’t seem to have ever appeared! I wonder what the story is…whether original art got lost, and they just decided to put another story in, and not waste the cover.

For what it’s worth, it is an great, somewhat legendary WWII propaganda cover by Mac Raboy (a product of the Works Progress Administration, I’ve just learned, which should tickle Craig Calcaterra pink if he sees it), and I’m very happy to have it, even if I must tell y’all that the back cover is missing entirely, and the front cover (which may also have a subscription crease on it) is taped to the back page of the book. (This is also the only way I’d ever be able to afford this book.)

If you’re wondering about the censorship (*gasp!*) on the cover: first off, I’ve already told y’all that the Nazis are Nazis. I promise you that they are, in fact, Nazis. If you’re really desperate to see the swastikas (and if you are, please leave Earth and fly directly into the sun without bothering anyone on any other planets or doing any further damage to anything else in the cosmos), they are visible on the link above from Mike’s Amazing World, which also has a picture of the cover.

Second, you’ll notice a rubber stamp of a name across the sky on the cover. In the interest of privacy for the original owner’s family, and in the interest of not having his heirs ask me if they can buy his comic book back, I’ve covered that up. I say “his heirs”, because in researching this piece just now, I discovered that the most likely original owner of the book, just going by basic geography, passed away in 2024, at a ripe old age.

I have some regrets about this, mainly that it took me years to get curious enough to look this fella Eugene up, because he may have had some stories, about this comic, about comics back then, certainly about the time period it was made in. One of my biggest faults, if you were to ask me, is that sometimes my curiosity, which does run deep, also gets very deeply siloed, at the expense of other things I could be learning about, and this is one of those cases. An interview with the childhood owner of this comic book to open this series would’ve been kind of amazing, even if I also probably would’ve had to dodge his requests to buy my book back. I bought the book with ample time to have arranged an in-person interview back in The Before Times, too.

My advice to you all as you move forward in life is to always ask about or look into the name of that person, that company, that minor detail that you see, because you can follow those threads on some pretty wild adventures. I will try to consider my own advice more deeply moving forward, in both this series and in life.

As for the book, beyond the fact that Captain Marvel Jr. doesn’t beat up enough Nazis in it? Well, let’s sit down and re-read it, shall we?

The inside front cover has an ad for the book Fun For Boys by William Allan Brooks (author of such classics as Girl Gangs and The Playboy’s Handbook: In Defense of the Bachelor), also known as Maurice P. Fryefield. There are actually a few somewhat affordably-priced copies of this book (and his others) on eBay, but that’s a level of commitment to the bit that I’m not quite up for at the moment. I do want to finish writing this at some point.

Page 1: Table of Contents, and a blurb about Fawcett’s Editorial Advisory Board, who included Eleanor Roosevelt, Admiral Byrd, Allan Roy Defoe (the doctor who delivered the Dionne quintuplets, one of whom is still alive as of this writing) and the Rev. John W. Tynan, S.J., who was, at that time, the Fordham Athletic Moderator. Between the lot of them, they didn’t do a damn bit to stop what would be Comics Code Authority violations about a decade later, and they couldn’t even stop the editors from calling Freddy Freeman “crippled” on the first page of the book.

Page 2: Captain Marvel Jr. in “The Case of the Jolly Roger”! This has Mac Raboy art, as well, and was apparently written by Otto Binder. Thing I never knew before reading this, and that I haven’t seen in any of his more recent adventures: Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel Jr.’s secret identity, not to be confused with that dude on the Dodgers) kept a Captain Marvel Jr. case diary.

This is a story about a kid named Danny Hogan whose dad Trigger gets straight-up murdered by them no-good coppers (they shoot him while he’s climbing a fence), and decides to do crimes to get revenge on them because they’re about as dickish as you’d expect them to be after they shot a kid’s dad. He takes over his dad’s old gang (after shooting one of them), and dresses in a costume with a skull and crossbones on his chest, instead of playing the saxophone (his dad’s dying wish for him), which can occasionally be its own sort of crime.

Freddy tries to reason with him on several occasions, ends up getting himself kidnapped by Danny’s gang, and eventually escapes by pulling his gag off on a knob. PHRASING, OTTO!

At one point, the gang tries to rob a “colorful and gay” ball at the Updike estate. (PHRASING, OTTO!) Frankly, the Updike family deserved to be robbed, if only because they named their child Lancelot Updike. After the heist is broken up, as he’s trying to escape, Captain Marvel Jr. captures and SPANKS Danny (Again with the Comics Code violations!), but then helps him re-integrate into the straight world by threatening violence against his old gang if they squeal on him (real moral there, hero), and covering for his secret life of crime (presumably to keep him quiet, in turn, about his kid-spanking fetish).

Page 17 starts a Bulletman and Bulletgirl (who doesn’t actually get any title billing) story that I enjoyed best of the stories in the book. It’s likely drawn and possibly written (Golden Age credit information is sparse) by Jack Binder, Otto’s older brother.

The pair battle Professor D (not to be confused with the rapper), a small, frail-looking man who has “gained considerable strength by sheer concentration of nervous energy”. (If only.)

What I’ve learned about Bulletman and Bulletgirl from reading this is that Bulletman’s no misogynist, and basically treats Bulletgirl as an equal, give or take the amount of times he has her tank for him, so that’s good, but they’re both really reckless with their fancy bullet helmets, and undoubtedly one or both had CTE by the time their super-heroing careers were over. They headbutt people with the helmets, get whacked in the head with a fireplace mantle by Professor D, they both get shot in the helmet at least once, and Bulletman causes a gas explosion by hitting his helmet on the ground until it sparks.

It’s no wonder that Bulletgirl busts out with “Look at me! I’m a P-38!” in the middle of the story, not too long after she drops “Great! My legs were getting cramped — I crave action!” into the dialogue. Poor woman.

The slang’s better in this story than the Captain Marvel Jr. story, and it’s where I learned that “chee” was a 1942 word for “shit”, or as it’s known in the first Airplane! movie, “golly”.

Eventually, the story ends when Bulletman punches Professor D, and he lands on the propeller blade of a boat (I’m not kidding). It’s not graphically depicted, but like, what the fuck, dude?

From there, there’s a 2 page War Bonds ad cleverly disguised by Al Capp as a Small Change story, then we finally get a little bit of what was promised on the front cover: a guy (not the guy on the cover) fights Nazis (also not the Nazis on the front cover, but fuck it, they’re Nazis and they get their asses kicked).

Minute-Man (who I’d completely forgotten about, despite reading some of his post-Crisis stories in The Power of Shazam and Justice Society of America; stuff like this is why I’m taking notes on what I’m reading) is stationed in Ireland, and has to get to the bottom of some subterfuge being perpetrated by a Nazi spy named Scarface Ludwig (again with the ableism). Along the way, he literally fails the Trolley Problem by saving a woman and child and letting a car full of Nazis drive into a huge crowd of people (“Nothin’ changes.”-Walter Sobchak, 1991), though he sorta makes up for it, I guess, by responding to some Nazis heiling their leader with “HEIL NOTHING!” and jumping their asses. The story is drawn and probably written by Phil Bard, whose background is more interesting than Minute-Man.

From there, there’s a 2 page Hoodoo Hannigan text story by Joseph J. Millard, part 7 in a serialized adventure about Hoodoo and his friends fighting off a Japanese submarine that mostly reads like an excuse to put more armed forces recruiting propaganda into the book, as well as an average of a slur every 2 paragraphs. There is, however, one other notable part where Atlas Jones, the strongman from Hoodoo’s traveling circus, can’t find any pants that fit him, and is complaining about the “pussy-pants” that he has on.

Balbo, the Boy Magician is up next. It’s a quick mystery story on a train, but clever in that it delves a bit into the science of magic in an almost Gardner Fox-like way (the story’s also followed by how-tos for two different magic tricks), and notable in that Balbo’s business partner, John Smith, is a Black man who’s…somehow not depicted stereotypically, in 1942. John has to be one of the earliest examples of that in American comics. Balbo and John only had about 16 stories back then, and hasn’t been revived by DC, who does own the characters now. (Thinking about it, I have no idea how Grant Morrison hasn’t gotten ahold of them yet. They seem like a lock for Grant’s whole vibe, and probably would’ve been good in Seven Soldiers of Victory.)

After one more attempt to get people to buy war bonds via an ad (including the sentence “The stars of the comics can bang the Axis”…Y’ALL!), the last story in the book is a 6 page Hopalong Cassidy story by Ralph Carlson! It’s train robbery stuff, but also with a science/”figure out how the trick works” hook to it, and bad guys who say things like “I’ve always wanted a chance to plug you, Cassidy.” (I swear, there’s so much dirty talk in this book.) Just for good measure, riffing off what Bulletman and Bulletgirl did earlier in the book, Hoppy headbutts one of the train robbers, so he gets CTE, too.

What’d I think of the book?

As is the case with a lot of Golden Age stuff I’ve read, it’s not great quality stuff, but it was also, at least in this form, a pretty new medium, and they were also running everything through the filter of the War Department, which makes it an interesting WWII-era time capsule, but also makes most of it a propaganda pamphlet. The art (particularly Mac Raboy’s and Jack Binder’s) is stronger than what I see in a most Golden Age books, so there is that. The Bulletman and Balbo stories were probably the best in the book, followed by the Captain Marvel Jr. story. On the whole, I do enjoy the format of short anthology stories like these, because Jenette Kahn conditioned me to enjoy them via Dollar Comics, but I’m glad that the more modern equivalent of these stories that you saw in Dollar Comics (and in DC’s 8 page backup stories of that time period) was generally better than what’s here. I’m still glad I own this.

On This Date:

On December 30th, 1942, the day that this comic was released…

Births: Betty Aberlin and Michael Nesmith are born. I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to both of them briefly online over the years.

Betty showed up on Twitch for the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood marathons (she’s also pretty active on social media), and would just hang out with everyone and talk about the show (sometimes Speaking Her Truth about the show and what’s come since, but still stopping to sing along with the songs in text along with the rest of the chat).

Mike and I were actually Facebook friends for a little while (only stopping because I left Facebook about a year before he passed), and we talked once or twice about vaporwave music he posted about (to continue on our theme of curiosity, he never stopped being curious about new things, and loved vaporwave, to where he became a bona fide expert on it).

Film: Commandos Strike at Dawn and Star-Spangled Rhythm are released. Appropriately, they’re also both World War II propaganda films. I haven’t seen either, but I may put a list together of all of the films, etc. referenced in this series, and try to get to it, because I don’t have enough things to watch, listen to, read and play.

Commandos Strike at Dawn sounds like a pretty standard war film of that time period, and reviews accordingly. Notable cast members include Paul Muni, Lillian Gish, George Macready (who was in everything, but who I mainly know as Martin Peyton on Peyton Place), and, during a stretch where he played a lot of uncredited extras, Lloyd Bridges as one of the Nazis.

Star-Spangled Rhythm, featuring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and a lot of the Paramount roster at that time, is perhaps most notable for the inclusion of “That Old Black Magic”, which was actually written for the film by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. As it turns out, Johnny Mercer has a direct connection to the next event I mention here (he wrote the English-language lyrics for “Summer Wind”).

Music: Frank Sinatra performs his first solo concert at the Paramount Theatre in New York City, arguably the beginning, for better or worse, of modern pop stardom. I saw Frank play about 7 blocks north and a block east of there at Radio City Music Hall in 1992 (Shirley MacLaine opened). The only time I’ve ever been in the building that housed the Paramount was in late 2000, when it was WWF New York, the night I was in Times Square to see David Blaine’s Frozen in Time, both visits being kinda regrettable in hindsight. It’s currently a Hard Rock Cafe.

Other Comic Books: there were 10 comics released on this date. Unsurprisingly, as this is my oldest comic book, this is the only one I own. The other recognizable-in-2025 highlights are probably Superman Vol. 1 #21 (the cover by Fred Ray was reused somewhat recently for 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking by Paul Levitz, which I do own) and The Human Torch Vol. 1 #10 (for those of you who aren’t this kind of nerd, it’s not the same Marvel Human Torch as the Fantastic Four one, this is the original, Jim Hammond android one, and he teams up with Namor in this book for I think the third time overall). You could probably make a case for Mutt & Jeff Vol. 1 #8, too, though their names are better known than the characters at this point.

That’s it for this first time (Only 2,800 words? Won’t someone please think of the children? Seriously, they probably won’t all be this detailed, but it’s the first one, and I’m still feeling things out), but stay tuned, as we switch comic book companies and fast-forward about four and a half years into the future for our next installment, which has a notable first appearance in it!