Action Comics - Tex Thompson/Mr. America/Fat Man/Americommando!

The last of the costumed super heroes in Golden Age Action Comics for National, had a long and veried career. Appearing from the git go as one of a number of non-costumed adventure features in the comic as his alter ego "Tex Thompson", when the super hero boom hit, he suddenl dyed his blonde hair black, slapped on a patriotic red, white, and blue costume and became Mr. America!

Battling crime in costume with confidant and friend Bob Daley just wasn't enough to get readers interest though, and in 1941 a re-tooling of the feature came as Mr. America fashioned his cape into a flying carpet (I know, smacks of desperation...but hey...they were all flying by the seat of their pants back then, so why not by their capes) and to add more color to the feature, Bob Daley fashioned a costume for himselfand beame..."Fat Man"!

When America entered WWII, a re-tooling again took place as the dynamic duo of Mr. America and Fat Man became for a few issues, "The Americommandos" to add a little gung ho to the strip, and shortly after it took a more serious (at least attempted) tone and Fat Man was dropped, Mr. America actually (unlike other costumed heroes of the day) went behind enemy lines in Europe and became the singular "Americommando"!!!

Here's a story of the strip from mid-way of all that developement, issue #42 of Action Comics from 1941 and the story wherein Mr. America fashions his cape into a flying carpet, and Bob Daley puts a lamp shade on his head. Created by Ken Fitch and Bernard Bailey here's...

You can't blame them for trying kids, they were ALL doing it.

There as magic to these anthology comics. For one thin dime, you could get 64 (cout 'em!( 64 pages cram packed with as many colorfully costumed super hero fighting for the right as you could hope for. Each title had it's own roster. Each title had it's followers, you can bet. They didn't sell a million and a half issues a month by doing it wrong!

Superman, The Vigilante, Zatara the Magician, Mr. America/The Americommando and Fat Man! The heroes of the Golden Age of Action Comics!

Talk to you soon.

Action Comics - The Vigilante!

A great way to get a handle on the history of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes is to somehow wrap your head around the literally hundreds of said Super Heroes sprang out of that flash of heroic deeds from 1938-1946. It's dang near impossible, but I'm going to do my best to touch on 'em ALL.

Comics of those formative years were very different from comics of today. Today a new character comes along and immediately gets his or her own title, but in those first days of no one knowing for sure what this was all about, publishers put outanthology books. 64 pulse-pounding pages of 4 color action and adventure for one thin dime! And in each of these 64 page tombs were close to a dozen characters, all searching for an audience.

One such book is still being published to this day, Nationals own "Action Comics" whose issue #1 touted the first appearance of Superman and brought forth this well-spring of super heroes. But while super heroes would eventually lord over nearly all comic book content, at first not all were costumed folk. Action itself carried humor and adventure by this wide variety of characters...


But the sheer garishness of the medium (I use garish in it's most positive sense here) begs for colorful costumes, and Action wouldn't be left behind. I've already touched on Superman and Zatara, and yes, "The Black Pirate" DID make his debut in Action, but he didn't don a costume till he switched titles. The third costumed vigilante to grace it's pages was, just that..."The Vigilante"!

It was a big time for Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, the "Singin' Cowboy" ruled at the Saturday afternoon matinee and on the radio airwaves...so why not in comics too? Indeed.

Created by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin, here's Vigilante's origin from his very first appearance in Action Comics #42 from 1941...dig in, kiddoes!

Talk to you soon.