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In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover how the end of World War II led to the Justice Society comic book having to shuffle things up.
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and twelfth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first part of this installment’s legends. Click here for the second part of this installment’s legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I’ll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
The whole release schedule of All Star Comics was thrown out of whack by the end of World War II.
STATUS:
True
As you undoubtedly know by now, even BEFORE the United States of America entered World War II, the world of comic books were very much in support of the enemies of Nazi Germany and Japan, with Captain America punching out Hitler on the cover of Captain America Comics #1 a full year before the United States entered the war.
Once the United States was actually IN the war, the comic book world supported the Allies with an impassioned vigor.
This was most prominently showed on the covers of the comic books, which were all very effective uses of propaganda, like this All Star Comics #9 cover showing the Justice Society of America preparing for the war…
Another common piece of propaganda was to show the superheroes celebrating the brave servicemen who were overseas fighting against the enemies of the world, like this All Star Comics #16…
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like Gardner Fox, the main writer of the Justice Society of America feature in All Star Comics, was totally oblivious as to what was going on in the world. In the Summer of 1944, it appeared as though the war in Europe would likely be over soon, but they were thinking maybe early 1946, and because of that, people were already discussing what the United States should do with their foe after the war ended and the story that ultimately appeared in All Star Comics #24, written in August 1944, was designed to be a case to let people know just how bad Germany was…
However, it soon became evident that the war was going to end sooner than expected, so Fox’s story was pushed up to a release in February of 1945 in All Star Comics #24 instead of in June’s All Star Comics #30. The story is amazing, as it truly is just a novel-length story showing how terrible Germany is and how evil they are…
In order to demonstrate the evils of Germany, Fox used his great knowledge of history to have the Justice Society tell stories throughout time showing how evil Germany was, going all the way back to the DARK AGES!
Yes, the actions of what would become Germany in the Dark Ages was actually used by Fox as justification for why nothing that happened to Germany in the war (or after the war) was bad enough for it.
However, while everyone knew that the war in Europe was going to likely end at SOME point soon, the war in Japan was a whole other story. You see, before the United States dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese were planning to defend their island nation small island by small island. That was the understanding of the American people in 1945, so Fox wrote a similar version of the Germany story for Japan, as well, with it scheduled to run in the August 1946 issue of All Star Comics (one issue after the Germany one), but obviously, things changed dramatically when the war ended in August 1945, and so Fox’s “The Emperors of Japan” was never actually published.
I honestly doubt the pages for the story even exist anymore (if it was even drawn, as Fox wrote the story for the comic in July 1945, which we know from Fox’s notes, which he used to let Jerry Bails know this information decades ago), so I don’t know how much would have even been drawn by the time the war ended in August of 1945. Thanks to Roy Thomas, who covered the situation in The All Star Companion, Volume 1.
CHECK OUT A MOVIE LEGENDS REVEALED!
In the latest Movie Legends Revealed – Learn the secret origin of the infamous elevator scene in Earthquake, likely the worst special effect ever used in a blockbuster film!
MORE LEGENDS STUFF!
OK, that’s it for this installment!
Thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo, which I don’t even actually anymore, but I used it for years and you still see it when you see my old columns, so it’s fair enough to still thank him, I think.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well! Also, if you have a correction or a comment, feel free to also e-mail me. CBR sometimes e-mails me with e-mails they get about CBLR and that’s fair enough, but the quickest way to get a correction through is to just e-mail me directly, honest. I don’t mind corrections. Always best to get things accurate!
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See you next time!
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