Heroes vs Dinosaurs CAPTAIN FLASH "Beasts from 1,000,000 BC"

When America's Uranium Supply is Threatened...

...patriotic Captain Flash & Ricky investigate, expecting to find Russkie saboteurs, but not labor management problems...and dinosaurs!
Note: May be NSFW, using stereotypes of natives common to the era, but no more offensive than the portrayal of Tonto in the Lone Ranger.

Penciled (and possibly inked) by Mike Sekowsky, the cover-featured story from Sterling's Captain Flash #3 (1955) really pulls disparate elements out of the hat in a jam-packed six pages!

You may well ask:

Who the heck is Captain Flash???

Right before The Flash was revived in DC's Showcase #4, there were several short-lived attempts to bring back super-heroes, who had all but disappeared by 1949, replaced by horror, western, and romance comics.
One of the better characters debuted in 1954...
Mild-mannered professor Keith Spencer lived in "Atom City" (an obvious surrogate for Los Alamos), somewhere in the SouthWest USA.

Spencer was also Captain Flash, who could set off a "miniature atomic explosion" inside his body by clapping his hands, which made him super-strong, super-fast, and near-invulnerable for brief periods.

Like most heroes, he had a teen sidekick, Ricky Davis, who, like Bucky (Captain America's partner) and Tim (Black Terror's aide) didn't have a secret identity and was referred to as "Ricky" in and out of costume.
As Captain Flash, most of Spencer's time was taken up either dealing with Communist spies trying to steal atomic technology or disasters created when the technology went awry...which happened with alarming frequency!
Art was by veteran Mike Sekowsky, who later became one of Silver Age's most prolific pencilers, working on numerous titles including Justice League of America, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Metal Men,

The series only ran four issues before the publisher, Sterling Comics, went bankrupt in 1955.
Ironically, Captain Flash was the company's best-selling title, showing that superheroes were potentially-viable again!

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Heroes vs Dinosaurs BLACKHAWK "Time-Monsters!"

He Fights Nazis!
He Fights Russkies  (and other Commies)!
And...He Fights Dinosaurs!

He's Blackhawk...and you don't mess with him...or his crew!

Hard to believe this cover-featured tale from DC's Blackhawk #143 (1959) has never been reprinted in some TPB/hardcover collection or another!
But the Dick Dillin/Chuck Cuidera-illustrated story, as they phased our of their post-World War II Commie-smashing period into a "scientific crime-fighting adventurers" era, is a fun piece of science fiction/fantasy.
The only regrettable part is that the scripter is unknown.

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Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Jet Menace!"

Behind This Rather Kool Dick Dillin/Chuck Cuidera Cover...

...(never-reprinted, BTW) lurks a tale (also never-reprinted )of Russkie sabotage and treachery!

Scripted by Robert Bernstein and penciled by Dick Dillin, and inked by Chuck Cuidera, the cover-featured story from Quality's Blackhawk #104 (1956) brings up an interesting,but obviously false, concept: if you have to bail out of a supersonic jet, you're incapable of flying one ever again!
If that was the case, Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and literally all the Blackhawks would've been grounded pretty early in their jet-age careers!
Note: we're doing a Halloween-themed schedule for October, featuring super-heroes vs...

You'll see both well-known characters (and a couple of obscure ones) go up against various not-quite extinct giant lizards in hand-to-claw combat!

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Russkie-Smashers CAPTAIN AMERICA "You Die at Midnight!"

If You Liked Captain America & Bucky Punching Nazis...

...as they did for the past couple of weeks HERE & HERE, you'll love them Smashing Russkies!

This Commie-clobbering lead tale from Atlas' Captain America #77 (1954) was scripted by Don Rico and illustrated (with a splash page assist from Carl Burgos) by John Romita Sr!

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Clobberin' Korean Commies with The Duke! JOHN WAYNE ADVENTURE COMICS "Bridgehead"

You know John Wayne did a Vietnam War movie (Green Berets)...

...but he never did a Korean War flick!

(Jet Pilot is a Cold War movie involving Russkies.

No Koreans or scenes set in Korea.)

Comic books were a different matter...

This never-reprinted tale is from Toby's John Wayne Adventures #15 (1952), penciled by Mel Keefer. (The other credits are unknown)
You'll note that Wayne is referred to as "John Wayne", not "John Wayne as Sgt Stryker" or some other character he played in movies...or a totally-new character!
The conceit of the 31-issue series, John Wayne Adventure Comics, was that Wayne was always himself in the stories, no matter where or when they were set!
Tales ran the gamut from Wayne in the French Foreign Legion to putting out oil-rig fires to big-game hunting in Africa to tracking spies in Hong Kong, with at least one Western-themed story every issue.
Oddly enough, though there are numerous comic adaptations of Wayne's Western movies, and even a comic based on The Conqueror (where he portrayed Genghis Khan), there are no comics adapting any of his war movies!

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Russkie-Smashers Double-Feature CAPTAIN AMERICA and FIGHTING AMERICAN

Wonder why Joe Simon & Jack Kirby created Fighting American?

Because Atlas (Once Timely, later Marvel) didn't ask them to handle this revival of the character they created, so they decided to show how it should be done!
Now., let's look at what inspired S&K to do a new patriotic superhero...

Written by Don Rico and illustrated by John Romita Sr (with a splash panel by Mort Lawrence), this story from Atlas' Young Men #24 (1953) ostensibly continued the adventures of Captain America, Bucky, and The Red Skull from the 1940s.
When Cap was revived in 1964, this (and other 1950s Atlas superhero tales) were considered apocryphal, since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby postulated the Star-Spangled Avenger had been frozen since the end of World War II until he was defrosted in Marvel's The Avengers V1N4 (1964).

But, in 1968, writer Stan Lee, pencilers Larry Lieber and John Romita Sr and inker "Mickey Demeo" (actually Mike Esposito), revealed the 1950s Red Skull was a Russkie imposter who killed CIA agents Richard and Mary Parker (Peter Parker/Spider-Man's parents) in Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 (1968)!

Then, in 1972, writer Steve Englehart and penciler Sal Buscema revived the 1950s Cap and Bucky, showing them to be government-approved replacements for the original Cap and Bucky in Marvel's Captain America and the Falcon #153-156 (1972)...

...thereby bringing their 1950s tales (and, presumably the Sub-Mariner's and Human Torch's 1950s stories) into official continuity!
It also created the concept that others filled-in for Cap and Bucky during that era.
In fact, the "1950s Cap" is actually now considered the fourth official "Captain America", after already-existing patriot-themed heroes The Patriot and Spirit of 76 filled-in during the 1940s after Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were believed to be KIA (Killed in Action)!
Now, let's have a look at Simon & Kirby's reboot of the "Patriotic Super-Hero" concept...

...later known as "Peter Piper's Red Vipers"!

You'll note that Simon & Kirby add an extra layer to the weak-but-valiant-experimental-subject concept by making both scrawny Nelson and crippled brother Johnny physically-helpless before the transformation!
You may note there's no SpeedBoy in this story!
That's because he wasn't introduced until the second tale, which we ran HERE!
Trivia:
This story was renamed "Peter Piper's Red Vipers" when it was re-presented in Harvey's Fighting American V2N1 (1966), modified to fit into a previously-unpublished tale.
As with Captain America's origin, this tale was reworked and re-presented continually, including during the title's seven-issue run at Prize (so that's twice in one year), the Harvey one-shot in 1966, and the various reworkings/updatings at Awesome, DC, and Titan!

Next Week,
We Take a Break from Russkie-Smashing & Nazi-Punching to Celebrate the 250th Anniversary of America with...
...You Really Thought We'd Ruin the Suprise???