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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Nazi-Punchers YANKEE COMICS "Scarlet Sentry in 'Origin' "

He's An All-American Guy...Who Donned a Canadian Uniform to Punch Nazis!

(To be fair, it was bulletproof!)

It's amazing what you could get by mail-order, even in 1941!

The Scarlet Sentry's never-reprinted premiere, illustrated by Charles Sultan, appeared in Red Seal's Yankee Comics #1 (1941), which was published before America entered World War II due to the Axis attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Interestingly, over half the characters introduced in this issue dealt with obvious or implicit German military personnel, spies, or saboteurs!
Most comic (and pulp magazine) publishers realized war was coming, they juest weren't sure when!
After the invasion of Poland in 1939, they started stacking their character lineups with patriotic heroes and heroines ready to "do their bit" for America!

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Nazi-Punchers STORMY FOSTER: THE GREAT DEFENDER "Castle of Kinga Korman"

Though He Primarily-Fought Japanese Spies and Saboteurs...

...West Coast-based "superhero on a budget" The Great Defender took on anyone who tried to interfere with America's homefront wartime efforts!

Shy timid drug store clerk Stormy Foster would don an outfit of t-shirt, gym shorts, track shoes and cape made out of a tablecloth, replace his glasses with a fake mustache, take a super-vitamin pill that gave him super-strength, speed, and limited invulnerability and jump into battle, as you'll now see...

You'll note that drug store delivery boy Ah Choo doesn't recognize co-worker Stormy as The Great Defender.

Either the "replace glasses with mustache" disguise is better than I thought or the writers of this never-reprinted story illustrated by Max Elkan from Quality's Hit Comics #21 (1942) just didn't care.
Stormy's strip ran in Hit Comics from 18 to 34 (1944).
He fought Nazis several more times before the series ended.
He's never been reprinted or revived in new material since!

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Nazi-Punchers LIBERTY SCOUTS "The Sentinel: Who He Is and How He Came to Be!"

One of the Weirder Patriotic Nazi-Punching Characters of the Golden Age is This Guy...

...created from whole cloth by the Spirit of America herself!

This never-reprinted, pre-Pearl Harbor tale from Centaur's Liberty Scouts #3 (1941), illustrated by George Wilson, was one of many showing Americans were clearly worried about the Axis pulling us into the already-ongoing World War II.

A number of these new patriotic defenders of the USA were typical American citizens either possessed by, or given powers by, mystic entities embodying some aspect of America.
But this being (and Uncle Sam, who apparently was "The American Spirit" in physical form) were created out of thin air, without a human intermediary.
Unlike Uncle Sam, who's had a long existence in comics, from the Golden Age to the present via Quality Comics & DC Comics, The Sentinel made only three appearances before being drawn back into the ether!
Even when other characters from the Centaur Comics line like The Arrow, Man of War, and even The Ferret, were revived by Malibu Comics in the late 1980s, The Sentinel was nowhere to be found!
Note: the George Wilson who illustrated this comic story is not painter George Wilson who did hundreds of cover paintings for Dell and Gold Key comics as well as paperbacks featuring sci-fi/fantasy and super-heroes from the 1950s to the 1980s!
George Homer Wilson started out as a pulp magazine illustrator doing both cover paintings and pen and ink interior illustrations before adding comic books to his already-busy schedule from 1940 thru 1942!

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Third Reich Terrors SUPER-MYSTERY COMICS "Paul Revere Jr in 'Menace of the Marauding WereWolf!' "

He's a Kid Named Paul Revere Jr who hangs out with Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry!

...so you know he's gonna be running around looking for Enemies of America to battle during the dark days of World War II!

Wow!

They certainly wound up this story fast!

I suspect there's at least a full page cut from this tale, including the whole battle against the "werewolf".

The next-to last panel with its' huge word balloon certainly ain't normal for any comic!  

As it is, the empty space at the bottom of the final page here originally-featured the Statement of Ownership with the circulation figures for the year...which usually takes up half a page!

(It was barely legible, so I omitted it!)

You may well ask, who's responsible for this fascinating, never-reprinted, mess of a story from Ace's Super-Mystery Comics V3N3 (1943)?

The writer is, sadly, unknown, but the artist (who did both pencils and inks) trying to emulate Golden Age Jack Kirby is none other than future legend Harvey Kurtzman!

Hey, ya gotta start somewhere!

In fact, Harvey drew this and two other features (Lash Lighting, and Mr Risk) along with the cover!

And this was his second published comic!

Good thing he gave up trying to mimic The King and go his own stylistic way!

The Paul Revere Jr strip had a fourteen-story run beginning in 1942 in Ace's Banner Comics, which became Captain Courageous Comics, then got cancelled!

He moved over to Super-Mystery Comics, where he remained until mid-1945, when he ended his term of service, never to be seen again!

Next Week:
The Golem Returns...in the 1970s, battling Nazis alongside a one-shot super-hero in that character's third issue!
Confused?
Be here next Monday to see how it actually does make sense!

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Second Assignment: Track Down the Baby Buzz Bombs"

As you may have noticed when we presented Fighting American's origin last week...

...unlike Simon and Kirby's first super-patriot, Captain America, he didn't have a sidekick from the first story onward!

Nope, this kid had to earn the job...

While the costume has a similar look (and color scheme) to Bucky's, at least his costumed identity isn't his real name (as Bucky's was)!

But "Speedboy"?

Really?
Do we blame Joe or Jack for that one?
This tale from Prize's Fighting American #1 (1954) concludes our presentation of this patriotic pair...for now.
While the duo had a number of other adventures, those involved other Communists like Chinese and North Koreans, as well as gangsters...and even aliens, so they don't fall under the "Russkie Smasher" category.
But fear not!
Beginning next week, we'll be rotating several other 1950s heroes' anti-Soviet exploits, including one of this summer's breakout-hit movie characters!
Which one?

You'll have to drop by each week to find out!
(Sneaky little devils, ain't we?)