Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Three Coins in the Pushcart"

Sooner or later, every hero has to battle a criminal imitator.....

....out to discredit him, but not usually three of them at once!

Note: There are a couple of pop culture references you should be aware of in order to better understand this tale from Prize's Fighting American V2N1 (1955)...

The title is based on the title of a then-popular novel/movie Three Coins in the Fountain.
(There are no other similarities)
"Gorgeous Georgia" is a riff on then-popular professional wrestler "Gorgeous George", 
(Again, the only similarity was the name.)
If you believe the story seems a bit "off", you'd be right, since the script wasn't by Joe Simon or Jack Kirby, but Carl Wessler, and the art (over Kirby layouts) was by John Prentice!

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Poison Ivan and Hotski Trotski"

Even though it's almost Flag Day...
...patriotic super-heroes don't take a holiday from Russkie-smashing!
They just keep going, like muscular Energizer Bunnies!
(BTW, Jack Kirby penciled and inked the cover, a rarity...even in the 1950s!
And the cover spells villain Hotski Trotski's name as "Hotsky"! )

This cover-featured tale from Prize's Fighting American #3 (1954), features the full-on satirical style the series became famous for!

As with almost all the Simon & Kirby Studio work for Prize, it's hard to tell where Jack leaves off and Joe begins...and vice versa!
One of the complications when two creatives who are both writer/artists collaborate, I suppose...

MORE RUSSKIE-SMASHING FUN NEXT MONDAY!

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Operation Wolf!"

It's obvious Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were having fun with their "Cold War Captain America"...

...when you see the almost Chester Gould/Dick Tracy-style names, usually involving bad puns, they came up with for villains!

This cover feature by Simon and Kirby from Prize's Fighting American #4 (1954) is almost "camp" the way the Batman TV series was...deadpan heroes surrounded by a totally-insane world!
Trivia: inept spymasters Rimsky and Korsakoff are based on the name of Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose most famous work (to Western audiences) is "Flight of the Bumblebee" (used as written for the theme for radio's The Green Hornet, and updated many times since, including for the 1966 Green Hornet TV series!)
Though "Rhode Island Red" is meant here to indicate an American traitor working for the Russkies, it's actually the name of a breed of chicken!

MORE RUSSKIE-SMASHING FUN NEXT MONDAY!

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Super-Khakalovitch"

Russkies are not only sinister, cruel and evil...
...but they apparently really (literally) stink!
(BTW, I have no idea if the Cyrillic translations above are accurate or not!)

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did a mash-up on the writing and illustrating in this tale from Prize's Fighting American #6 (1955), literally scripting, pencilling and inking different panels as they went!

Trivia: "Martha Hurry" is a spoof of Arthur Murray, who ran a successful chain of ballroom dance studios which continue to this day!

Murray himself passed away in 1991.

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN and SPEEDBOY "Sneak of Araby"

Let's start off this section of the Russkie-Smasher blogathon with a volatile combination....

...Russkies and Middle Eastern oil!

Produced by the legendary team of Simon & Kirby, exactly who did what on this opening tale from Prize's Fighting American #7 (1955) is somewhat muddled as both Jack Kirby and Joe Simon tended to do everything (scripting/penciling/inking) together as they went!

Trivia: Curiously, the previous issue featured a cover with this plot concept (Russkies and Middle Eastern oil)...

...but with different Arab characters, both in name and appearance, none of whom appeared in that issue!

Russkie-Smashers FIGHTING AMERICAN "Hero Who Laughed at Himself"

Due to the Dreaded Deadline Doom (as Marvel editors used to say in the 1970s) on a paid assignment...

...we were unable to prep the story scheduled for today!

Luckily, we had already prepared a never-reprinted text feature from Harvey's Fighting American V3N1 (1966) about the Fighting American and SpeedBoy, which was scheduled for use later in this blogathon.

Note: the hero mentions they had been "on a secret government assignment"...which lasted a decade!

(The previous issue was in 1955!)

BTW, since this text feature conveniently-synopsized the character's origin, we're going to save the actual origin tale for last (as we did with The Avenger) and jump next week into the insane action with Russkies trying to steal Middle-Eastern oil in "Sneak of Araby".

Never has kicking Russkie asses been so much sheer fun!

Reading Room: AMERICAN EAGLE "Whirlwind of Battling Justice"

Besides Captain America, there were a number of chemically-enhanced super-patriots...

...including this multi-powered hero who debuted in Nedor's America's Best Comics #2 (1942)!

Script for the origin tale by Richard Hughes, art by Kin Platt.
America's Best Comics featured already-existing characters from other titles.
American Eagle is one of only five characters to debut there during its' 31-issue run.
The American Eagle and Eaglet (Bud Pierce's eventual costumed identity) became semi-regular features in both America's Best Comics and Exciting Comics (where American Eagle rotated cover appearances with other strips) and made their final Golden Age appearance in Fighting Yank #18 (1946).

Both Alan Moore's America's Best Comics (no relation to the Golden Age comic book) and Dynamite Entertainment's Project SuperPowers have recently-revived the character in startlingly-different plotlines.

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