Russkie-Smashers DANGER "Duke Douglas in 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' "

He's the Snazzy Spy we Introduced HERE...

...and now he's returned to rescue a woman from the confines of the Kremlin and...are you ready for this...kill Stalin! 

Whatta guy!

Scripted by Duke's co-creator Ken Fitch and illustrated by Pete Morisi, this never-reprinted tale from Comic Media's Danger #8 (1954) takes a recent historical fact and offers a far different explanation for it!
For the record, according to Marvel, the original Human Torch french-fried Hitler...

...who with his dying breath made sure history would report he commited suicide in Atlas' Young Men #24 (1953).
AFAIK, no comic character has been given credit for killing Benito Mussolini!

Russkie-Smashers MADAM ZERO

Real Name: Unknown
Agency/Organization Affiliation: Unknown

Effectiveness Against Commies: Unmatched!

Debuting in this never-reprinted tale from Fiction House's Fight Comics #82 (1952), Madam Zero fought only Commies (of varying ethnicities) for the entirety of her too-short career!

Note: the stories are told exclusively from George's point-of-view, and considering he runs into her in various locales at varying times by accident, it's obvious that...
1) She doesn't work for the same agency as him.
2) She may, in fact, be a totally-independent operative working outside legal constraints!
3) She's involved in situations and adventures he (and his organization) know nothing about!

Russkie-Smashers DANGER Duke Douglas in "Khyber Incident"

He's a hard-hitting, hard-drinking, hard-loving, Russkie-smashing secret agent...

...who could be played by Daniel Craig (who hadn't been born at the time this tale was told) if there was a Duke Douglas: Secret Agent movie!

Not only is he a Russkie-Smasher, Duke Douglas is a Russkie-Kisser!

What is it about Good Guys and Bad Girls in genre fiction?
Our Hero's premiere tale from Comic Media's Danger #7 (1954) was written by Ken Fitch and illustrated by Don Heck.
Note I emphasized "tale", since he actually premiered on the cover of the previous issue...

...without having an actual story inside the book!

Neither of the stories promoted on the cover feature him!
But every issue after that until the end of the book's run featured two or three stories starring the Agent with a Vest...and you'll be seeing them here!

Russkie Smashers ATOMIC SPY CASES "Operation H.M."

Think we're paranoid about an (unnamed, but obvious) enemy discovering our atomic secrets?

Look at how nutso we were back in the 1950s!

(BTW, the "Based on TRUE Stories" caption is a total lie!)

The lead story from this Avon Comics 1950 one-shot with a Norman (Mars Attacks) Saunders cover exemplifies the "commies under the bed" paranoia of the era! 
With imperialist running dog Putin going Don da Con-level bonkers in Ukraine, perhaps it was, in fact, justified!
Regrettably, neither the writer nor artist(s) are known.

A Twice-Told Tale About Nazis Becoming Russkies...and Being SMASHED Both TImes by Different Heroines!

This is a "twice-told tale"...

...demonstrating how similarly WWII Germans and Cold War Russkies could be portrayed in pop culture!

First, a tale starring a long-forgotten heroine from Elliot's Spitfire Comics #132 (1944)...

Secret agent Spitfire Sanders made only two appearances, in successive issues of Elliot Comics' Spitfire Comics, which despite the high numbering of this issue (#132), only had two issues!
(And this was the first of the two!)
The art on this story about an extremely competent female spy is by journeyman artist Paul Cooper, working for the Iger Studios, who also supplied art to Ajax/Farrell (where the re-worked version appeared several years later) and Fox Comics.
It was scripted by "Rick Shawn", which was likely a pen-name since he's only credited with the two Spitfire Saunders tales!

Now we jump a decade to 1954.

The Nazis have been defeated.

Communism is on the rise.

A comic book publisher needs a story about a superheroine to meet a deadline, so Nazi-Crusher Spitfire Sanders becomes...already-existing Russkie-Smasher Phantom Lady!

Oh, and due to space limitations, the original story has to be cut by a couple of pages...

For this presentation in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #5 (actually #1) from 1954, the brand new (and extremely-restrictive Comics Code also required a reduction in gunplay and use of torture instruments like whips, so a number of panels were reworked...or deleted entirely!

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Phantom Lady

TPB Reprinting the Complete Golden Age Fox Comics Series, Mostly Illustrated by Legendary Good Girl Artist Matt Baker, and with a New Cover by Good Girl Artist Adam Hughes!

WereWolf the SuperHero "Who He Is and How He Came to Be"

The final tale of Dell's WereWolf #3 (1966) was a re-cap of the hero's origin and capabilities...

WereWolf may have been ready, but the Silver Age comics audience wasn't since this was his swan song.
Writer DJ Arneson and artists Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico produced three issues of three different monster-based hero series, and next week we conclude with the last of them...the final issue of Dracula, featuring his gaining a costumed sidekick as well as a cameo from one of the other monster heroes!

Be Here Monday!

Same Dracula Time!

Same Dracula Blog!