Nazi-Punchers PAT PARKER: WAR NURSE ""Disease from the Depths"

Few non-superpowered World War II heroines had as active a career as...

 ...who went through three different incarnations during the conflict!

Introduced in Harvey's Speed Comics #13, British nurse Patricia Parker kicked the butts of spies, saboteurs, and medical black marketers in plainclothes for two issues before donning her costume and identity at the end of this never-reprinted story from Speed #15 (1942).

She was as proficient at Nazi-clobbering in costume as without one.

You'll note Pat didn't need a guy to assist her.

But, as of Speed Comics #23, she teamed up with several women from other countries (China, Russia, and America) to form the Girl Commandos, a distaff version of the multi-national Blackhawks...

...and dropped the "War Nurse" identity for the remainder of her run!
Note: If the art seems a tad un-detailed, even for a Golden Age comic, that's because the book wasn't normal sized (7.75" x 10.5"), but the smaller digest magazine-size (4" x 6.75")!
We just ran it at the same size as regular comics on this blog for your viewing ease!

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CoronaVirus Comics PLASTIC MAN "Fight Against Germ Warfare!"

Perhaps the least-likely superhero to deal with either the Korean War or biological warfare...

...was the usually light-hearted Ductile Detective, Plastic Man!

As you can see, this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Plastic Man #38 (1952) is a loooong way from his usual surreal antics.

After World War II, while most surviving superheroes were going from serious to light-hearted, Quality's characters took a dive into the Dark Side of the pool, following whatever trend was popular at the moment!

Monsters (including vampires, zombies, and werewolves), Korean/Russkie/Chinese Communists, and aliens from outer space became their primary opponents!

For other characters like Blackhawk and Kid Eternity, it wasn't much of a transition since they had battled fairly realistic Nazis and Japanese both on the battlefield and on the homefront, but the usually-fun Plas went through a particularly-jarring change as writer/artist Jack Cole departed his creation early in 1950!

The decidedly non-humorous trend continued until Plas was laid to rest in 1956.

Though DC bought up the Quality Comics line that year, the only titles they continued were Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs and the short-lived Robin Hood Tales.

Plas languished without even a reprint until he was revived in 1966 in all-new stories in a short-lived series!

(Note: around the same time, IW/Super Comics reprinted several issues of Plas's Golden Age book since they had purchased the actual printing plates from a facility where they had been abandoned by Quality.

The timing appears to have been a coincidence.)

Since then, he's been revived and revamped several times under a variety of creatives including Kyle Baker and Phil Foglio, and eventually incorporated into the DC mainstream universe.

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