| A comment on a recent episode of Wahoo! A Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos Podcast got me thinking about Nazis.
On Wahoo!, hosts Brian and Dion discuss Sgt. Fury stories taking place during World War II, but published in the 1960s, long after the end of the war. But comics had been popular for decades before then, with Superman’s debut, generally considered the beginning of the comics industry as we know it today, coming in 1938.
So as the war in Europe began heating up, what was comic books’ response? Judging by the covers, DC Comics and Marvel Comics took very different approaches to the war.
Marvel came out swinging as early as MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #4 (cover date February 1940), which featured one of their top heroes at the time, the Sub-Mariner, plowing through a trio of Nazi seamen.
The Submariner and Marvel’s other headlining hero, the Human Torch, continued to occasionally chop down Nazi forces on covers every few months for the next year. Then in 1941, Marvel debuted their big gun as Captain America hit the scene like a sock to Hitler’s jaw — literally (or at least visually!) on the cover to CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1 (cover date March 1941).
And with the Star-Spangled Avenger leading the way, the proverbial floodgates were opened. Until the end of the war, to not see one of Marvel’s super-heroes taking on Nazi, SS or Axis troops on a cover seems to be the rarity.
But over at DC Comics, it was a very different story.
There certainly was no shortage of pro-America covers and those promoting the purchase of war bonds and stamps. A smattering of books even featured Superman or other heroes fighting back generic and non-descript armies. But it wasn’t until more than a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that the specific enemy in that war was shown with ACTION COMICS #58 (cover date March 1943) and the infamous and unfortunate “slap a Jap” cover.
The next month, things spread a bit farther across the line with four covers (WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #9, STAR SPANGLED COMICS #19, BOY COMMANDOS #2 AND ACTION COMICS #59) directly addressing the Axis threat.
But afterward, things again quieted down. Through Japan’s formal surrender in the fall of 1945, covers occasionally addressed the war effort, encouraged purchasing war bonds and even featured heroes taking on Axis forces. But, such covers were mainly found on issues of titles featuring Superman (SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS) or Jack Kirby and Joe Simon’s Commandos (STAR SPANGLED COMICS and their own self-titled book).
And such covers never came with the frequency or gusto of Marvel. The majority of DC’s war-themed covered focused on supporting the troops and being pro-America, rather than taking down the Nazis and other Axis members.
And that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with either approach, and an in-depth look at the insides of books from both companies might tell yet two more stories. But I find the difference on their covers, at the very least, interesting. And I’m curious why such a difference exists, though we will likely never know.
But if you were a member of the Axis, would you want this coming at you?
Me, neither.
(Special thanks to Mike’s Amazing World for help with this post.)
