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This collection represents a huge change for Captain America and Timely Comics in general, as Cap creators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon left the company for DC in between issues #’s 10 and 11. It was the first time Jack left Timely/Marvel for DC, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. This is also a very important volume for the timing of its release. If you look at the cover date of Cap #9, it is December 1941. For readers who don’t know why that is important, that was the month and year that the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor (December 7th to be exact) that entered them into World War II. The war had been raging since September of 1939 and the US had been just observers to this point. The comics of the time still made mention of Hitler and their characters were always in the midst of the war, at least in their stories, but it was all the more real now with US involvement in the war. Now, the issues in this volume were written before that event but readers at that time felt even more of a connection to Cap when during the time of this collection.
Spoilers Ahead
If you didn’t know, these are anthology style comics, with 6-7 stories, usually 3 of our stars, one prose story, and the remaining stories filled with minor characters like Headline Hunter ( a reporter) and Hurricane (a Flash-like character)
-Captain America Comics #9- Cap battles the White Death (a killer trying to cash in on the family’s will), a mobster who won’t die (because the coroner is crooked), and a killer painter who had a black hand grafted onto his hand that made him kill. The stories were enjoyable, if not a little outdated, especially the last Black Talon story. The other stories were just filler, with Stan Lee writing a story about a gold-hunter getting offed by Indians, Headline Hunter stopping killer Nazi’s, Hurricane stopping a crooked newspaper editor, and Father Time stopping a crazed bomb-maker. I love that they have the cool house-ads for Mystic Comics and Marvel Comics in here, as well as the Sentinels of Liberty newsletters that were in these original comics.
-Captain America Comics #10- Cap and Bucky battle a female Nazi-supporter, fend off against Cap’s abduction by a strange cult, and solve the case of the Ghost Dog. The Ghost Dog story was a full 17-pages long and one I really enjoyed. In other news, Headline Hunter gets an exclusive interview that someone else steals that he steals back, Stan writes a story of a British spy, The Hurricane stops some crooks from stopping a building being built, and Father Time stops a swami from killing important members of the US Armed Forces. The Cap stories really carried this, but the rest were mere filler.
-Captain America Comics #11- This issue marks an incredible departure for the Timely company as Simon and Kirby, creators of Cap, had left the company to head to DC. So, this issue features Cap as done by other creators of the time. The art isn’t up the Simon/Kirby standards and that is the first thing you’ll notice. So Cap and Bucky stop a rogue squad of Nazi’s impersonating as US military, then the duo involve themselves in a Hatfield/McCoy deep-south family feud that has nefarious under-pinnings. We take a break from the Cap stories and get our prose story of an agent tricking some criminals, then Hurricane (and his sidekick) saving a girl, Father Time making sure an election is not fixed by criminals. There’s a weird one-page Do You Know section that seems out of place. Finally, Cap returns to stop a Phantom of the Opera type story of a killer. The Cap stories were generally enjoyable but the quality of Cap stories definitely fell off from the previous two issues in this collection.
-Captain America Comics #12- This edition was a little bit different, as there are only two Cap stories, but both clock in at 20 pages. The first features Cap taking on a master of evil who shrinks his thieves to make it easy to steal things. The second story finds Cap and Bucky saving a South American president from an evil rebel named Rozzo. Notice that both of these stories were nowhere close to having WWII themes in them. I don’t have an answer why that is, though. A new character debuts in our next story, the Imp. Stan created this little guy and the whole thing is like a cartoon character / nursery character with everything done in rhyme. It was a harmless story. Timber!, the prose story deals with loggers and that’s as interesting as I can make it. Father Time and Headline Hunter make appearances, with Hunter stop a Nazi scheme and Time stopping mobsters who are trying to collect some fire insurance by burning their building down.
-The Bottom Line- If anything, this is a really interesting snapshot of two things, the time people reading this lived in with the US entering WWII and the departure from Timely of Simon and Kirby. That alone makes this an interesting collection. The stories don’t really stand on their own, though, as most of the filler was just that, filler and the Cap stories were hit or miss, with more misses coming after Kirby and Simon left. This was a lot of fun for me to read, and I got through this more quickly than I have other Golden Age collections so that is saying something. Historically this is important, so if you’re into the history of comics or comics and world history, this is a great collection. One thing I think is awesome if the inclusion of the in-house ads that were found in these comics, as well as the Sentinels of Liberty newsletter in each. If you’re looking for seminal Cap stories, you need to look elsewhere. Mild recommendation.
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