Golden age continuity

[dans]

In WOW comics #3, Atom Blake and his father Stuart are captives of a race of gnomes on Mercury in the future, and they convince the gnomes they are the good guys (even though not long ago, a robot build by Stuart went out of control and killed many of them...), and Stuart and Atom vow to help them recapture their city, recently overwhelmed by some human bad guys. The human bad guys of a device called 'the Whispering Death' and they are able to spy on the Blakes and the gnomes via a 'television instrument'. In WOW comics #4, the gnomes have become almost human, and the spy device is now a 'magic crystal'. 

The comic was published quarterly, so the last episode was 3 months ago - I would guess that whoever wrote it didn't review the prior issue. I guess if I read the last one 3 months ago, these issues wouldn't be so striking.

[dans]

The changes in WOW comics from before Pearl Harbor and after Pearl Harbor are striking. In particular, almost all of the heroes that were featured before the war began are gone - Atom Blake, Rick O'Shay, the Hunchback, Jim Dolan, perhaps a couple of others, and have been replaced by Commando Yank, Phantom Eagle, the Voice, and Spooks. The only holdover characters are Mr. Scarlet and Pinky. It was a quarterly book; the January release in 1941 had stories written before Pearl Harbor. It isn't surprising to see major changes - but it is a striking reminder at how different life was before and after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

[redsycorax]

I suppose it's because of the comics market. Before Pearl Harbour, there does seem to have been a large contingent of isolationist opinion that argued that the United States should stay out of the European War and disliked the fact that Roosevelt was supporting Churchill's war effort in the United Kingdom during the early forties. Some of it was earnest pacifism related to revulsion at the horrors of World War I, some of it was extreme left CPUSA opposition to any conflict against the USSR due to the Nazi-Soviet Pact (which evaporated after the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa) and a third faction belonged to straightforward Nazi sympathisers like Father Coughlan, Raymond Pelley and their ilk. Most of that became marginalised after Pearl Harbour and when Nazi Germany declared war against the United States due to its Axis obligations in response. The comics market changed and publishers adapted through changing their publication schedules and content.

[DocQuantum]

Actually the prewar comics are not very isolationist at all once you get into the 1940s. There are so many stories featuring heroes fighting stand-ins for the Axis before Pearl Harbor. There was another rush of stories featuring actual Japanese and Germans as villains after Pearl Harbor, but they were soon replaced by more and more stories that were escapist and fantasy based after the war began in earnest. It’s such a dramatic drop off that by 1943 the stories just start lacking substance in a lot of ways. At the same time, many d the best comic book artists/writers were shipped off to war themselves, leaving a lot of inexperienced creators to do the work, and it shows in the crude quality of the comics published during wartime.

[johnreiter902]

Jun 11, 2024 0:58:29 GMT DocQuantum said:

Actually the prewar comics are not very isolationist at all once you get into the 1940s. There are so many stories featuring heroes fighting stand-ins for the Axis before Pearl Harbor.

I really would like to imagine a world were all those Axis stand ins were the real Axis powers. I feel like WW2 would have been over be 1942 at the latest, since there are so many stories of the heroes stopping pseudo-axis invasions and overthrowing their dictatorships

[redsycorax]

I suppose it's possible that the stand-in Axis countries that fought Golden Age superheroes were led by divergent branches of fascist parties than that within Nazi Germany and its earnestly fascist allies. Communists weren't the only ones that tended to squabble endlessly over minute jots and tiddles within their core philosophies and arcane differences of doctrine. Nazi Germany might have been glad to see those dissident fascist nations routed if it didn't constitute a direct territorial or strategic threat to them. I imagine the Golden Age heroes would have been under strict orders not to undertake cross-border pursuits into Nazi territory. With Japan, it's slightly more difficult, given that its Co-Prosperity Sphere consisted of British (Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong), French (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) and Dutch (Indonesia) colonial possessions. Thailand was the only sovereign state that they managed to conquer. It also had a sense of 'manifest destiny' toward weaker East Asian nations- witness what happened in Korea and Manchuria under their occupation.

Added to which, by 1943, the tide of the war had turned. The Nazis got bogged down in Russia and the Japanese reached their maximum territorial extent in 1942-3. I imagine many people didn't want to read direct reminders of the war, although sometimes, it did pop up in the background.

[redsycorax]

Incidentally, as long as we're on this subject, what do the rest of you think of the new Golden Age Bat-Man: First Knight series? It's very much faithful to the Golden Age/Earth-Two continuity, as well as sharpening the historical and social background in which it takes place. I like the idea, it has to be said.

[DocQuantum]

As long as it's not a woke reimagining, I'd be interested in reading it.

[redsycorax]

In which case, I think you'll going to really like this, Doc. It's more the hardboiled/ film noir ambience of the forties and fifties of the Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler variety, so plenty of unreconstructed social attitudes on display here!