The All-Winners Squad!

This is one for the bucket list. With the purchase of the Marvel Masterwork volume above, I've fulfilled a longtime promise to myself. Since I first started reading and collecting comics, I've wanted to have handy readable copies of the All-Winners Squad canon, all two issues of it. I've talked about the impact of the All-Winners Squad on me before. All I can say is that I was mesmerized by this vintage team of heroes, even goofy blokes like The Whizzer. The team appeared in just two comics in their original form, issues nineteen and twenty-one of a comic called All Winners Comics. Before that the book had featured only single hero adventures, but this was something fresh, a team up of these classic characters, something DC had done quite successfully with the Justice Society of America long before.

In the first adventure they face ISBISA in the adventure called "The Crimes of the Century" written by Bill Finger. Finger was a writer who received virtually no credit for his contributions to comics during his career. That has been somewhat rectified by the creation of the Bill Finger Award given to top writers in the comics field at every Comi-Con since 2003. The art was by a who's who of the Timely Bullpen led by penciler Al Avison. 

In the second appearance they dealt with "The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf" battling Future Man and his ally Madame Death. This one was written by Otto Binder. Binder was a winner of the Bill Finger Award in 2010. Again a gaggle of artists handle the duties, this time behind Syd Shores. 

The first story was reprinted in the tenth issue of Fantasy Masterpieces.

The second adventure was reprinted in two parts in the seventeenth and eighteenth issues Marvel Super-Heroes, but with no true cover advertising.

Nearly twenty-five years ago Marvel reprinted the first adventure in full in a grand one-shot comic. Sadly, sales did not apparently justify a second issue reprinting for the first time under a single cover the second and final original All-Winners Squad adventure.

Now at long last I have them both in full, in an expensive but to me priceless tome. Sadly it wasn't discounted, but I wasn't going to walk away from this.  Sure it's pure nostalgia that drives me to these, but it's a warm experience to finally at long last have these vintage yarns in a sturdy permanent format.

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All-Winning Recreation!

I am a die-hard All-Winners Squad fan from the moment I ran across their second adventure reprinted in the pages of Marvel Super-Heroes. Timely Big Three of Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America to anchor a team of heroes back when such things were exceedingly rare indeed. Sadly the Squad only had a few missions, but those few left many a fanboy, like yours truly, hungry for more.

Bill Black must've been one of that number too. Here he recreates the work of Syd Shores from the cover  of All-Winners Comics #21. It's a pleasure to see him not attempt to update the characters but attempt to truly represent what was on the newsstands so many decades before.

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The All-Winners Squad!

This is one for the bucket list. With the purchase of the Marvel Masterwork volume above, I've fulfilled a longtime promise to myself. Since I first started reading and collecting comics, I've wanted to have handy readable copies of the All-Winners Squad canon, all two issues of it. I've talked about the impact of the All-Winners Squad on me before. All I can say is that I was mesmerized by this vintage team of heroes, even goofy blokes like The Whizzer. The team appeared in just two comics in their original form, issues nineteen and twenty-one of a comic called All Winners Comics. Before that the book had featured only single hero adventures, but this was something fresh, a team up of these classic characters, something DC had done quite successfully with the Justice Society of America long before.

In the first adventure they face ISBISA in the adventure called "The Crimes of the Century" written by Bill Finger. Finger was a writer who received virtually no credit for his contributions to comics during his career. That has been somewhat rectified by the creation of the Bill Finger Award given to top writers in the comics field at every Comi-Con since 2003. The art was by a who's who of the Timely Bullpen led by penciler Al Avison. 

In the second appearance they dealt with "The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf" battling Future Man and his ally Madame Death. This one was written by Otto Binder. Binder was a winner of the Bill Finger Award in 2010. Again a gaggle of artists handle the duties, this time behind Syd Shores. 

The first story was reprinted in the tenth issue of Fantasy Masterpieces.

The second adventure was reprinted in two parts in the seventeenth and eighteenth issues Marvel Super-Heroes, but with no true cover advertising.

Nearly fifteen years ago Marvel reprinted the first adventure in full in a grand one-shot comic. Sadly sales did not apparently justify a second issue reprinting for the first time under a single cover the second and final original All-Winners Squad adventure.

Now at long last I have them both in full, in an expensive but to me priceless tome. Sadly it wasn't discounted, but I wasn't going to walk away from this.  Sure it's pure nostalgia that drives me to these, but it's a warm experience to finally at long last have these vintage yarns in a sturdy permanent format.

I consider it a little Valentine's Day present my wife has allowed me to buy for myself. Tomorrow's Valentine's Day and it should a great day to tell her she did that. I hope she loves me. 

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The All-Winners Squad - "Old Soldiers Never Die!"

I've long wanted to see more All-Winners Squad stories. And during the Bronze Age we got 'em. Sort of. Roy Thomas inspired by the Golden Age stories of his youth, convinced Stan Lee that new stories about Captain America, Sub-Mariner, and the Human Torch would be a winner. Thus was born The Invaders, a WWII-based team of heroes. These were almost new All-Winners Squad stories, but not quite.

In a beauty of whimsy (much decried by Golden Age purists) Roy added and changed the stories of the Golden Age, revising histories and back stories to suit his immediate storytelling purposes. These revisions were to "solve" problems he saw such as the presence of Captain America in Golden Age adventures after the end of WWII, despite the rebirth story from The Avengers #4 which suggested he'd been in suspended animation since just before the end of the war.


So along came What If? #4, the one What If story in mainstream continuity and we learn that The Spirit of '76 had filled in for Cap undercover during the post-war period. It was this "Cap" who fought ISBISA with the other All-Winners in All Winners #19. But after that adventure and before the conflict with Future Man and Madame Death, we learned of an unrecorded All-Winners Squad adventure against Adam-II, an android who wanted to murder a young fellow by the name of Kennedy.


During this adventure the Spirit of 76 died, and was replaced himself by Jeff Mace, the Patriot.




The Patriot had resurfaced some years before as leader of the Liberty Legion (a gang of Timely heroes including Whizzer, Miss America, Jack Frost, Thin Man, Blue Diamond, and Red Raven). So he was a good choice to take over the mantle of America's primary patriotic hero. It was the Patriot-Cap who battled Future Man and Madame Death as recorded in the pages of All-Winners #21.

And that's been the story for several decades now, until recently.


A few years back during Marvel's 70th anniversary celebration they published a bundle of one-shots featuring Golden Age heroes. I got them mostly for the reprints and tucked these books away, meaning to read them but never really getting around to it. Then while researching the All-Winners Squad for these posts this week, I learned that the story of Future Man was indeed continued in a manner of speaking in the All Winners one-shot issue.

I dug into the collection and found it pretty quickly. A reading of the story titled "Old Soldiers Never Die..." revealed that Karl Kesel's take on the All-Winners Squad had that post-Modern ironic quasi-realism that makes much of modern comics painful for me to read. It wasn't a bad story, but the Patriot as Cap was presented as a rather weak but eager type, filled with a self-conscious dread of filling the shoes of the "Living Legend".

It's a take on the character, but not one that seemed to correspond with the Jeff Mace I remembered. But like Roy before him, Kessel is free as a writer to do with the characters as he chooses if it makes a good story. And it does, mostly.

It seems the adventure in All-Winners #19 as written by Otto Binder is only the comics version of the real events. Miss America comes across as the most savvy of the heroes on the team and she has made a deal with comic book publishers to use their likenesses and make the team seem more heroic.

So when Jeff Mace as Cap throws his shield into Future Man's equipment and sends the villain and Madame Death into the past, it was an accident. When "Otto Binder" got the tale, he revised it to make Cap seem more purposeful and intentional as he sent the bad guys into the ether.



As a comparison of these panels by artist Steve Uy suggest, the "heroism" seems to be shown to be a fluke. That's not the way I like it myself, in a story of this sort.


Above is the way it was back in 1946, and that's a pretty good way to do it.

But regardless of my opinion on that point, the upshot of this one-shot was just this past year a four-part mini series by Kesel featuring the Jeff Mace Captain America and offering an overview of his tenure in the role. Here's a link to an interview with Kesel on the project.





As it turns out this limited (which I knew nothing of before my research this week) is coming out in trade next week. Here's the description of the book.

I'm going to probably get this, even though I have not bought a "new" comic story in months, because it so closely cleaves to the story I've been presenting the last week or so. The coincidence seems too choice to ignore. Also the volume has a nice reprint of What If? #4, my favorite issue of that run and arguably my favorite Invaders story overall.

I'm sure I'll have more to say when I get around to reading this volume. But for now...

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The All-Winners Squad - Part 7 "War Between The Worlds!"

Here at last is the concluding chapter of the sprawling Golden Age Timely tale "The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf" from All-Winners #21. Captain America, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, Toro, Whizzer, and Miss America have saved the continents of Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and North America from the specific threats from Future Man and Madame Death. Now they join forces as the assembled "All-Winners Squad" to put an end to the menace once and for all.

The finale was written as always by Otto Binder and drawn this time by Vince Alascia and Al Avison. Prepare for the "War Between the Worlds".





I hope that was fun. As I've said before, this is arguably my favorite Golden Age story and that has a lot to do with it being among my very first ones no doubt. But it's all here in this one, the wild and varied heroes, the globe-spanning scale of the threat, and the ending that shows that in fiction at least there is a happy ending.

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The All-Winners Squad - Part 6 "Flames Of Fury!"

The epic struggle to solve "The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf" approaches its climax and comes to the homeland.


In the sixth chapter, The Human Torch and Toro strive to protect North America from the murderous schemes of the Future Man and his heinous partner Madame Death.

This chapter is again written by Otto Binder with art chores by Syd Shores and Al Gabriele.









Be sure to come back next time for the final chapter when the All-Winners Squad members unite to wage the "War Between the Worlds".

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