The Quality of Freedom!

DC snatched up the vintage Quality Comics heroes and more than a bit of fun with them. They became the Freedom Fighters. How they got there is one of my favorite stories in all of comicdom. What we commonly call Quality Comics rose from the ashes of Centaur Publications, and the machinations are complex but not uncommon in an era where hucksters hoped to make a quick buck in a medium which was exploding in popularity. But the main guy behind Quality Comics was a chap known as Busy Arnold and he seems to be a businessman who valued his employees by and large and honored contracts. 

(The First Quality Comic - 1937)

Quality really made its mark when Arnold made a deal with Will Eisner who quit his gig with Jerry Iger and went to work with Arnold. 

(Doll Man -- Quality's First Super-Hero)

It was here that he created such characters as The Ray, Black Condor, Doll Man, Lady Luck, Blackhawk, and his most famous creation of all -- The Spirit. Such was the relationship between Arnold and Eisner that Eisner allowed the creation of Midnight by Lou Fine for Quality in case WWII did something to Spirit sales. 

(Will Eisner)

But nothing lasts forever, and eventually Arnold and Eisner go their separate ways. The comic book industry gets torpedoed by likes of Frederic Wertham, and eventually Quality closes shop in 1956. Much of their material was sold to DC who continued the highly successful Blackhawk series.

(Among the Last Quality Comics - 1956)

Eventually DC tried out Plastic Man as well. Then in the pages of Justice League of America Len Wein, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano brought back the Quality heroes with gusto. 

By the time of Justice League of America #107, the general template of the Justice League and Justice Society crossovers had been set. The two teams would meet and the added value from year to year would be new heroes. This time the heroes of Earths One and Two would meet the Quality heroes on Earth-X. DC had control of these heroes since they had bought out Quality Comics some many years before. Len Wein had wanted the name to be Earth-Swastika, but editor Julie Schwartz kiboshed that idea for obvious reasons.

The story really began with the previous two issues of Justice League in which both Elongated Man and Red Tornado were inducted into the League. The Tornado had survived the end of the last JLofA-JSofA adventure and been stranded on Earth-1 where he was found by his creator T.O.Morrow who promptly gave the android hero a new face and tried to use him to destroy the League which had welcomed the android hero into their ranks. Morrow's plan failed, but the Red Tornado now had the distinction along with Black Canary of being a member of both the League and the Society.

"Crisis On Earth-X" was written by Len Wein and drawn by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano. The comic featured another outstanding Nick Cardy cover. The action begins with both the Justice League and the Justice Society trying to synchronize two transporter devices with which they hope to be able travel between the Earths at any time of the year. Despite Red Tornado's pleading to be allowed to return to his Earth, the League sends Green Arrow, Elongated Man, and Batman into the machine. Likewise, the Society sends Sandman, Dr. Fate, and Superman into their device. But Red Tornado stows away in the device causing the transporters to malfunction and the seven heroes to vanish. They end up on another Earth entirely, one that seems to have Nazis in control. They battle the Nazis who have super-scientific devices and are saved from defeat by the intervention of Uncle Sam, the Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, the Ray, the Black Condor, and Doll Man. Uncle Sam reveals that on this Earth World War II lasted far longer due to the untimely death of the President, and that eventually the Nazis won taking control of the globe. They maintain power with mind control devices to which Uncle Sam and his freedom fighters are immune. Dr. Fate uses his magic to detect the locations of the hidden mind control devices, and the heroes divide into teams and Uncle Sam sends the teams away to destroy the devices. Red Tornado is left behind. Batman, Dr. Fate, Ray, and Human Bomb are sent to Paris where the mind control device seems to be in the Eiffel Tower. The quartet battle their way to the top and find the machine which is sentient and defends itself with specially constructed foes for each of the heroes. The heroes prevail but then are taken over directly by the machine. They are able to destroy the machine though by combining their powers and relying on their reflexes. Meanwhile the heroes of Earths One and Two search for their disappeared comrades.

 

"Thirteen Against the Earth!" under another great Cardy cover is again by the Wein, Dillin and Giordano team. Uncle Sam breaks the fourth wall and brings the reader up to date on the events of the last issue. Superman, Doll Man, Green Arrow, and Phantom Lady arrive in Japan, the former Axis power which was also defeated by the Nazis, to find the second mind-control machine. It is hidden in plain sight and Superman detects it and reveals it. The machine threatens to destroy Japan if the heroes attack it, but Superman is undeterred landing a ferocious punch. Immediately Japan suffers a massive earthquake, and Superman flies off to alleviate the problem. Meanwhile the other heroes work together to get Doll Man inside the machine where he disables it. Elongated Man, Sandman, Black Condor, and Uncle Sam arrive at Mount Rushmore where Hitler's face has been added to the monument. The heroes fight their way to another machine only to discover that it's an illusion. They deduce the machine must be inside the Hitler head and Uncle Sam aided by Elongated Man delivers a massive punch to Hitler's stony ediface destroying the machine. The heroes are them reassembled but discover that the mind control has not diminished despite the destruction of the three machines. In fact, the heroes of Earths One and Two are taken over by the mind control and attack the heroes of Earth-X. Red Tornado detects the source of the mind control and follows the trail into orbit where he finds a huge Nazi satellite "manned" by an android Hitler. It turns out the Nazis had actually been defeated by their own mind control machines some years before and that the machines have ruled Earth-X since. Red Tornado attacks and succeeds in causing the satellite to fall out of orbit and crash into the ocean. He rescues a bit of equipment the machines used to communicate, and the heroes are able to contact Earths One and Two to arrange rescue. The leave Earth-X free of its oppressors and they leave behind some truly quality freedom fighters.

The Freedom Fighters proved to be pretty popular and even got their own series several years later. It was a quirky series and brought the heroes to Earth-1 and made them fugitives, an attempt I guess to recreate their underground guerrilla warrior role from the crossover. I enjoyed it, but after a few years the series was cancelled. This crossover itself is one of my absolute faves. The artwork by Dillin and Giordano is outstanding, with Giordano giving Dillin's storytelling some real drama. In the years before internet and archives and whatnot, getting to see these vintage heroes was an awesome treat. While I adore the modern era with access to old comics easy to get hold of, part of me yearns for those sweet days when such glimpses were exceedingly precious because they were so rare. 

The Freedom Fighters went on to get their own series, one which lasted a few years and was caught up in the end in DC's notorious implosion. Here's a cover gallery. 

The book might have died, but there was no killing these Quality characters. 

A few years later Roy Thomas developed an origin story of sorts for the Freedom Fighters in the pages of All-Star Squadron. This comic was Roy's attempt to organize and to some extent sanitize DC's often chaotic Golden Age era. 

Alas, his hard work was largely undone by Crisis on Infinite Earths. The arrival of Harbinger was the end of classic DC take on those vintage Quality heroes. 

Look for more posts on the Quality heroes as July rumbles along. For more about these comics, I highly recommend Twomorrow's Quality Companion. (See the cover at the top of this post.) It has a wide array of features and traces the rise and fall of the company and its many talents. It even includes many full-color comic stories from Quality's heyday. 

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Patriotic Heroes!

With the vital help of my daughters we've been cleaning out my garage. It's a detached affair with two car bays, both of which have been jammed with sundry debris for nearly a decade now. When my wife and I first moved into this house I vowed that I'd keep at least one bay open for an actual car and for a few years I succeeded, but then the vagaries of life meant that stuff from homes and classrooms needed immediate shifting and the garage became the depository. So we finally at last buckled down and in three hard days (plus a large part of another) we moved it on, either to the dump or to sundry charities or used book shops. It was a Herculean task, not unlike the Augean Stables, but we did it and now we can smile with that burden gone. But we did keep a lot of it too, and one thing of value I uncovered was an unblemished version of the classic Uncle Sam poster above by Montgomery Flagg. 

That iconic image of Uncle Sam was created to inspired potential soldiers for World War I but it has become timeless. Comic books are a product of World War II, though of course they pre-date that war. But it was the war which made them an ingrained part of American culture and not just reading for kids. Comics became an important propaganda vehicle and were used directly and indirectly by the government to inspire folks to give their all to the war effort. Superheroes galore decked themselves out in the red, white and blue as chronicled in Craig Yoe's Super Patriotic Heroes tome. Over twenty stories about all sorts of heroes from famous ones like The Shield and Uncle Sam himself to more obscure ones like Captain Freedom, Super-American and The Flag. There are several woman who don the colors such as Pat Patriot, Miss Victory and USA The Spirit of Old Glory. 

The villains were readymade as well with Uncle Adolph topping the roster of baddies along with his co-conspirators Mussolini and Hirohito. Real Nazis like Himmler and Goering as well as made up ones like Captain Nazi and The Hun. These were evil folk who deserved to be killed or brought to heel and ultimately to justice for crimes which devour the very soul. Take That Adolph from Fantagraphics is a fun book filled with comic book covers from the era which showcase just how immersed in the war comic books were along with the rest of society. We have long been told now that this was the "Best Generation" and that's for good reason. 

But such musings get me wondering. In our modern time, our nation is rarely called upon to wage all-out war in the same way that the citizens of World War II were required to. The American war machine has become a permanent fixture and crucial part of the American economy. It has also become ever more sophisticated where now wars are fought with a minimum of manpower and even remotely from the relative safety of our own shores. Wars are fought in our name which we are barely aware of and not only are we not required to give our all to the war effort, we are actively encouraged to go about our business as if things were normal. And sadly maybe constant war has become normal, waged at such a low temperature that we barely feel its heat. 

So we have been conditioned such that when a true national emergency erupts such as the appearance of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Americans feel all too comfortable debating the very truth of it and when they are given an opportunity to protect themselves from it choose to find an excuse not to do so despite the benefit to the general welfare. I've recently been watching Wartime Farm, a British show that attempts to recreate in some small sense what it was like to live and work on a farm during World War II in Britain. It's the latest in a series of these shows that have focused various historical eras such as the Tudor period, the Victorian age, and the Edwardian era. But in the Wartime show there is a single mindedness to the show and to the mission of farmers in that time to sacrifice all to feed the people. Much was asked and much was demanded and while I'm sure there were struggles, it was also a time when much was delivered. They were after all the "Grestest Generation". Would that we could live up to their example. 

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Good Old Uncle Sam!

The Motto Of Uncle Sam

Hark! Hear the war-cry sounding,
It is Uncle Sam.
Hark! Hear the bugle calling
To arms ev’ry man.
Fight for your loved ones and country,
That freedom and peace shall reign,
Fight for the great God who made you,
Is the motto of Uncle Sam.

Copyright 1917, by Mabel Beatrice Baker
















This iconic figure has been used by uncounted people over the decades to communicate a host of messages -- some positive, some negative. He's been used to sell product and move the masses. But there's no denying that when it comes to the United States brand, good old Uncle Sam is the face many see!

See this link for more history about Uncle Sam and many more images of Uncle Sam.

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