414 – Not the Phantom Stranger

In February 1949, Timely (Marvel) debuts Amazing Mysteries comics with issue #32, an odd first issue number. It seems like it picks up numbering from Sub-Mariner, except Sub-Mariner Comics has its final issue (#32) next month. Anyway, in Amazing Mysteries, an anthology of creepy tales, one story features a narrator character named “The Witness” that […]

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363 – Official True Delinquency

Once again, a Timely (Marvel) superhero comics is completely renamed and has its genre changed: “Sub-Mariner Comics” becomes “Official True Crime Cases” with issue #24 (June 1947). Crime stories, like “teen humor” and “funny animal” comics were increasingly popular in the 1940s. The crime comics genre was started with Lev Gleason’s “Crime Does Not Pay” […]

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354 – Namora

in April 1947, the short-lived “Marvel Magazine” cover blurbs have been removed from all of Timely (Marvel) comic books, though it appears that Stan Lee is still in charge as editor. In Marvel Mystery Comics #82 (April 1947), the character of Namora is introduced – a female version of Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Throughout the 1940s, […]

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329 – Sub-Mariner Dysmorphia

Speaking of changing head shapes, I’ve mentioned Namor the Sub-Mariner’s outrageous head shape before, but I feel like Sub-Mariner #21 (September 1946) is peak Namor head dysmorphia. I mean it’s just outrageous and alien: What’s even more interesting is that “Sub-Mariner vs. Green-Out”, the third Sub-Mariner story in the same issue just pages away is […]

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323 – All-Winners Squad

Maybe the reason that Batman had sloppy writing is that Bill Finger was moonlighting for Timely (Marvel) Comics in 1946? Timely introduces their first real superhero team, the All-Winners Squad, in All-Winners Comics #19 (July 1946). The team includes Captain America, Bucky, Miss America, Human Torch, Toro, Namor, and The Whizzer. It’s an interesting mix […]

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293 – The Order of the Blue Flower

By May 1945, Germany had surrendered to the Allies – yet the comic books that came out in July 1945, like Sub-Mariner Comics #17, had been written before that. In this one, Namor takes on the Order of the Blue Flower, a fascist group that looks and talks a lot like the Ku Klux Klan. […]

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285 – Namor the Brutal

Timely Comics continues its trend into gruesome territory. In Marvel Mystery Comics #64 (March 1945), Namor shows his savage side by murdering a random henchman by tossing him into an iron maiden.

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256 – Submariner’s Head Trauma

By 1944, the shape of Namor’s head has evolved in an increasingly bizarre triangle-shape direction, as seen by the panel above from Sub-Mariner #13 (April 1944). His body has also gotten considerably more muscular, but his head really makes it hard to take him seriously. Two-and-a-half years is a short time for the look to […]

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174 – Aquaman!

The second major hero to be introduce in More Fun Comics #73 (September 1941) was Aquaman, created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris. This first story featured a different origin than in later years, in which Aquaman’s father was a scientist who discovered the underwater ruins of Atlantis, then helped his son learn to live […]

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147 – Fire + Water = Steamed Nazis

In Marvel Mystery Comics #17 (January 1941), the Human Torch and Namor appear together again, but this time as allies fighting the Nazis. The two still spar a bit with each other before they learn to cooperate. I had no idea this hallmark of Marvel Comics existed from the Golden Age!

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