Ah, for the good old days, when the totalitarian fascist takeover of the United States could be disposed of in a dozen pages.
But while the story in Fiction House’s Fight Comics 15 is simple-minded, it is also elemental, illustrating the way superhero fantasy mainlines American myth.
What to do when totalitarian military forces seize the United States? Why, the answer is obvious! Reach into the free, super-technological future America — that paradise of progress — and bring back a superman to save you.
“First appearing on the pages of Fight Comics 15, some six months after the debut of Captain America, the story of Super-American is pure pulp science fiction in the best possible way,” noted comics historian Ross Lincoln.
“In 1941, a brilliant scientist named Allan Bruce is very worried about the ongoing war in Europe and desperate to find a way to help America prevail against its totalitarian enemies. Somehow, he hadn't been snatched up by the U.S. Government to work on top secret research projects, and so he invents a time machine (which he calls The Chronopticon, possibly the best name ever for a time machine), which allows him to look into the future and communicate with the people who lived there. He quickly discovers that for some reason, everyone has superpowers and dresses like super heroes.”
The president selects an average superhuman soldier to fight for the future in the past. “After a quick pause to allow Professor Bruce to lavishly admire Super-American's physique — no, really — our hero is off to save the day,” Lincoln noted.
A cross between Captain America and Superman, Super-American possessed several of Superman’s powers, including strength, speed, invulnerability and flight.
In fact, at one point Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel had considered having the infant Superman sent here not from Krypton, but from the dying Earth of the far future. A Man of Tomorrow, indeed.
And like Cap, Super-American was cover-featured punching someone who looked very much like Hitler.
Dillon Black:
ReplyDeleteI guess Super-American doesn't give a @#$& about endangering his timeline by messing with his past and potentially screwing up the space/time continuum. 🙂
Michael Fraley:
ReplyDeleteOh -- and yes, everyone in science fiction dresses like superheroes. Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon taught us that. Superman stood out because he was a future man walking amongst guys in flannel suits. Unheard of.