Perhaps MLJ may have decided that Batman-like heroes were on the way in, and Superman-like heroes were on the way out, or that human heroes were simply more suspenseful.
Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Pep Comics 29 appeared on the newsstands in May 1942, next to newspaper headlines about the Battle of the Coral Sea and the surrender of the last U.S. forces on the island of Corregidor.
Clearly, no supermen were available to bring World War II to a swift end, so their presence even in comic books might be starting to seem incongruous.
For whatever reason, MLJ stripped their own red-white-and-blue superman of the powers he’d had since his debut in Pep Comics 1 (Jan. 1940).
In a story written by Harry Shorten with art by Irv Novick, the Shield was shot in the head by a Japanese saboteur — and wounded!
Over a two-issue story, the Shield attempted to use the machine that originally gave him his powers to restore them — but he failed. He vowed to continue his fight without them.
One effect of the depowering was that it made the Shield more difficult to distinguish from MLJ’s numerous other costumed crime-fighters. The Shield, the Black Hood, the Web, the Fox, Captain Flag — all just a bunch of bruisers in tights, really. Super beings like Mr. Justice and Steel Sterling were the exception at MLJ, not the rule, before Archie and his pals pushed them all off the stage.
But the idea of having a superhero lose his super powers was certainly innovative, and it wasn’t the first such fresh twist at MLJ. In Pep 17 (July 1941), criminals murdered the super-powered Comet. He was replaced by his brother the Hangman, a darker version of Batman.
In any case, MLJ was ahead of the curve. The relentless postwar de-powering of comic book heroes would continue until, by the early 1950s, only a handful of superheroes were left.
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