Posted in: Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: captain america, golden age, Promise Collection, red skull

Promise Collection 1949: Captain America and the Red Skull in Hell

"On newsstands all over the U. S. last week, new-style comic books with such come-on titles as Sweethearts, Romantic Secrets, Teen-Age Romances, and Young Love were outselling all others, even the blood and thunder variety," claimed a widely-reprinted Time Magazine article from late August 1949, discussing a comic book trend that was becoming apparent in the Promise Collection as the year progressed — and mentioning several titles present in the Promise Collection of this period. "The sexy, slick-covered romance-mongers souped-up soap opera in new wrappers were rolling off the presses as fast as publishers could think up new names."

"Love's biggest press-agent was Fawcett Publications, already a big name in the pulps (True Confessions) and adventure comics (Captain Marvel, Tom Mix). Fawcett's Sweethearts was up to the 1,000,000 mark, and Fawcett's Love Story was runner-up with 700,000 readers. But almost everybody was doing it. At 10 cents a throw, America's girls and boys, aged 8 to 80, would soon have their pick of 100 love and romance books, published by two dozen different concerns, with an average press run of 500,000 copies.

"Said Fawcett's Helen Houghton last week: 'It's the trend, and it's terrific.' The trend was so terrific that some of the old-style confession magazines confessed that they were in trouble. Macfadden Publications, biggest tell-all in the business (True Story. True Romance, Experiences), refused to convert to the new comic format when Fawcett did. Thereupon the bottom dropped out of Macfadden's market: after netting $224,883 In the first quarter of 1949, it reported a second-quarter loss of $11,635. Admitted Macfadden' Dwight Yellen: 'No doubt about it the confession comics have hurt our field a lot.' It had taken a bit of doing, but the love and romance comics had succeeded in doing the impossible: they had found a way to simplify the 'I see the cat' prose long purveyed by the older pulps.

"Like the pulps, the comics generally pictured handsome heroes with hearts of gold, equally handsome villains with chests of gold, and beautiful heroines with obvious reasons for being led astray. The moral in all the stories was dutifully plain: justice and virtue eventually triumphed. In the current issue of Feature Publications' Young Romance, the original love comic, a spoiled deb learns that not all her father's money can buy the ideals and dreams of a starving rural doctor. In Avon Periodicals' Campus Romances, a girl who steals examination notes to win a boy's love is shocked to hear him say: 'If you'd cheat like that . . . you'd cheat in other ways.' (Her sadder and wiser conclusion: 'I know now that love will come when the time is ripe.') In Super Publications' Love Problems and Advice, an ambitious secretary discovers in the nick of time that $100-a-week salaries snd mink coats from the boss are not for just taking dictation."

Welcome to Part 22 of the Promise Collection series, which is meant to serve as liner notes of sorts for the comic books in the collection. The Promise Collection is a set of nearly 5,000 comic books, 95% of which are blisteringly high grade, that were published from 1939 to 1952 and purchased by one young comic book fan.  The name of the Promise Collection was inspired by the reason that it was saved and kept in such amazing condition since that time. An avid comic book fan named Junie and his older brother Robert went to war in Korea.  Robert Promised Junie that he would take care of his brother's beloved comic book collection should anything happen to him. Junie was killed during the Korean War, and Robert kept his promise.  There are more details about that background in a previous post regarding this incredible collection of comic books.  And over the course of a few dozen articles in this new series of posts, we will also be revealing the complete listing of the collection.  You can always catch up with posts about this collection at this link, which will become a hub of sorts regarding these comic books over time.

September Through December 1949 in the Promise Collection

As the year came to a close, not all of the media was as optimistic about romance comic books as was Time Magazine.  By November, industry critics had latched onto this booming trend as yet another cause for alarm: "When public indignation ruled crime comic books off the counters of newsstands, a new and sinister sequel to the pulp pamphlets appeared the sex, or love comic books, luridly dishing up the dark side of humanity's strongest emotion through the use of cartoon characters for the youthful comic book readers to digest. These sexy stories fast are becoming a No. 1 best seller to youngsters and teenagers. Sex by the carload is being dumped on Pasadena newsstands to take the place of crime comic books, it was revealed yesterday. A survey of newsstands by The Independent shows that there are more than 95 comic books, slanted towards young girls and boys, especially teenagers, that deal with sexy and exciting romances."

While most of the romance comic books themselves were a fair bit less lurid than this Pasadena Independent article was itself, they were not completely wrong about the changing tides of the comic book industry of 1949. Perhaps most notably, titles and characters that had risen to prominence during the World War II era were continuing to fall by the wayside.  For example, the Boy Commandos series concluded its run within this time frame.  And perhaps the most potent symbol of the end of the Golden Age era, Captain America Comics #74 is present in the collection as well.  The Promise Collection copy of this comic book is far and away the highest-graded copy on the CGC Census at CGC 9.0, and the $204,000.00 it sold for on June 18, 2021 has been among the many eye-opening results for the collection so far.  But with those endings and turning points, it's clear that love was indeed in the air in terms of new series debuts as the year came to a close:

• Adventures In Romance #1
• Lady Luck #86 (#1)
• Love Stories of Mary Worth #1
• Lovers Lane #1
• Perfect Crime #1
• Sad Sack Comics #1
• True Western #1
• Wild Bill Hickok #1

Captain America's Weirdest Tale and the End of an Era

Captain America Comics #74 can make a serious claim to being the strangest, most obscure Captain America comic ever published.  It's an apt symbol of a comics industry moving away from superheroes and towards horror and other genres, which accounts for the Captain America's Weird Tales (emphasis on the Weird Tales) of the title, and the seriously weird tale contained in the story itself.  Even those collectors who have managed to obtain this rare prize have never known quite what to make of it. Essentially, Captain America fights the Red Skull in Hell. Weird as it is, the setting and theme of Captain America Comics #74 seems a little familiar to us in the wake of the Avengers: Endgame movie: It's the late 1940s, and the Red Skull has found himself in some sort of strange purgatory world.  A plunge off of a daunting cliff into the abyss has grave importance to the story — and implications for the future of those who visit this place.  To be clear, there are many differences in the details, but the overall concept and visuals — and that cover — bring to mind the cloaked figure of the Red Skull on Vormir, and the plunge over the cliff into the abyss here has a terrible importance of a different kind. There are no soul gems involved here to be certain — just a battle for your soul itself.  And overall, this eerie little forgotten Captain America vs the Red Skull story has a familiar ring in the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

More importantly, it's the end of an era in many ways.  1949 had already seen the last Golden Age appearances of Marvel cornerstone characters like the Human Torch, and although Captain America's title would continue for one more issue as Captain America's Weird Tales, Captain America himself would not appear in that final issue.  But of course, this was not the end of all superheroes in comic books, and as 1949 came to a close, readers like Junie got a glimpse of the path that some of his favorite heroes would take beyond the Golden Age.

For example, the debut of important DC Comics character Circe in Wonder Woman #37 in a story written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Wonder Woman co-creator H.G. Peter is a wonderfully weird mix of science fiction and Greek myth.  A scientific expedition on a new rocket with Steve Trevor aboard finds its way to "an island planet" where Circe had been banished by the Amazons.  There's even an analog for the Owl of Athena in the story, who gives Wonder Woman the knowledge she needs to defeat Circe.  Wonder Woman #37 is surprisingly difficult in anything above mid-grade.  The second-highest graded copy on the CGC Census is at CGC 7.5, which is why the Wonder Woman #37 CGC 9.4 copy went for a beyond-impressive $43,200.00.

Longtime DC Comics writer/editor Robert Kanigher had much more influence over the Wonder Woman mythos than many realize.  He was writing Wonder Woman stories for Sensation Comics as early as 1945. Kanigher then took over both writing and editing the Wonder Woman title about a year after co-creator William Moulton Marston's 1947 death. And as we'll see next time in the final installment of this Promise Collection series, Kanigher's contributions to Wonder Woman (among other DC Comics titles),  would help guide the character out of the WWII era and into the ages beyond.

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