Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: jack kirby, joe simon, prize comics

The Deceptively Intense Beginnings of Headline Comics, at Auction

Headline Comics is a relatively late war-era series inspired by the likes of Simon & Kirby Boy Commandos, but quickly transformed into something else.

Prize's Headline Comics is best remembered for becoming a stand-out crime comic book series in 1947 featuring work by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby beginning with issue #23.  While this seems a radical change from what had come before, perhaps it was the logical move for the publisher Prize, as the title's beginnings were clearly inspired by the work of Simon & Kirby.  The title's cover stars were the Junior Rangers, a group of kids fighting the war in the tradition of Boy Commandos, Newsboy Legion and Young Allies.  With a prominent tagline stating "For the American Boy" on the covers, it might be perceived as kid's stuff at a quick glance, but a closer look will show you that it definitely isn't.  There are several issues of the Headline Comics run, including the highest-graded Carson City copy of #1, the highest-graded Davis Crippen copy of #10, and a high-grade copy of the notorious issue #11 up for auction in the 2024 August 1 – 2 Rarities of the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40259 at Heritage Auctions.

Headline Comics #4 has a cover that is obviously inspired by Boy Commandos #1, and a story that is indicative of the wartime weirdness of these Junior Rangers stories.  The symbolic title splash shows a giant Adolf Hitler with a wizard's hat and wand, destroying the innocent citizens of Europe.  As the story progresses, we find that this wizardry comes in the form of a Nazi scientist who has invented a teleportation machine.  The machine is demonstrated to have poor effect as Hitler himself is teleported to Japan, directly into a bathtub with Emperor Hirohito. Nevertheless, the Germans use the device to teleport soldiers into strategically advantageous locations.  Fortunately, the Junior Rangers are able to hijack and ultimately destroy the machine.

The story in issue #10 is very nearly the inverse of the issue #4 tale.  In this story the Junior Rangers are tricked into a cavern in Yellowstone National Park to find that it contains a hidden Nazi enclave, somehow led by Hitler himself.  While imprisoned, the team encounters the son of Merlin there, who is also a mighty wizard.  With the help of "Merlin II", the Junior Rangers escape and capture Hitler, only to discover that he is merely a body double of the real Hitler, and that many such doubles have already been captured.

Headline Comics #11 may have the most notorious cover of the run, made infamous in part as it was more recently used as the cover of the 2013 book Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, for obvious reasons.  In the story, we find that the Japanese scientist of the cover has developed a shrinking ray which he uses on the hapless Junior Rangers.

After WWII concluded, the Headline Comics Junior Rangers covers began to give way to covers featuring Atomic Man, who became the first atomic bomb-inspired superhero.  And soon after that, the Simon and Kirby crime comics began.  The early years of the series are underappreciated by comparison, and there are several issues of the Headline Comics run, including the highest-graded Carson City copy of #1, the highest-graded Davis Crippen copy of #10, and a high-grade copy of the notorious issue #11 up for auction in the 2024 August 1 – 2 Rarities of the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40259 at Heritage Auctions.

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