Posted in: Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Promise Collection, WW2

The Promise Collection 1945: The Mighty Seventh

The raising of the U.S. Flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima almost instantly became one of the most iconic moments of World War II. The flag-raising by six men of the 5th Marine Division took place early in the afternoon after the mountaintop was captured and a smaller flag was raised early in the day.  The famous photograph of this moment was taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press on February 23, 1945. It was published in thousands of newspapers and other publications within days. Three of the six Marines who raised the flag that day, Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley, were later killed in action during the battle.  The other three Marines in the photograph were Corporals (then Privates First Class) Ira Hayes, Harold Schultz, and Harold Keller.

The photograph of the raising of the U.S. Flag on Iwo Jima would also be the inspiration for a famous War Loan poster painted by artist C. C. Beall.  Beall was a magazine and pulp artist who painted covers paint covers for Munsey Publications pulps, such as Argosy, All-Story Love, and Detective Fiction Weekly. It's commonly said that Beall was also a comic book artist, although I've found no specific credits for him as of this writing.  It would appear Beall's son was briefly a Mad Magazine cover artist in the next decade.  The Iwo Jima flag-raising moment also inspired artist Bob Powell for the cover of Speed Comics #38, among other comic art.

This symbolic moment would be one of a number of hugely important events of early 1945 which would influence the world — including the artists, writers, and publishers who create comic books — in the subsequent months of 1945.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a massive stroke on April 12 of that year.  Adolf Hitler committed suicide as Soviet troops approached his bunker on April 30.  Germany would surrender within the week.  Perhaps most influential of all on the world of the decades to come, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, leading to Japan's surrender on September 2.

Welcome to Part 10 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.

July through December 1945 in the Promise Collection

The September 2, 1945 issue of The Idaho Statesmen had an article on a developing trend in the comic books of 1945 and beyond, put in a way as I've never quite seen described elsewhere: "Comic books or squinkies, as they are called in the trade, sell some 20,000,000 copies a month and are still largely concerned with the doings of the supertypes. At camp PX's in this country, squinkies have outsold Reader's Digest, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post by a ratio of ten to one. Why this unbelievable popularity among G.I.'s? Probably because of the emergence of a new type of squinkie — the super-girl with a story all her own, a woman of action, energy, and unlimited capacities. It is generally agreed… that the squinkie heroine's most distinctive feature is her anatomy. This, in general, follows the wasp-waisted… maidens of the Varga and Petty school, with legs half again as long as any yet seen on man or beast. The usual working costume of such dillies as Wonder Woman, Miss America, Liberty Belle, or Black Venus consists of an abbreviated version of the standard supersuit — varied to complement the eccentricities of the wearer. The extreme, of course, is Black Venus who is apparently covered by nothing more than a coat of paint which will no doubt discourage the returning veteran when he gets home and finds all the girls walking around fully attired."

Certainly, the phenomenon we now more politely refer to as Good Girl Art had begun to make its appearance in the Promise Collection of 1945, on the covers of series like Planet Comics, Archie Comics, Pep Comics, Rangers Comics, and Fight Comics among others, and with characters mentioned above like Wonder Woman, Miss America (Marvel Mystery Comics), and Black Venus (Contact Comics) and others.  The Liberty Belle character mentioned above was appearing in Star Spangled Comics by this time, after having debuted in Boy Commandos.  At the other end of the comic book spectrum, one of the key issues from the collection in this time frame is Terry-Toons #38, the first comic book appearance of Mighty Mouse.  The industry had also rebounded and adjusted somewhat to the War Production Board's campaign against comic books described in the last post, and there are several new series launches in the collection from this time frame, including Young King Cole #1 (Novelty Press), Golden Lad #1 (Spark Publications), Komic Kartoons #1 (Marvel), And Mary Marvel #1 (Fawcett).  But the biggest new series debut and comic book key published during this period was Marvel Family #1 (Fawcett), the first appearance of Black Adam.  A copy of Marvel Family #1 CGC 9.8 sold for an incredible $186,000.00 on September 8, 2021 at Heritage Auctions.   The importance of this issue is something of an oddity among Golden Age comic books in that this would be his only Golden Age appearance.  It would not be until DC Comics first licensed and then acquired the Fawcett characters that Black Adam would appear again, in Shazam #28 (1977) and still longer before he would begin to rise to prominence in series such as Shazam!: The New Beginning (1987) and The Power of Shazam! (1994).

Because of the quickly changing circumstance of the war and the world of 1945, it's important to recall for this time frame in particular that July-December 1945 refers to cover dates and not the dates these comic books hit the newsstands.  For example, the August cover-dated Star Spangled Comics #47 hit the newsstands around June 6, 1945 according to Library of Congress copyright records, and the July cover-dated Detective Comics #101 hit the newsstands around May 23, 1945.  Further, creative lead times meant that the evolving tides of wartime events were not always reflected immediately.  As explained in the August 15, 1945 edition of the Hackensack Record, "With the end of the Pacific war, many comic-strip authors, who prepare their work weeks in advance, faced an acute conversion problem today — how to extricate their heroes from the battle lines in time to keep pace with history.  Quite a few comic-strip characters, unprepared for the cessation of hostilities still are dealing devastating blows to the enemy."

The Mighty Seventh and the Pace of History

While the beginning of the end could be seen by early 1945, there was still a war to finish, and the monetary cost of winning the war would continue to be substantial to that end. "The coming Seventh War Loan, justly called the 'Mighty Seventh,' will be the first of two great War Loans in 1945," noted the Southwest News of Chicago, Illinois in May 1945. "In these two drives, we as a nation will raise just about as great a sum as we raised in the three drives of 1944. Half of the total Seventh War Loan goal of $14 billion has been set as a quota for investment by individuals; of this sum $4 billion has been allotted to 'E' bonds, the type of bond most popular with the average American. The task of meeting the increased goals for individual investment in the Seventh War Loan Drive is great but not insurmountable. The realities of war should spur us on to greater achievement. Their realization should inspire us individually as freedom loving Americans, collectively as a democratic people. We know now that the staggering costs of war will not cease with the fall of Germany but will continue at a high level until Japan is vanquished."

As it had since the first war bond drive in 1941, comic books would again ask its readership to do its part in reminding its readership to support the war effort by buying bonds, likely at the behest of the Writers' War Board.  It's also likely that the Seventh War Loan is featured more prominently on the covers of this period than previous campaigns had been, because the campaign goal of $14 Billion was considered daunting.  "At the beginning of the Drive it looked like a Herculian task to meet the unprecedented quotas," a U.S. Treasury Department report of the period openly wondered. "The Treasury was asking for the largest sum from individuals in the history of America. The war with Germany was over. It looked like a matter of a short time before Japan would surrender. Would the volunteer organization work as enthusiastically under the circumstances? Would the American people respond like they did in the other drives?"

Just as C.C. Beall's 7th War Loan poster was based on the photo of the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising moment, so was Bob Powell's Speed Comics #38 cover for this same War Loan drive.  Other prominent 7th War Loan comic book covers from this period that are present in the Promise Collection include Star Spangled Comics #47, Detective Comics #101, Batman #30, More Fun Comics #104 and Action Comics #86 among others.  The more prominent coverage of this campaign in comics and other media seems to have had an impact.  With an ambitious goal of $14 Billion, the campaign had ended up raising over $38.5 Billion within a ten-week period.  And while the war came to a close a short time later within this period, the impact of comic books on the culture at large would continue unabated in the coming years.

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