Supermen! The potent, primitive four-color heroes of 1936-41

Greg Sadowski's anthology Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41 pulls together some of the goofiest, most innocent, most violent superhero comics ever penned, excavating rarities from the dawn of the genre when small studios set out to reinvent pulp literature in four colors.

These are heroes from an era of cheerful immorality, when masked heroes like The Clock (apparently the first masked hero) maintained secret identities as "a small time dip and drug addict;" when Yarko, Master of Magic, kidnapped evil hags and took them to hell (beating the hell out of any demons he encounters on the way) so that she can bargain with Satan to restore the girl she killed in a jealous fit; when Fletcher Hanks's demented, idiotic hero Stardust and heroine Fantomah (the first woman super-hero) fought evil with nonsequiturs and a remarkable lack of anatomical accuracy; and when a hero called "The Face" fought crime by donning a fright mask that terrified villains into confessing their bad deeds on the spot.

The forematter (a lovely, insightful, nostalgic essay by Jonathan Lethem) and the afterword (a collection of bibliographic and historical notes on each strip) make perfect bookends for the hot stuff in the middle. This is pure and unadulterated Id, the kind of thing that inspired a moral panic about the corruption of the young. It's every bit as potent today.

Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Book • Comics • Happy Mutants • History • Old school

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Umbriel

That makes perfect sense. But I still prefer the image of the cops shaking the guy down and finding an incriminating bag of chips in his coat…
Marble River

What a treat to see this on BoingBoing on a Monday morning! I scanned a number of the stories (both of the Hanks stories are from my collection) for this book, and was also a production assistant for Greg; he did a fantastic job pulling this all together. I hope he decides to do a non-superhero volume sometime, there’s tons more weird and wonderful old comics out there.

MR
jimh

Very nice. Apparently Mr. Sadowski also did the design work, I had my money on Chip Kidd.
Anonymous

“remarkable lack of anatomical accuracy”

Well, it’s good to know some things haven’t changed. Entire Career Of Rob Liefeld, we are looking at you.
Umbriel

I’m a little confused by the term “dip and drug addict” — by “dip” do they mean snuff, or guacamole?
Takuan

a dip is a pick pocket.