“Yesterday’s” Comic> Judomaster #89

I don’t know a lot about judo, but I don’t think this ring is regulation.

Judomaster #89

Charlton Comics Group (May/June, 1966)

“Prisoner Of War”

WRITER/ARTIST: Frank McLaughlin

Since that’s the only credit, let me answer the question I’m guessing you’re wondering about: Why #89? Well, prepare for this journey into ye old magazine numbering to make the post office happy…somehow. Judomaster is continuing the numbering from Gunmaster despite that comic also having a #89. In turn, Gunmaster continued the numbering from Six-Gun Heroes, which continued from a Fawcett comic series the same way The Blue Beetle changed hands between Fox Features and Holyoke Publishing. Now this is just getting stupid. Neither of these were picked up by DC so they’ll have to wait until we get there on the Comic Book Plus virtual shelf.

[Read along with me here]

Rip is ordered to sneak an important soldier out of a Japanese prison camp. The plan is to fake injuries to get himself captured, then break him out. The camp leader likes to use his sumo wrestler to keep the prisoners inline, and claims to know ninjutsu. Rip comes up with an escape plan, with Judomaster keeping the sumo wrestler busy and later defeating the camp leader, allowing all the captured American soldiers to escape.

What they got right: These are war stories that dropped a superhero into it, and it works well on that front. There are some good martial arts moments in the story, and Rip is shown to be clever enough to come up with an escape plan that might even have worked without Judomaster.

What they got wrong: It’s amusing reading that ninjas are a “cult of magicians”, which is not quite accurate. Meanwhile, we don’t see any ninja techniques outside of Rip teaching the soldiers how to make boots that can walk on water, which is rumored to be how that ninja trick works. The leader claims to know ninjutsu but we never see evidence of that anywhere in the story.

What I think overall: A decent fight scene but beyond that it’s a very basic story. This is technically his first solo book after his debut in the final issue of Special War Series, so it’s pretty much an introduction. Hopefully we’ll see more out of later stories.