“Yesterday’s” Comic> Fight Comics #1

Well, the cover certainly matches the title.

Fight Comics #1

Fight Stories, Inc (January, 1940)

Another new comic and the only think I know to expect are no superheroes but still fights. At least if the title is honest. I’m going to assume every story will have at least one fight in it. Might make for Four Color Combat fodder, but we’ll see as we get into the nine stories in this comic.

[Read along with me here]

Shark Brodie by George Askut

Which someone in Comic Book Plus‘s comments noted is “Tuska” spelled backwards. This one is a seagoing adventurer who stumbles upon a native girl (the natives are surprisingly light skinned for islanders) who escaped a pirate forcing her people to gather pearls for him. There is indeed fighting, but it’s a good adventure to start the comic with.

True Life Story Of Jack Dempsey

It’s what it says, a short history of champion boxer Jack Dempsey. I don’t know boxing so I can’t tell you how true it is, but the story is okay. This is followed by a two-page gag story also about a boxer, but this time he’s fictional. It’s still dumb.

The Spy Fighter by Lee

Our first futuristic tale, as the “Great War Of 1939” only leaves three nations in 1997: Russmany, Mongo, and Greater America. Sometimes not living up to the future is a GOOD thing. The Russia/Germany mix forms a truce with the Asian hybrid to take on the American fusion, and the Russmany leader looks rather…familiar. Luckily, hope comes in the form of Saber, a man versed in all the athletics and the power of telepathy, which he demonstrates by revealing a spy in the council’s ranks. (A member of whom looks a lot like Flash Gordon.) Unfortunately, the bad guys have the plans for America’s “destroray” and alt future Captain America here has to get it back. It takes surprisingly little time to build a whole bunch of them in a few days, get them to the troops, and send those troops to chase off their enemies. Clearly inspired by the war going on at the time, but a fun adventure.

Kayo Kirby by Chuck Walker

This is three boxing stories thus far. Why not switch it with The Spy Fighter and put all the boxing stories together? It appears to be a done in one story, as Kirby is discovered while rescuing a washed out boxer from his ex-manager’s thugs. The boxer teaches Kirby how to box, and he rises fast. Almost as fast as when he meets the boxer’s daughter, if you know what I mean. Can he become champ after the bad guys kidnap her? Still not a boxing fan and I don’t know how this story would continue since Kirby goes to pursue his dream of being a lawyer, unless the story is going to shift to him helping his clients with his fists as much as his legal skills, but either way it was a pretty good story.

Kinks Mason: “1000 Fathoms Under The Sea” by Steve Broder

Kinks is testing a new underwater helmet that separates oxygen from water like a fish, when a shark and a storm separate our hero from the party. Coming up a ship graveyard, he also finds an underwater race attacked by slavers of a different underwater race and joins their struggle before returning home. Well, we have our first dud, mainly because the story isn’t taking the time to…sorry…breathe. It’s a good idea even if he doesn’t get the hot girl this time (she doesn’t even get a name), but too short for the full story. Were they not expecting a second chapter or did they want to do different things with him each issue? I guess we’ll find out at some point.

Big Red McLane by Chris Fletcher

There’s a whole lot of fightin’ in this one. Big Red gets a job at a lumber company after hearing about a rival company’s attempts to steal their works and sabotage their efforts to steal their contract. The dialog is clunky and it boils down to one fight after another with not much else. If you bought this comic for the fights, this story definitely delivers. I wonder what modern artists would do with this script?

Oran Of The Jungle by Hugh Bartlett

Two questions: what’s with all the boxing stories, and why do so many of these stories seem finite? Oran is one of those white kids lost in the African jungle. I hear Tarzan runs a support group. Taken by slavers, Oran escapes and finds a boxing manager living in Africa for some reason, who takes him to America and become a boxer and find Oran’s father. Dealing with a crooked system the manager decides against it, and sacrifices himself to save Oran…whose father then shows up having heard about his boxing. So Oran…returns to the jungle? Interesting way to end it. If I read the next issue it’s only to see if any of these make it to that issue. Also, with this many boxing stories they might as well just made it a comic about boxers and save the rest for another comic.

Terry O’Brien: Gang Smasher by Maurice Gutwirth

Why are six masked men meeting to decide how to deal with a mob insurance racket? Beats me, but they put our hero on the job. Frankly they could have just made him a cop or a G-Man or something but that doesn’t take away from the story. The fact that the story is so basic takes away from the story. We did get the required fights, though. That’s something I guess.

“Strut” Warren by Ed Norris

One thing I’ve learned about Golden Age comics is even without superheroes they love their nicknames. Marines stationed in China have to protect a civilian women’s group that’s there for some reason, which makes them happy…until they all turn out to be ugly. From there I’m not really sure what happened. Was this intended to be a comedy story that happened to be a regular length tale? Because if so it’s about as funny as the short comedy strips I’m ignoring.

Chip Collins: Sky Fighter by Ted Torrence

Our final story features an officially unofficial Naval pilot squadron called Skull Squadron (insert Robotech joke here) whose first mission is to rescue a missionary and his daughter. Chip is partnered with Jinx Jordan, who might not be such a jinx after all. Overall a good story to end on, though nothing really spectacular.

overall

I’m just curious how you form a second issue with most of your stories ending here. There’s a lot of boxing in this comic, which feels like cheating in keeping the name honest since there are other genres shoved in a few times, a crime story, a war story, a sci-fi story, and a sci-fi war story. All they’re missing is a sci-fi boxing story given how many crooks there were in the boxing stories. I may check the next issue just to see if there are any recurring series in this anthology.