| Comments |
| |
| This is an interesting peek into the American psyche on the eve of the country's entry into WW2. Just two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor the lead story has young "extra ordinary examples of American youth" volunteer to fight "Super Brain", a super villain schemer in the Fu Manchu mold, rather than Hitler directly.
Indeed issue #2 retcons the story to be set in the near-future of 1948 with Hitler demoted to merely an "adventurer" Super Brain is using. Needless to say, things quickly changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And by issue 5 the original titular "Rangers of Freedom" team would be replaced by a less super-themed group of Army Rangers.
It's interesting to note that many of the other stories in issue #1 deal with 5th columnist saboteurs. If you can put yourself in the time, it gives an incredible sense of foreboding. America was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. |
|
| The credit "John Campbell" on the feature "Don Stuart of the Far East Rangers" is curious, given that author-editor John W. Campbell (editing the pulp ASTOUNDING SF at the time this comic book was published) often wrote fiction under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart (such as "Who Goes There?", the basis for the 1950s movie The Thing From Another World). It's hard to imagine the hard sf-oriented editor moonlighting from his day job by writing comic scripts on the side for Fiction House, but perhaps the credit was meant as a kind of nudge-and-a-wink homage of sorts by whomever the actual author was. |
|
| Now we're talking! The early issues of Fight Comics, were poor examples of this era. Rangers of Freedom sure makes up for it. |
|
| I’d say that Fiction House was pretty all over the place with its interior art until 1941, and became consistently good across all titles, alongside their covers, from 1942 onwards, getting to be sometimes great and occasionally amazing at times. |
|
| | |
| Additional Information |
| |
| Publication | October 1941 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 |
| |
| Cover | The Super-Brain |
| Featuring | Rangers of Freedom |
| Content | Genre: Adventure | Characters: The Rangers of Freedom [Biff Barkley; Tex Russell; Percy Cabot]; Super-Brain (villain) |
| |
| Synopsis | Biff, Tex and Percy are brought by the FBI to Washington D.C. and informed that a mysterious mental force is behind the attack on America's democracy and that only young minds can resist their powers. The three accept the challenge and form the "Rangers of Freedom", only to be captured by the Super-Brain, subjected to an intense brain compelling ray and ordered to go to the nation's capitol and kidnap the President of the United States. |
| Featuring | Rangers of Freedom |
| Content | Genre: Adventure | Characters: The Rangers of Freedom [Biff Barkley; Tex Russell; Percy Cabot, the Little Corporal] (introduction with origin; not the Marine heroes featured in #5-7); guest stars: President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Gloria Travers (Miss America of 1941, name revealed next issue); The Super-Brain (villain, introduction); the Nazis (villains) |
| |
| Featuring | The Royal Watch |
| Credits | Script:? [as Stacy Kent] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: War | Characters: The Royal Watch [Jock; Mac; Harry; Terry] (intro of all); Sgt. Harkness; Captain Carruthers; Villains: Herman (intro; dies); Nazi spies (intro; die) |
| |
| Featuring | Defense Patrol |
| Credits | Script:? [as Jeff Adams] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: Adventure | Characters: The Defense Patrol [Pedro; Tony; Socker; Nick; Spike; Tom; Fatso; Izzy] (intro; origin); Captain Thomason; Villains: Von Sourpuss (intro); Nazis |
| |
| Featuring | Jeep Milarkey |
| Credits | Script:? [as Pat O'Hara] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: Humor | Characters: Jeep Milarkey (intro; an MP); Lt. Kitty Tone (an Army nurse); Villains: Nazis |
| |
| Featuring | Anzac Hawks |
| Credits | Script:? [as Talbot Cook] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: War | Characters: The Anzac Hawks [Tommy Armitage; Betty Armitage; Roy Blake] (intro; origin; only appearance); Villains: Van Der Meer (intro); Nazis |
| Notes | This is the only appearance of the Anzac Hawks. |
| |
| Featuring | Rocky Hall Jungle Stalker |
| Credits | Script:? [as Buck Masters] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Rocky Hall (intro); Gay-Ree (Gary Murray; a jungle boy; intro); Villains: Snake-Men (intro) |
| Notes | HW and HS see some possible Jim Chambers and HW adds Tom Gill to the list of suspects. |
| |
| Featuring | Sea Squad |
| Credits | Script:? [as Caleb Banks] (credited) |
| Content | Genre: Adventure | Characters: The Sea Squad [Jackson; Rick Davis; three unnamed others] (intro; origin); Sam Squidd (intro); Villains: Nazis |
| Notes | This is the only appearance of the Sea Squad. |
| |
| Featuring | Don Stuart of the Far East Rangers |
| Content | Genre: War | Characters: Don Stuart (intro); Dr. Stuart (intro; his father); Hilda Von Bellows (intro); Sing Hi (intro); Sing Lo (intro); Lt. Lee Wing (intro); Villain: Von Bellows (intro) |
| |
| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
