There's almost always something to scratch your head over in a Fiction House comic. This is no exception. I picture the editor chomping a cigar and bellowing at the writer, "Logic be damned! Give me action!"
Lee Elias never looked more like Milton Caniff than he did during this period. Elias is a terrific artist. His cover and the lead story make the whole book worthwhile. Nice figure drawing, great backgrounds, and nice planes (Though the trimotor--a Savoia Marchetti?--is kind of strange). I'll never get used to brilliant-yellow Asians. I've seen a lot of Japanese and Chinese and none of them glowed in the dark.
The story is crazy and disjointed. This comic was published in 1946, right after World War II ended. I wonder if the story was produced during the war and they re-jiggered it to give it a postwar flavor. My favorite line: "I found an old abandoned anti-aircraft gun and tried to signal you." How come Stone Cold Lou's flame thrower doesn't melt the relics? A grisly end for villainous Pin.
Jane Martin: Fran Hopper obviously enjoys drawing people but she doesn't waste much time on convincing airplanes, especially their interiors. I've always wondered about women drawing Good Girl Art in old comics. I suppose Hopper was just doing her job, but even allowing for different times, didn't she feel icky drawing highly-sexualized pinup babes? I give Hopper points for drawing a remarkably realistic ordinary woman on page 15.
Greasemonkey Griffin: I miss Al Walker's art. He was the only thing that made this series palatable. This episode is WTF from beginning to end. Why does the girl scream when Grif walks in on her? A few pages earlier she and the entire student body undressed in front of him.
Wing Tips: I've heard of miraculous survivors like these. Eight days of unconsciousness doesn't sound minor to me, but hey, the guy fell 10,000 feet (it says here).
Suicide Smith: What a mess of a story! Some serious time-warping is necessary for this one to work out. A. C. Hollingsworth's art is typical: he tries hard and he pushes the babes onto center stage, but his anatomy and perspective are variable to say the least.
Clipper Kirk: The lunkhead believes the white babe instead of the Asian man, and regrets it. Nothing special but not terrible either. I kept wondering if we'd get to see Clipper barf on screen. The notes say this Caniff-wannabe is Tom Gill. I have no reason to doubt it but the art sure doesn't look much like Gill's millions of pages from the 50s and 60s.
"A frenzied oath stabbing skyward from blood-flecked lips..." Fiction House seemed to like ghost-themed backup series. The trouble is, they never could settle upon what ghosts can or can't do. Here, Von Kurt's ghost seems able to tie bandages and fly planes. Why did he need Burke at all? Rafael Astarita is always worth looking at. He has a lot of nice panels here though his planes are a bit elastic.
Whoops! Sudden end...no ads, no back cover. I confess Wings comics are a guilty pleasure for me. I probably shouldn't like this as much as I do, but there you are. A hit, a palpable hit.
