Comic Book Plus Forum
All And Everything => General Discussion => Topic started by: jvhasselt on June 27, 2018, 06:59:12 AM
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Hi everyone,
I am doing a lecture-project, that deals with the question, why Germans never developed a german superhero-character or monster, that is as relevant to the german popculture as Godzilla, Cpt. America or Dylan Dog are for Japan, US or Italy. Therefore I am looking for the lost bits of comics, that may have tried. I am also interested in Superheroes, Villains and Monsters, that have a german origin, like Nightcrawler, Red Skull or even Hellboy, who came out of a Nazi-experiment. Any hint will help. Thanks a lot in advance.
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We have very, very little German language material here.
I'd hazard a guess that 90% of Germans portrayed in the pages of our comics on site are Nazi villains.
And maybe that is your answer, what do you need fake monsters like Godzilla for when Germany had real life monsters like the Nazis?
As for Nightcrawler, Red Skull and Hellboy, those are copyrighted characters that we don't carry.
But do check out the villain, Captain Nazi, in books that feature Captain Marvel, Jr. such as Master Comics and his self named title.
Captain Marvel, Jr.
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1255
Master Comics
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1258
Whiz Comics #25
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=72028
There is also "The Heap"
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=3255
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As Kracalactaka points out, the vast majority of Germans portrayed are villainous. It seems from the little I've been able to learn, that a vibrant comics culture didn't really develop in Germany as it did in other countries. Not that there weren't comics. In the '70's? and onwards, Bastei produced a number of titles Gespenster Geschichten, Siberpfeil, Vanessa, Bessy, Spuk Geschichten, and many more. They also published Raumagent Alpha, who was a space hero. This link might be of interest:-
http://www.robots-and-dragons.de/artikel/comic-nostalgie-raumagent-alpha-eine-liebeserklaerung
Also German publishers published translated issues of foreign comics, Phantom, Bonanza, Italian titles,etc.
There was also a market for digest sized comics, Krimi being one of them.
British comics featured lots of German villains, particularly in the big war comics market and a perusal of Commando, from D.C. Thomson, or any of the A.P war comics will give you an idea of this.There is a classic Oor Wullie strip ridiculing Hitler but we can't host that or Commando here.
I'll do a bit of digging, but I'm no expert as I don't read German all that well.
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Something you might find interesting if you can access a site that has old NAZI propaganda was an article disparaging the Superman comic character and criticizing everything from story lines to the use of Yiddish (high German) for German soldiers in the stories. Superman being the creation of two Jewish artists didn't go over very well with them at all.
The story concentrated on was a fantasy of Superman capturing Hitler and Musolini and delivering them to an international tribunal to face the music.
Another story of interest much more recent is found in an anthology where young writers gave altenative Superman origins and what if stories. One I remember had Kal-El's rocket crashlanding in Germany instead of the USA. Kal-El grew into the perfect personification of the NAZI Superman. Even so he continued to fight for justice and not involve himself in politics or wars. The Child Murder from the film "M" is featured. Supe takes him alive to face justice, though he lets it all hang out and beats him like a drum and manually castrates him.
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There is also a modern Comic series called
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Sad that any super hero comics involving Germany will be forever stained by the events of WW2 and the Cold War era.
Surely there was some period of history where German society was not so martial.
PS
One older comic found on this site may fit what you are looking for.
I can't remember the character's title for certain perhaps the Heap. A swampthing or Manthing type creature mutated from vegetable mater that bonded with the remains of a heroic and honorable German fighter pilot of WW1 who had crashed in a swamp. The creature seems to be very anti NAZI in his actions, perhaps some remnant of the Honorable flyers soul remained active.
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that is the Heap, which I referenced and linked in the initial response to this thread.
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The Majority of the work on this site was produced during WW2, so German characters tend to be stereotyped villains as do Japanese characters. That is to be expected for the time.It just occured to me that Italians don't come up much as stereotyped villains in the theater of war. Some of the current age US comic companies created German heroes (as already mentioned). Perhaps the best German character was Dc's Enemy Ace who was a WW1 fighter ace who was portrayed as an honorable and sympathetic character.
Try this list.
https://henchman4hire.com/2017/04/26/the-6-best-german-superheroes/
This link has a reasonable article on German superheroes, Warning - it goes seriously off-topic towards the end and it borders on R-rated.
https://talesfromthekryptonian.blogspot.com/2011/10/d-gruppe-germanys-first-super-hero-team.html
Last point:-
Ironic that the first actual comic strip is generally considered to be the German strip, 'Max and Moritz' by Wilhelm Busch, which became 'The Katzenjammer Kids.' for the Hearst papers and when the creators split, also "The Captain and the Kids'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_and_Moritz