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[movielover]

This week, since it starts on the 4th of July here in the states, I'm going with Captain Aero Comics 10, located here, https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=23972

Focusing on the Miss Victory story

[crashryan]

I haven't read any Captain Aero before. Overall this is a typical wartime Golden Age comic with no real standouts.

The Captain Aero story has a frantic pace but is disjointed. This is one strip where the kid sidekick is completely superfluous. The Blue Falcon's uniform reminds me of some comic historian's observation that the Blackhawks adopted the uniforms of their Nazi enemies. The artwork is a wee bit better than Golden Age Standard. The printing torpedoes it, though...Holyoke must have taught Charlton all it knew. I note Captain Aero is one of the handful of GA heroes with mustaches.

Alias X appears to be another Spirit clone. Will Eisner would never have let whomever wrote and drew this through the door of his shop! Diagrammatic story ("What's this? A loose board!") and 99 and 44/100th's percent effort-free artwork. Silhouettes! Talking cars! Talking buildings! And a capture scene that borders on parody: "You guys go set up a steam shovel down by the docks! Alias X is bound to walk under it!" Face it, Tiger, this one's a stinker.

I enjoy Charles Quinlan's artwork. I got to know him through Cat-Man and Kitten. Devil Dog Commandos isn't his finest hour, though. I admit I thought the heroes really were going to blow up their prisoners. I'm glad they didn't. Every war comic of the time seemed to need a pair of marines doing the Quirt-and-Flagg thing.

Mike Roy's art for Hammerhead Hawley has its moments but several story point confuse me. Why on earth does Hammerhead leave his sub (our p. 41) to swim for an hour in arctic waters? With his hat on? And what does he mean on page 40 when he tells his Whitey, "I gotta hustle and get some grub, then we'll build another sub"?  There's nothing wrong with the sub he has.

Miss Victory is the high spot of the issue thanks to Charles Quinlan. He's much more his old self here than in the commando story. He's not an A-level artist but his work has a nice solidity. I read in Pappy's Comics Blogzine that some of Quinlan's stories were scripted by his son Charles, Jr.

The Flagman and Rusty's best moment comes when Rusty pulls out a Flit gun to fight the poison wasps. The art makes this one quite a slog. Hard to see any foreshadowing of Dan Barry's future ability in these inks.

I don't wish to disparage the inventor of Electric Football, but "Blast 'Em" looks exactly like Battleship with a few spaces filled in with islands. C'mon, Jim, you can invent something better than that!

[SuperScrounge]

The Beam of Death! - Not bad.

Alias X - Feels like a rewritten Spirit story. Also is the villain the Wasp or the Stinger?

Commandos of the Devil Dogs - Eh, not terrible, but not that good either. Also way too much talking for two guys on a stealth mission.

The Red Cross - Some spies, not killing the hero when he's unconscious? Sloppy writing and characters seem to keep changing appearance. Erg.

Men of the Underground - Eh, okay.

Hammerhead Hawley - Felt like two plots randomly jammed together for a so-so story.

Captain Aero's Sky Scouts - Eh, okay.

Maj. Sedley Peck - Interesting.

Miss Victory - Not bad.

Flagman - Okay. Wonder if this story is the reason why the Wasp in the Alias X story had his name changed mid-story?

[positronic1]

Alias X - I didn't even know Denny Colt owned a suit that wasn't blue! 

[narfstar]

Nice dynamic splash and fight scenes. Story was pretty bad. From the soldier accepting "I'll just handle it" to the obvious bad janitor.

[lyons]

The story is deadline-driven, and Miss Victory depicts as a two-dimensional character whose powers of super-strength and invincibility are a mystery. 
However, she does not need rescuing.  She leaps across the pages as a Nazi-thumping, crime-fighting, America-themed superheroine who knows how to face punch.  An entertaining character.  Thanks movielover.       

[The Australian Panther]

Well, first a comment on the art.
The Art on 'Alias X' is all angles and shading and changes in perspective. Obviously reminiscent of Eisner's SPIRIT or JOHN LAW.But the script is dreadful, take away the art and it would be very low-par.   The First two pages of the Miss Victory story are good visual storytelling and a good lead-in. I get the impression Quinlan thought creatively about how to lay out his page for the maximum effect. And he wasn't obvious about it. Interestingly neither .Miss Wayne' or Miss Victory are drawn as super glamorous women as was (and is ) the norm. I like that. Why would the Spy rob and kill the guy out in the street then return to the office and hide the empty briefcase in the waste-paper basket? Did he have a thing about not littering? The Villain has the worst German accent ever. Also, when he says 'Und now you get a bonus' We know exactly what's going to happen on the next page.Well telegraphed by the writer and the artist. Miss Victory fights with her fists, gets quite physical and she is drawn in a way that makes it look like she could do it too.
The story is nothing special, but not bad at all.
'Miss Wayne' ? wonder if she has a nephew name of Bruce?
Thanks again, Movielover.           

[Captain Audio]

The Blue Falcon's uniform reminds me of some comic historian's observation that the Blackhawks adopted the uniforms of their Nazi enemies.

I've read that NAZI dress uniforms of WW2 were based on British WW1 era dress Uniforms. Most European officers uniforms were similar though their hats and caps were usually unique designs.
The buttoned placard chest jackets were an older calvary style that was common enough among open cockpit flyers and motor cyclist of the 30's.
The Billed officers caps with sides turned down were fairly common among USAF bomber pilots and German pilots. The sides were turned down to make clearance for radio head sets. Later in the war US Bomber pilots seldom wore these because the anti flak armored helmet with face shields was designed to fit over the leather flight cap/helmet.

The Leader of the Black Hawks was Polish IIRC so his uniform was likely the artist idea of a Polish uniform.

[SuperScrounge]

'Miss Wayne' ? wonder if she has a nephew name of Bruce?       

I believe there was a story where Bruce's uncle (his dad's brother) did show up. Now if he had a daughter Bruce would be her cousin. "Clark, I'd like you to meet my cousin Joan."

While not mentioned in this story, apparently her full name is Joan Wayne. If I had known that before reading the story, I'd be reading all of her lines in a John Wayne imitation. 

Then again, she is public domain so I could write a new story with her. "Well, alright, pilgrims, we're surrounded by Nazis, so get those tanks in a circle!" 

[positronic1]

'Miss Wayne' ? wonder if she has a nephew name of Bruce?       

I believe there was a story where Bruce's uncle (his dad's brother) did show up. Now if he had a daughter Bruce would be her cousin. "Clark, I'd like you to meet my cousin Joan."

While not mentioned in this story, apparently her full name is Joan Wayne. If I had known that before reading the story, I'd be reading all of her lines in a John Wayne imitation. 

In recent DC continuity, Bruce does have a cousin (from his mother's side of the family) -- Kate Kane, otherwise known as Batwoman (who oddly enough, has never teamed up with Supergirl). It's a bit of an awkward continuity fit, since not long prior to Kate Kane's debut, Grant Morrison (as Batman's main author at the time) was trying hard to establish that everything in previous Batman stories actually applied to Batman's continuity (including Kathy Kane, the original version of Batwoman). After the whole New 52 reboot though, it's probably just an exercise in futility to even attempt anything like reconciling the continuity of the DC universe.

Joan Wayne (the former Miss Victory, now known as Ms. Victory) is an ongoing character in the AC Comics universe and a member of FemForce.

Bob Wayne joined the DC sales department in 1987, and worked his way up to Senior VP of DC before leaving in 2014. His only relation to Batman was in marketing him to the public (in retrospect, you'd have to grant that he did a fair job of it), so Wayne isn't so uncommon a name.

[SuperScrounge]

so Wayne isn't so uncommon a name.

Oh yeah, but you know comic book writers, if two characters have the same last name, 90% of the time they'll be related no matter how common the name. "Your last name is Smith? Why so's mine! We must be related!" 

IIRC Bill Finger got the Wayne name from Mad Anthony Wayne, who was later established to be an ancestor of Bruce. *shrug*

[positronic1]

so Wayne isn't so uncommon a name.

Oh yeah, but you know comic book writers, if two characters have the same last name, 90% of the time they'll be related no matter how common the name. "Your last name is Smith? Why so's mine! We must be related!" 

Comics are never shy about stretching probability. In a few old stories, it was established that Jughead Jones has an Uncle Herman, a crazy inventor get-rich-quick type (in one story said to be from Texas) who's always getting into wacky situations. In a later Archie Comics series, THAT WILKIN BOY, Bingo Wilkin also has an Uncle Herman, a retired pro baseball player who's also always getting into wacky situations. So in a much later story, it's revealed that Jughead and Bingo are actually cousins who share the same uncle -- this despite the fact that the two Uncle Hermans originally looked nothing alike and had nothing in common except a penchant for getting into wacky situations.

[GAGuy]

Ok - the Captain Aero story was decent enough but after multiple pages of The Blue Falcon being set up as a major player, she is pretty much destroyed in a few panels  As for Alias-X, I agree with SuperScrounge -- what the heck is the villains's name - Wasp or Stinger -- or perhaps, he is the Stinger Wasp or Wasp Stinger?  Love the 1940s as there were no proof readers.   

Red Cross - Major Bodach goes from blond to brown in the space of two panels which must have been very helpful as a spy (alas, just good old Golden Age coloring which I love).

Hammerhead Hawley - I think CrashRyan's review says all that needs to be said and I agree wholeheartedly.

Miss Victory - nice art and especially the opening splash page -- love the fact that in her secretarial role, she tells a soldier "I'll handle this on my own" and he says ok and wanders off, leaving a secretary to find out what happened to the "important" papers.  Kind of odd.  Otherwise, nice story -- Miss Victory has a super left hook and the two fisted punches are awfully tough.


And, then another Wasp villain shows up?  Strange.