I hinted earlier in the month that we'd look at more weird war horror here in June, so let's do this now with a super sexy action / adventure tale, literally exploding with curvy thrills 'n chills, and featuring one of my favorite WW2 era super heroines, "The Black Angel" as she bashes it out against a battalion of boner-pulling, ratzi nazi bat men from Berlin! If you've never read a Black Angel story before, this could very well be the best place to start! From the March 1943 issue of Air Fighters #6, with very good girl art by jolly John Cassone.
4 comments:
I like the concept that, when not the Black Angel, Sylvia can always be found lounging in bed in her hot neglige, like some spoiled poet in the victorian age! This is obvious not the case, but if this is the only Black Angel story you've read then it seems that way.
I love the aunt character, all gung ho and rushing out to plane crashes!
That said, I hate the Scooby doo ending. There's no real reason for it. They were nazi bat monsters! No explanation needed! Not dudes in mini helicopters (!!!). That's one place where comics tend to cheat; they are drawn as real bat monsters the whole time.
Obviously the good girl art is the real draw here (ha!) but the guy really could draw skeletons and monsters and his arial combat/planes was top notch.
Page 4, panel 1 ... is he biting her breast? Paging Dr. Wertham!
Not sure which came first, but does the Black Angel's outfit remind anyone else of the "Devil Girl from Mars" from the British movie of the same name? Spicy girl art, and impressively gnarly nazi bat dudes! Black Angel shouldn't judge those "ratzees" too harshly-- I'll wager this babe has pulled more than her fair share of boners!! (sorry-someone was bound to go there)
Why, this really is my first Black Angel story! And I think this art is the bees knees. Cassone has all the usual difficulties with panel composition and set perspective that seemed to plague most early golden age artists, but his figure drawing is right up there with Cole and Fine and other greats. He shows a special facility with faces here. I'm eager to see more, but my enthusiasm is tempered by the knowledge that, being a WWII mag, to do so I'll have to suffer through a lot of heartless racist stereotyping in the name of wartime propaganda. The cover of this issue is really crazy horrible. It's weird coming face-to-face with what we used to consider acceptable. Ugh.
But today's story was great! Are they all horror-themed? Sort of like a female WWII Ghost Rider? I'm into that!
I don't mind Scooby Doo endings, this is still considered early days comic book heroics, so it probably floated better with readers at the time with a bit more of the, identifiable / believability factor.
Devil Girl from Mars didn't come out until 1954, Black Angel was released over a decade prior.
And no, not all of the Black Angel tales are horror related, --but! the next one I show you for our weird war theme month will be, and I'll have for you later next week... stay tombed!
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