Entry #30

Issue #21
September 1941
Rating: 5


Johnny Thunder adopts Peachy Pet. A 12 year old girl that will be his side-kick for many years to come in the strip.

Once again, the King vs. the Witch formula is in full swing. The Whip has left the wild west for the more sophisticated locale of New York to battle big city racketeers.
The Hawkman cover\story is a science fiction classic with much violence. Compared to the themes of the other strips, the Hawkman stands alone in his solitude of embattlement of the truly weird.

Scarlet Mermaid the proto Black Canary

In Flash Comics #19 the King meets for the only time the Scarlet Mermaid. This six pager must have been an influence on Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino when they first introduced the Black Canary in Flash Comics #86.

Entry #28

Issue #19
July 1941
Rating: 5


After 1 1/2 years of Flash appearing in comics crooks still didn't know the Flash -- chumps! The Hawkman unleashes on the Hood.

There was a time back in the seventies, I became free to ride my bike uptown every Monday after school with $1.05 in my pocket to buy 3 new comic books. It is that freedom that I am connecting with in my present day experience reading these old comics. It is a freedom that is independent of teachers, parents, homework, wife, kids, work. Within the four color process on two dimensional paper is a world beyond the material that is very much real.

Entry #27

Issue #18
June 1941
Rating: 5

The Flash story uses the Three Stoogies gags to full effect.


What appears as an editorial decision to change ‘German’ to ‘Some Foreign’ troops is evident in the Les Watts Story. Also interesting is how the boy’s trip to the Caribbean for a treasure hunt on an island inadvertently discovers the treasure island is inhabited by foreign troops. This fantastic story most likely was dreamed up by the real life fortification under construction at Treasure Island in the SF bay in defense of a foreign invasion. April 1, 1941: Navy took over Treasure Island for use as a military base.

What is lost to the present generation reader of the Johnny Thunder stories, until now, is how one of the running themes within the series is how Johnny can’t hold a job. This must have resonated with a youth culture coming of age in the tail end of the Great Depression.

Another entertaining 'Minute Movie' strip. Once again,themes are well represented. Crusader of good during the day (Flash), silly playfulness with family (Johnny Thunder), crafty and master of disguise by way of internet avators (King Standish), navigator of dark mysteries (Hawkman).