Post #70

Issue #58
October 1944

Rating: 5

When ‘The Creature From The Black Lagoon’ was matinee gold in 1954, Gardner Fox must have been saying to himself, ‘Yeah, I did that ten years ago’.  The Jon Chester Kozlak art has a murky green bog feel to it – and it works!

The story begins with a Moses like origin of the Merman. As he becomes an adult his duel nature finds that he is not accepted as a man. The missing link between fish and man turns to a life of crime and has to swim upstream when the Flash is in pursuit.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl serve up the corny jokes with their punches.

This issue is the correct end of the run of 'Minute Movies' strip. Overstreet and CGC Labeling mistakenly cite the next issue.

Post #69

Issue #57
Sept 1944

Rating:  4

The Ghost Patrol find themselves off the battle front and in an art gallery. Martin Naydel art for the Flash is still challenged by adjusting his cartoon style art to suit the superhero genre. This issue would be Ed Wheelan's penultimate Minute Movie strip which began in 1921 in newspaper form and ran in all Flash Comics thru issue #58. Below follows the typical format of a silent film parody. Most of which I found very entertaining..
 

Post #68

Issue #56
August 1944
Rating: 4

The Flash story in this issue feels like a rush to meet a deadline submission. The Martin Naydel art is rough and looks cartoonish.
Peachy Pet gets another lead in the Johnny Thunder story. Johnny only makes a cameo. The Hawkman story is typical formula.

Page count has been reduced. The Whip didn’t make the cut.
The Minute Movie utilizes a mysterious Japanese drug that fakes death.


The best strip is the Ghost Patrol battling Nazis in Holland.

Post #67

Issue #55
July 1944

Rating: 5

This is a transitionally issue. The Flash story is futuristic with its television theme. The art, along with the Ghost Patrol story looks progressive as well. This new look makes The Minute Movie, The Whip, and The Hawkman stories look dated. Once again, Peachy Pet Thunder gets her own story with out appearances from Johnny or the Thunderbolt.

Post #66

Issue #54
June 1944
Rating: 4

The storytelling in these strips are all formulas recycled many times over now that the title is in its fifth year.

Rating the strips in this issue are as follows:

1. The Whip

2. Minute Movies

3, Ghost Patrol

4. Johnny Thunder

5. Hawkman – no Hawkgirl

6. Flash

The Whip story is the typical formula superhero concealing his identity by playing the out of touch fool, but done with just enough variance to stand out from the rest in this issue. Homer Fleming really had a knack for rendering Dr. Jekyll\Mr. Hyde expressions from his villains.  Ed Wheelan’s Minute Movies story plays the romantic strings again for the countless time with the same (successful) emotional effect. Ghost Patrol and Johnny Thunder (Peachy Pet story without Johnny nor Thunderbolt) are standard fair. Shelly Moldoff’s trademark action scenes are very effective in an otherwise recycled crime yarn. Of the many fine artists to draw the Flash, Martin Naydel work is undistinguished amongst the group. He commits the unforgivable crime of rendering Joan Williams from the irrespirable blonde beauty with a great intuition into a homely grade school teacher spinster that looks more like Jay’s second cousin then his girl friend. 

Post #65

Issue #53
May 1944
Rating: 5


The Flash has to determine how the prototype microwave oven can be used to break into banks.

Johnny gets discharged from the navy.

I would hate to be on the receiving end of a Hawkman hay maker

How many kids tossed our their Flash Comics #1 after reading this Ghost Patrol story?

Post #64

Issue #52
April 1944
Rating: 5
  With a cover date stamp of February 16, 1944, I found this music entry: Eddie Miller 'Yesterdays'
  Equipped with no more than a magnesium flash pot, glider wings, and her stunning good looks, the Humming Bird makes her debut and the Hawkman and Hawkgirl must stop her. Puzzling still, is the Hawkman’s unilateral decision to turn the Humming Bird free. Another precursor, in addition to the Witch of the King strip, to the Black Canary motif.

 The charm of these backup stories can be found in the ingenious way they get started. In this issue we find a postcard from Berlin (Johnny and Peachy Pet Thunder), Undersea cave where the inhabitants are given tainted water to worship a dictator (Ghost Patrol), an SOS message in a can of green beans uncovers Nazi Saboteurs of the Allies food supply (the Whip).

 That leaves the least imaginative story of the issue, the Flash!