USA Comics
Entry updated 10 August 2026. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1941-1945). U.S.A. Comic Magazine Corp (see Marvel Comics). 17 issues. Artists include George Klein, Alex Schomburg, Syd Shores and Basil Wolverton; Jack Kirby drew a couple of strips in #1. Script writers include Stan Lee, Mickey Spillane and Basil Wolverton. 68 pages (#1-#9), then reducing until 36 pages from #15. 5-9 strips until #15, then only 3; plus a short text story.
Early on, stories of Superheroes fighting Nazi fifth columnists dominate; after the USA entered World War Two most stories – particularly the non-sf ones – involve brave heroes fighting the Axis Powers, whether at home or abroad; this tends to be repetitive. As the war ends and page numbers shrink, the non-superhero characters disappear, to leave three superheroes battling criminals. The best strips either feature Captain America or are by Basil Wolverton (though he seems a little restrained here). There are some lively covers, particularly by Schomburg.
In Africa a doctor watches his feverish son Bob Frank dying, lacking the blood to perform the necessary transfusion; Bob is then threatened by a snake but is saved by a mongoose. The doctor injects the injured mongoose's blood into his son and, before he dies (the strain having been too much for him), explains to the young man what he has done – and as a mongoose is "the world's fastest animal ... you're going to be a regular whizzer". Bob becomes the superhero The Whizzer and, after gaining revenge on the US gangsters who forced his father into exile, goes on to fight crime using his super-speed and fast reactions (see Superpowers). Oddly, in #8 a thief steals his diary, which contains the secret of his speed, and by reading it also becomes super-fast. From #6 The Whizzer has a black friend, Slow-Motion Jones, who has a telephone in his hat with which to ring him (arguably a mobile phone): unfortunately his comic-relief personality is a contemporary African-American stereotype (see Clichés; Race in SF). #16 sees the criminal Dr Nitro using a ray which ignites nitro-glycerine, whilst #17 features a camera that projects a 3D image. (Last appearance #17; not in #3, #5 or #7.)
Rockman, Underground Secret Agent is "leader of the of the inhabitants of Abysmia, a strange, unknown subterranean world deep in the Earth's ancient, gas-formed caverns" (see Underground) beneath North America: he tells his colleagues "since our ancestors, the first white inhabitants of this continent, sought refuge inside the Earth during the Ice Age, a great nation of friendly people has taken over the land we left" but they are now under threat from hostile forces: he asks for, and receives, approval to aid the USA. He uses advanced Technology – such as a mechanical mole – to defeat fifth columnists. #2's Villain is Zombo, who controls people's minds through Hypnosis. Basil Wolverton wrote and drew the first two stories, but #3 and #4 were by other hands – #3 has him fighting pixies. (Last appearance #4). The far north is the domain of Jack Frost "King of the Cold": after discovering a dying gold prospector he goes to New York to protect the man's daughter and capture his murderer. In the end he lets the latter die in a fire, despite the daughter's protest that "only the law has the right to punish him". He stays on to fight crime, but is hindered by the police believing him to be a murderer. #2 has a mechanical octopus; #4 a villain armed with an ice weapon. (Last appearance #4.)
As John Liberty, professor of American History, ruminates on the efforts of fifth columnists to destroy American democracy (see World War Two); he declares that what is needed to fight these enemies are "the spirits of old". A ghostly figure appears, agrees, and dresses John in a costume that combines superhero and eighteenth-century elements; he is now Mr Liberty and is aided by the Spirits of Freedom (see Supernatural Creatures), such as Paul Revere. From #2 he is upgraded to Major Liberty. (Last appearance #4.) Don Stevens is The Defender, aided by his young sidekick Rusty: though both are costumed, and thus Superheroes their abilities are limited to being reasonably athletic and good fighters. (Last appearance #4.) "A youth with the strength of Hercules, the courage of a lion and the heart of a fighter, Bill Bryan by day becomes the Young Avenger by night", warned of spies, fifth columnists and criminals' activities by a whispering shadow. We never learn his origin story, nor who the mysterious shadow is; #1 was his only appearance.
#2 introduces Captain Terror, who "battles the fiends of the seas"; though described as "the most reckless, irresponsible fun-loving salt outside Davy Jones' locker" he is actually millionaire playboy Dan Kane, who people believe has a weak heart; we are told Captain Terror was thought to have died during the Spanish Civil War, but Nazi activities on the American coast now bring him out of retirement. He is costumed but lacks superpowers. #3 features a paint that enables a plane to blend into the sky (see Invisibility). (Last appearance #4.) The same issue also gives us The Vagabond, who pretends his name is Chauncey Throttlebottom III, but really works for the District Attorney: he dresses as a vagrant clown and beats up villains, so might be classed as a superhero. (Last appearance #4).
#5 dropped all the previous strips; replacements included The Victory Boys – first and only other appearance in Comedy Comics #10 (1942) – a bunch of costumed kids who fight the Axis powers. The Black Widow, who first appeared in Mystic Comics #4 (1940), collects evil souls for Satan (briefly discussed under Miss Fury). The Blue Blade is a masked swordsman who here rescues a Scientist and his "atom smasher" Weapon from the Japanese; the Grand Comics Database suggests he might be a reworked Fourth Musketeer from Comedy Comics #10 (1942), who was "the spirit of a dead Musketeer risen to fight the Axis". Roko the Amazing is Lon Crag, a 16-year-old schoolboy, whose painting of Helen of Troy's first husband King Menelaus comes to life and grants his wish of being "a great and good hero ... like Captain America": by saying "Illium" he becomes Roko, with "the wisdom of Ulysses, the battle-prowess of Aggamenon [sic] and the invulnerability of Achilles" (but with Achilles' vulnerable heel); it is not clear from which of these he gets the ability to fly. Decades ago El Gaucho was an Argentinean masked hero, who now appears to have returned: this version is in fact a US foreign exchange student who fell in love with the country and its legendary hero, acquiring gaucho skills and being gifted the original's costume. At the end of his first and only strip he returns to the USA as The American Avenger; the story seems designed to create a Latin-American superhero who is not actually Latin-American.
USA Comics changed again with #6. Aside from World War Two strips lacking regular sf content, Whizzer reappears and the superhero The Destroyer (first appearance Mystic Comics #6 [1941]; see also All-Winners Comics) becomes a regular. More significantly, so does Captain America; all three of these superheroes lasted to the final issue. In #6 Captain America defeats Medusa, who seems to have returned and is working for the Nazis, but turns out to be a professor of Greek wearing a costume and firing poisoned darts from a tidy needle gun. #7 has an American inventing a flying submarine. #9's plot involves a Drug that causes "cataplexy – Suspended Animation"; Nazis use this to fake the deaths of scientists whom they then enslave. #10 has an "electronic Ray projector" which can shrink or enlarges object (see Great and Small; Miniaturization), a US invention which the Japanese steal to smuggle tanks and warplanes into the USA; here Captain America is helped by Olga, a Russian agent who is a trained bombardier and – with the Captain flying the plane – drops bombs on the Japanese forces. #13 has Captain America and side-kick Bucky invited by Anna Frankenstein to her father's castle in Europe. Here we see someone using the original Dr Frankenstein's notes to build a new Frankenstein Monster – which later attacks our heroes. We are led to suspect the current Dr Frankenstein is responsible, but he proves to be innocent; it is his daughter, working with a German member of his staff, who built the creature, intending it to fight for the Nazis and to start by killing Captain America. #16 has a dubious tale in which Native Americans seek revenge on the white man for taking their land, but Captain insists "the white man bought the land from your forefathers and gave them other, more fertile land". In #17 the descendant of a robber baron moves to America and wants to continue his ancestor's ways – he dresses as a Knight but uses Technology to make it effective in the modern era.
#7 has a one-off strip starring Marvel Boy, whose first and only other appearance was in Daring Mystery Comics #6 (1940); this Marvel Boy differs from the one first seen in Marvel Boy #1 (1950) and is discussed in the entry for Astonishing. Here he is timid Martin Burns, whose superhero origin story is that during a school visit to a museum Hercules' mummy fells on Martin, leaving him bleeding because "the vial with the mummy's extract cut[s] into him"; naturally by the logic of comics, he now has the strength of Hercules and becomes Marvel Boy, fighting Nazi agents. The issue also has Basil Wolverton's Disk-Eyes the Detective – first and only other appearance Circus the Comic Riot #1 (1938) – who can mould his features to disguise himself (see Shapeshifters), though the strip's feel is more surreal than sf. The Secret Stamp, who first appeared in Captain America Comics #13 (1942), is a forgettable young superhero used to promote Defence Stamps (last appearance #9). [SP]
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