Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, 1920 to 1960 by Madison Nathan Vernon

Author:Madison, Nathan Vernon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

Illustration from U.S.A. Comics No. 4, May 1942, ™ and © Marvel Entertainment.

Often the villains of a franchise were as much of a draw as the heroes, such as Fawcett’s Captain Nazi, who first appeared in Master Comics No. 21, in December of 1941. Captain Nazi was not grotesque like many of his Nazi contemporaries. Rather, he resembled an Aryan Superman. Clad in a green, militaristic uniform with a cape and a giant swastika where Superman’s “S” would normally be, Captain Nazi’s “Hunnish” characteristics are found in his wickedness and unwavering devotion to the Nazi cause. He obeys the orders of Hitler to the letter, gladly murdering subordinates his Fuehrer no longer has use for, and regularly kills any American that gets in his way.58The character would appear in many of Fawcett’s publications until the end of 1944. M.L.J.’s Steel Sterling, in the pages of Zip Comics (No. 31, November 1942), battled the Creeper, a Nazi super-villain and “arch saboteur” clad in a demonic green and purple costume. Bill Barnes and Sandy, the pride of American military aviation (and also pulp heroes that had transitioned to comics), battled “Dr. Berlin, Arch-Enemy of America” and his attempts to remake parts of Arizona into an airfield for Nazi bombers, in the first issue of Air Ace, published by Street & Smith Publications in January of 1944.

The comic book creators of the 1940s left no avenue of dehumanization unchecked, and were often able to combine imagery, such as the joining of Nazi science run amok with the physically disfigured Teutonic brute. Superpatriot Captain Terror, in U.S.A. Comics No. 4 (December 1941), faced “Dr. Gustave Leech, Nazi Scientist of Sudden Death,” and his plan to prevent aid ships from reaching Britain, thus forcing the English to “think Der Fuehrer’s way when they starve!”59 The Doctor is monstrous in appearance, with a bald head (covered in Frankenstein Monster–like scars), rows of misshapen teeth, pointed ears and bushy eyebrows, under one of which sits the ever-present German monocle. As early as his first appearance, Timely’s Captain America had to contend with the hideous visage of Nazi villain and saboteur-supreme the Red Skull; and Zip Comics featured both the evil Baron Gestapo, a monocle-wearing, fanged monstrosity with a blazing swastika across his chest, and the Nazi torture-master Captain Murder. In the summer of 1942, the eighth issue of Human Torch Comics pitted the titular character and his ally Namor against the evil of Herr Python, a Nazi scientist who is either a half-human, half reptilian abomination of nature, or perhaps a product of Nazi eugenics gone horribly wrong.

The World War II depictions of Germans drew upon anti–European imagery dating back to the propaganda of World War I—that of the brutish, uncultured descendent of Attila rampaging across the free world. Also evident is decades worth of anti-foreignism that identified particular groups as uncivilized savages. When combined with the comic book’s inherent science-fiction elements, these stereotypes were augmented further to become the mad scientist or super-villain that bedeviled America’s costumed defenders.

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