[Peter]

With his 70th anniversary coming up, we present the first of several spotlights featuring the Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America! We start with a look at the character in the Golden Age with Titan Editor, Steve Saffel. (1:39:01)

Listen to the show!
http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/com..._speak-1086.php

[atomic99]

Oh! There it is! I look forward to giving it a listen.

[David D.]

Cool. Looking forward to it!

[atomic99]

AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME!!

For some strange reason, I woke up way too early today. Now I can see why as this episode arrived today just in time for me to have a quiet hour and 40 to give it a listen. Peter, great job getting Steve for the show. Very knowledgeable. Much of the information I had heard before but even I learned some new things like the TRUE Origin of the Red Skull. Great story! My own personal preference is I'm preferring comic book podcasts that are educational and give me information about a subject so I can learn as oppose to many that just offer up reviews and opinions and this one delivered!!! I'm saving this one.

You guys covered just about everything. I'll add a some comments....

Adam mentioned about the blue ring on the shield. Golden Age Cap also had his belly stripes end at his sides with a larger star on his back. I think they are using this with the 1950s Cap in the recent Brubaker story line. Bucky had a yellow collar which was retconned out (it just didn't look good). In the later years, Bucky was even a blonde but that, I think, made more sense when Roy Thomas made it the Fred Davis or Jack Monroe Bucky.

I don't think Peggy Carter was suppose to be Betty Ross. There was a story done in the 1960s that flashbacked to a female agent in WWII France that Cap fell for and I think that was changed to Peggy. Betty Ross just had way too many stories from 1940 to 1949 to make her an agent Steve met in France.

I'll have to seek out Steve at Comic-Con (just two months away) and check out his Simon books. I do already have the FIGHTING AMERICAN golden age collection that Marvel (irony) put out 20 years ago. Bryan, I saw you asking about a booth for Comic-Con on Facebook the other day. Are you guys planning on coming out?

Stan Lee's first written comics work was indeed that prose piece in issue number 3. Those prose stories were used to get a better postal rate on the comics but nobody wanted to write them. So Joe, to get Stan out of the way, put him on writing them. And so started a career!

Two issues later was Stan's first sequential work with a Cap backup character called HEADLINE HUNTER.

The first double page center spread I could find was in issue #6.

So when Simon & Kirby left after issue #10 was done, Stan took over for Joe editing the book. Was this the first time we saw STAN LEE-EDITOR?

In Timely's struggle to find a direction of Cap post war, they had Steve Rogers become a teacher in issue #59 (November 1946). The letter sent to Cap mentioned that Lee School heard he was a teacher before the war. This doesn't jive today with Cap's origin but it is all good since those post war stories were retconned to be other people than Steve Rogers (William Naslund and Jeff Mace).

Not only did Lee and Kirby retell all the Golden Age stories from the first issue that Steve mentioned in those early TALES OF SUSPENSE Cap issues, FANTASY MASTERPIECES use to reprint some of the Golden Age stories in the 1960s but made edits to the stories since they were pre-comics code and a little violent.

At the end of the 1940s run (in 1950), Cap's title was changed to CAPTAIN AMERICA'S WEIRD TALES and that last issue didn't even have Cap. One tends to think "Cap turns into a horror title" but one of the Golden Age Masterwork forwards brings up an interesting point in that Joe Simon said he always wrote Cap like a horror comic anyway. And, looking back, it makes sense. Besides the real life horrors of Hitler, many of the villains were grotesque monsters. Movies, particularly horror movies of that time, played an influence in many of those early stories from what I can see.

We were talking about this last week in another thread but there was a story in one of the early Cap issues that has Cap and Bucky going to Hawaii to stop a Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet. Only this happened 6 months or more BEFORE December 7th, 1941.

One day, I'm going to sit down and make a chart of all the Cap origin retellings and document every time they changed or added an element. It is a little crazy keeping track of all of it.


Great stuff, guys!!!! You just made my day.

[DrBravo2]

Hmm, if Hitler on the cover sells books and monkeys on the cover sells books, why not a Hitler monkey? Hitlemur?

or Zombie Hitler?

[atomic99]

If you don't mind, let me post some images of Golden Age Cap to give people some reference....


Some of the ads in the magazine for the Sentinels of Liberty fan club and some of the call to arms for the kids for the war effort....






Jamie mentioned the Cap in Drag story from issue #2. Cap actually defeats Hitler in Germany at the end but, apparently, the war didn't stop. You can also see Steve Rogers smoking his pipe. Steranko brought the pipe back ever so briefly at the start of his run in the late 1960s and that was the last of that....




I actually picked up this issue at Comic-Con in 2008 but this is the late 1940s issue where Bucky is shot and replaced with Betty/Betsy Ross and Golden Girl. She wore a red and blue costume in her MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS appearances with Cap. As super heroes struggled for readership after the war, one of the things tried was to give the heroes female sidekicks since the audience was growing up. Cap got Golden Girl. The Human Torch was paired up with Sun Girl. And Sub-Mariner with Namora. Venus (now of Agents of Atlas) was also tried.





Cap reveals his identity. Betty (sometimes Betsy) had been around since issue #1....



Not only does Cap get a new sidekick, he doesn't waste any time making his moves. Chicks dig the Red, White, and Blue, Baby!!

[atomic99]

1949, Cap goes to Hell to battle the Red Skull. But it was all a dream....or was it???




Note the Psychiatrist consult at the top of this page. Was this because of the influence of Wertham?






Cap returns in the 1950s as a Commie-Smasher. John Romita on the art.....



Did this Electro get brought back as the Radioactive Man or in some other recent incarnation?





Blonde Bucky...




Cap's other Golden Age book appearances. 1979's CAPTAIN AMERICA INDEX estimates that there were about 100 Golden Age appearances of Cap besides cameos.

This post has been edited by atomic99: 20 May 2010 - 02:48 PM

[max headroom]

I can't wait to listen. Woo Hoo!

[rebis]

WOW! A99's posts are awesome. Well done, and thanks!

[max headroom]

The whole Erskine/Reinstein was explained by the Golden Age guru Roy Thomas in Giant-Sized Invaders #1;

Reinstein name was his cover to protect him from the Nazis.



That story also explains why the super soldier formula was not written down.

If you wrote it down, then someone could steal it.


Love the power of the retcon.

[max headroom]

Excited to get the Simon/Kirby Superheroes with the entire Fighting American;

Atomic 99 pointed out in a previous thread that Steve Rogers current outfit is similar to the Fighting American's (and similar to John Walker's Patriot outfit as well)

I encourage you to get Ralph on for an episode as well. The man is the defacto expert on the character.

This post has been edited by max headroom: 20 May 2010 - 07:51 PM

[BillDoughty]

Pretty sure Peggy Carter was originally Sharon's older sister, not her mom.

[atomic99]

Pretty sure Peggy Carter was originally Sharon's older sister, not her mom.

You are correct, sir!

[nweathington]

Good to hear Steve on the show. I've known him for a few years, and he's a great guy. Peter, I can't believe I didn't think of him during our e-mails, but good on you for getting him on.

[john siuntres]

great episode. glad you guys had a real expert on, to offer perspective.

this and the aquaman spotlights were well thought out, and a pleasure to listen to.

[Peter]

Thanks John! Good to see you out at C2E2! Where's next for ya?

[john siuntres]

Thanks John! Good to see you out at C2E2! Where's next for ya?

you too, and the same goes for pants

maybe SD, but 90% in for dragon con. Regardless I will be at NYCC

[Scoop]

Please don't watch the Captain America movie serial. I saw it long ago and it SUCKED!!!

It had nothing to do with the comic, sorta like Catwoman.

Okay, watch it, but you will waste 10 hours of your life. I know I did. Sob.

[Sandman]

I don't remeber if this wa mentioned, but when did Cap's round shield first appear?

[Peter]

Issue 2!