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The Four-Color Fight Comics in World War II

The Kennesaw State University Department of Museums, Archives and Rare Books (MARB) presents exhibitions, public programs, collections, and educational services supporting KSU’s mission and encouraging dialogue about the past and its significance today. The Museum of History and Holocaust Education, as a unit of MARB, has developed a series of online modules, including this one, for university students to explore pivotal moments from the history of World War II and the Holocaust.

This online unit focuses on the role that comic books played in World War II. As one of the most beloved pieces of popular culture of the time, comic books offer a unique view of both wartime sentiment and World War II's legacy. Using a selection of the comics published during and after the war, this unit demonstrates a number of ways that comics addressed and were affected by the conflict.

Content Warning: A lesson on World War II comics must include a discussion of the violent and sometimes racist imagery contained within these sources. Please be advised that this presentation includes some difficult images and source material.

Essential Questions

Using the primary source material and content in this online unit, respond to the three essential questions found below. In your responses, include evidence from the content in this online unit. Please refer to the directions provided by your instructor on submitting your responses to these essential questions as well as the questions posed throughout this unit.

  1. What differences can be found in the ways that World War II was depicted in comics published during and after the war?
  2. How did comic books and superheroes assist in the war effort?
  3. What role did comic books play in educating the general public about the Holocaust?

Image: Two boys reading comics outside a local drug store in 1945. Courtesy Time Magazine

table of contents

  1. Early Comic Book History
  2. Superman Goes to War
  3. Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield
  4. Teaching Troops to Read
  5. Propaganda
  6. World War II in Four Colors
  7. The Holocaust
  8. Depictions of German and Japanese
  9. Let's Analyze

Early Comic Book History

Modern comic books can trace their roots to 15th century European broadsheets and political cartoons from the 19th century. The first comic strips that told an ongoing story appeared in the early 1900s.

The earliest comic books reprinted these comic strips in bound collections. Scholars consider New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine Number 1 from 1935 to be the first modern comic book as it was the first collection to include original material.

There were a number of different genres of comic books in the early 1930s, from western stories to funny animal books. However, the thing that comics would become known for, superheroes, did not appear until 1938, the year Nazi Germany invaded the Sudetenland.

Image: The cover of New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine Number 1, February 1935. Courtesy Grand Comics Database

Superman Goes To War

Sporting a cover date of June 1938, Action Comics volume 1, Number 1 introduced the world to its first superhero, Superman. Created by two Jewish men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, on the eve of World War II, Superman was branded a “Champion of the Oppressed,” and it wasn’t long before he started appearing in war stories.

Before America entered the war, allusions to the military situation in Europe were filtered through fantasy as Superman confronted a civil war orchestrated by outside influences in countries with Spanish-sounding names (referencing the Spanish Civil War) in Action Comics v.1 #2, and an invasion of the meek country “Galonia” by the armed battalions of “Toran” (referencing Germany’s invasion of Poland) in Action Comics v.1 #22-23.

Image: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster working on Superman in 1942. Courtesy The New Yorker

Left Image: The cover of Action Comics v.1 #1, June 1938. Courtesy Grand Comics Database

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Superman’s editors were hesitant to get him too involved in the war to avoid implying that Axis forces were more powerful than Superman. To avoid such implications, Superman was relegated to the home front. He attended rallies, sold war bonds, and caught spies and saboteurs but was kept away from the frontlines.

Even with editors banning him from the frontlines, Superman still found his way into the armed forces. The most powerful rescue tugboat in the British Navy was christened the H.M.S. Superman, and countless jeeps, landing craft, tanks, and planes shared that name.

Image: A ground crewman of the 97th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force with the nose art of a B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed "Superman." Courtesy Imperial War Museum

Right Image: The British Rescue tug HMS SUPERMAN, underway in coastal waters off Harwich. Courtesy Imperial War Museum

The covers of Superman’s comics often showed him dismantling German weapons or protecting G.I.s from enemy fire, but these covers rarely represented the events that took place in the comic itself.

Compare the covers of the comics below to the synopses of those same comics found at the Grand Comics Database.

Images: Covers of "Superman" and "Action Comics," dating from 1941 to 1943. Courtesy Grand Comics Database

Comic Synopses

  1. Superman #13 (November/December, 1941)
  2. Action Comics #40 (September, 1941)
  3. Superman #12 (September/October 1941)
  4. Action Comics #43 (December, 1941)
  5. Action Comics #62 (July, 1943)

As you examine the covers and their accompanying synopses above, consider the following question: Why would publishers attach a cover like the ones above to a comic that had nothing to do with the war?

Thank you for previewing our online unit, "The Four Color Fight: Comics in WWII." If you would like to request the full version of this module or to view a complete list of our online offerings, please follow the link below:

This digital lesson was curated and designed by Amy Collerton from Georgia State University in collaboration with staff from the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University.