Friday Night Fights--Stuntman Style!!

We spent all day yesterday talking about the Stuntman...it's only right that we feature him in this week's Friday Night Fights!!

There's an evil asylum operating in Los Angeles--they're locking up stars and wealthy people until a ransom is paid...and of course no one believes the prisoners, because they're "crazy!!" Oh, Catch-22, how delightful you are...

So the Stuntman decides to inflitrate and rescue his boss/double and the gorgeous girlfriend:

Stuntrific!!

Spacebooger would like you to understand that no one could beat the Stuntman--except the Comics Code Authority!!

Skull-throwing and windshield bashing courtesy of Joe Simon (script and inks) & Jack Kirby (pencils) from Stuntman #1 (1946) as reprinted in Thrills Of Tomorrow #19 (1955)

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why?? Because we can't let the Comics Code Authority strip us of our random violence, can we? So vote for me, now!

The Comics Code In Action: Saving Kids From Reading The Word Yipes!!

Most of us are to young to remember the Comics Code Authority at the height of it's power. Defanged by Stan with the Spider-Man drug story, growing more irrelevant as moral crusaders found bigger and more powerful media to target, and loosening their grip as the society became more tolerant of depictions of violence, most of us only have memories of the CCA as a quaint organization that occasionally did something laugh-worthy (zombies = bad, zuvembies = OK!!).

But back in the day? They were pernicious censors who would sanitize the most trivial of things.

Let's look at Harvey's Thrills Of Tomorrow #20 (1955), the very first book of that title to have the CCA stamp.

The entire issue was merely reprinting Stuntman #2 (1946), by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. So it was hardly the kind of violence and gore fest the CCA was created to deal with.

And yet, censor away they did.

Check out this panel:

Wow, that's not a very effective word balloon, is it?

Well, according to the indexer of this issue at GCDB, the original panel from 1946 had Dan Daring yelling, "YIPE!" Yes, "yipe." Perhaps, in 1955, the exclamation had some lurid conotation that's lost to time. Maybe our children needed to be protected from that. Not likely, though.

Or take this panel:

Hmm, why was that balloon to large? Well, maybe, again according to GCD, the director finished by saying, "...to break every bone in your thick head!!" 

Now, in context, this wasn't a serious threat. He was just trying to motivate the actor to stop goofing around. But heaven forbid, the Comics Code declared we can't have people threatening to break bones, even facetiously! Break out the white-out if you want to reprint the story!

Exhibit the next:

So, wait...why is the actress standing on a chair? What, exactly, was the villain threatening?

Well, I do have access to the original panels of the story, thanks to the LA Times' Hero Complex. So let's check it out:

Yes, they went and removed the rope from the panels. Yes, that completely destroys the context. And even more ironically, this was just a scene during a play--no one was actually going to hang anyone!! But dammit, we're going to censor it!

And from the story's splash page:

What, the bad guy is threatening to punch someone?

Ah, I see...

And again, as our clumsy movie star/amateur detective steps on a cat...

Heavens to Betsy, that must have been some exclamation to have required censoring, right?

Really.

Whatever the drawbacks of some of today's hyper-violent comics--and yes, I wish I could beam some Geoff Johnsian stories back to 1955 and watch the CCA's heads explode--at least we can say "YIPE!" in our comics today.

Golden Age Idol--The Stuntman!!

It's time once again, campers, it's time for Golden Age Idol, the feature wherein I find some obscure (and public domain) super-hero to revive (and hopefully make a billion dollar finders' fee from).

Today's candidate is not all that obscure, but I find the premise alluring. It's Simon and Kirby's The Stuntman!!

I can already hear you tuning out--a stunt man as a costumed hero? How trite! How boring! How Lee Majors!

Well, just bare with me here...

Fred Drake is the youngest member of the Flying Apollos, an acrobatic trapeze team at the circus...

After the owner refuses to sell the circus to a shady operator, well, trouble happens:

Yes, I know, it's pretty much the exact same origin as Robin. And he's named Drake, too!! How meta can you get?

But then Fred catches someone rummaging through the circus' papers...

Wha..?

Movie star AND amateur detective? OK, things are getting interesting here...

Yes, this is our set-up: picture George Clooney also working as an amateur investigator after a day's shooting, and he finds someone who looks EXACTLY like him, so he hires the guy to be his stunt man. The premise sells itself.

Oh, and because he wants a macho reputation, Clooney Dan Daring doesn't tell anyone he has a stunt man. He just sends the double in to film the action scenes for him without anyone being the wiser:

And the leading lady is so impressed, she falls in love with the guy she thinks is Dan Daring...

But wait, we haven't got to the good part yet. Drake is still intent on finding the killer of his friends, so when he's off-duty...

So he saves the day, catches the killer (who is eaten by a lion!), and disses on Daring for being a crap detective:

But they maintain their movie arrangement, and, well, a love triangle bloom:

The covers of Stuntman were pretty freaking cool for the time, drawn to look like hardcover book covers:

And Simon and Kirby kept up the "novellette" theme by having stories begin with wigged-out freaky double-page spreads (click to embiggen to full radness):

Unfortunately, 1946 was the wrong time to launch a new super-hero franchise,and Harvey canceled the book after two issues (a third was printed as a black & white ashcan to meet some legal subscription requirements; pencils and covers for an unpublished 4th issue exist out there somewhere).

The stories were reprinted hither and yon by Harvey in the 40s and 50s, and then the character faded away. AC Comics brought him back in the late 90s, but I believe that was just reprints, no new stories.

So here we have a character created by Kirby and Simon, apparently in the public domain, with a famous actor who's a (terrible) private dick in his spare time who has an exact double who is his secret stunt man AND a super-hero. The fact that this hasn't been revived by someone (hello, Dynamite?) is baffling...and the fact that it hasn't been optioned as a movie/series is even more baffling. Do I have to do everything myself, people?!?

From Stuntman #1 & #2 (1946), as reprinted in Thrills Of Tomorrow #19 & #20 (1955)