Well,
this going to be interesting...
We're going to get mighty
self-referential here, methinks.
You may recall that
Timely Comics, much more than most of their competitors,
were fervently anti-Nazi in their covers and stories.
So it's fascinating that, in
this Timely Comic, we meet the (
assuredly fictional) publisher of a line of (
completely made up) anti-Nazi comics:
And then he's murdered...
And in a fairly gruesome bit:
Years before
KISS or
Mark Gruenwald--
comics in blood!!
Well, this makes big headlines.
The publisher's brother, now running the company, vows to keep up the anti-Nazi crusade!
But the writer?
Not so committed...
Fortunately, many writers in the industry were bold enough to take up the challenge!!
Well,
not so much.
The Angel (a.k.a.
Thomas Halloway) seizes the opportunity to pose as a comic writer, to flush out the fiend!
Now we get to see a comic script actually being written, and an editor not-really editing!
But lo and behold, the editor is murdered, too!
Well, Holloway is captured, along with the publisher and artist, and put into a death trap, because comics:
And the big reveal: the culprit is the writer!!
And so begins the
most accurate depiction of the production of comics in history:
OMG!!
Well, they manage to get out of the descending death trap...and the Angel pursues the Nazi through the comic production area...
Given the death threats and outcry after
Captain America punched out
Hitler on the cover, you really have to wonder if any of this was
sub rosa commentary on real personalities and conflicts in the industry at the time...
From Sub-Mariner Comics #2 (1941)