As those of you with long memories will recall, for several years now I have had a sacred tradition. In honor of this special day of the year, I am once again perpetrating -- I mean, perpetuating -- my charming habit of dusting off the debut story of some Golden Age superhero, and reading it with a fresh set of eyes. I pretend I have never before seen or heard of this character concept, and am judging the material by modern standards, strictly on the basis of what is contained within those pages.
In past years, I have offered my no-holds-barred opinions about the debuts of the characters known as "Superman," "Batman," "Captain Marvel," "The Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch" (since they debuted in the same issue), "Plastic Man and Phantom Lady" (since they, too, debuted in the same issue), and last year I was merciless in my appraisal of the debut of Jay Garrick, the original "Flash."
This year, I decided it was time to give the business to the USA's very first "flagsuit superhero"; a red-white-and-blue trailblazer who inspired many other unabashedly patriotic characters, such as Captain America, Uncle Sam, The Fighting American, and even U.S.A.! (The latter was one of the heroes introduced in Alan Moore's "1963" miniseries about a quarter-century ago, in case you had forgotten.)
By seniority, the first such character turned out to be The Shield, who debuted in Pep Comics #1, cover-dated January 1940, published by MLJ. The lead story is 10 pages long, written by Harry Shorten and drawn by Irving Novick.
The cover art gives us a taste of things to come. The Shield is demolishing a robot soldier with one mighty punch.
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So mighty, in fact, that not only is the metal head being knocked loose from the torso, but each metal hand is simultaneously being shaken loose from the arm to which it was previously attached! Which already has me thinking: "Wait a minute . . . if we presume that The Shield's mighty fist just finished hitting the robot on what passes for its chin . . . which seems to be what the artist is going for . . . why does that detach both hands at the same time? Just what sort of rickety construction did the engineers use in putting that robot together in the first place?
Naturally I'm hoping to see this matter carefully addressed within the pages of the actual story. (Make a note . . . we'll get back to that point later!)
Once we move past the cover, we find the writer takes an interesting approach to the whole "Origin Story" question. In the past, I've examined cases where a new character's journey to become a superhero is central to the plot of the first adventure -- the debuts of Captain Marvel and of Plastic Man spring to mind -- and I've looked at some cases in which the superhero is already going strong in a costumed identity as we tune in, and the first story gives us no insight whatsoever into how this man or woman got interested in fighting crime in the first place! (The debuts of Batman and of Phantom Lady fit that description.)
But Harry Shorten decides to split the difference between those methods of introducing a superhero. The lead story in Pep Comics #1 is not an origin story in the classic sense of showing us a lengthy visual depiction of the sequence of events that leads to the protagonist putting on a fancy costume -- but on the other hand, the story does not utterly fail to inform us about such events, either.
Instead, Shorten decided to give us an "origin story," but to race through it as quickly as humanly possible so that he could then get down to the good stuff by showing us the end result of
Accordingly, our hero's background is all spelled out in a scroll-shaped caption running down the right-hand side of the splash panel which takes up two-thirds of the first page. Here's what it comes down to:
1) Joe Higgins is "The Shield," but only his boss, the Chief of the FBI, knows his identity.
2) His costume was secretly invented by himself. It makes him bulletproof, flameproof, superstrong, and superfast.
3) As you might guess from the red-white-and-blue color scheme, he's very patriotic. This is, in part, because "Joe's father was killed in the famous Black Tom Explosion set off by foreign spies during the World War."
(I had to look it up. xx"The Black Tom Explosion"xx was a real thing. If I'd ever heard of it before, I'd completely forgotten. And it makes me nostalgic to realize there was a time when superhero comic books could take it for granted that there had only been one World War, and it had been over and done with for a couple of decades already!)
Anyway, moving on to the actual plot. Higgins is called into the Chief's office (the man bears an uncanny resemblance to J. Edgar Hoover) and is told: "There is a Stokian spy ring operating here and we must smash it!"
He says,"spy ring," but on the next page he starts describing the things they've been doing, and it becomes clear that he really meant "saboteurs." They've been blowing things up and shooting people. An arsenal here, a merchant ship there . . .
Oh, those perfidicious Stokians! I knew we couldn't trust them! This is just the sort of thing you'd expect them to be doing, considering their track record . . . uh, wait a minute. Just what is a Stokian, anyway? Presumably a nationality, but which part of the world are we talking about? (Or some other planet entirely, for all I know at this point?)
Now, you might be thinking that Higgins would have to spend the next few days visiting crime scenes, reading reports from other agents, looking for clues, identifying suspects and placing them under surveillance for a while, etc. -- you know, the sort of painstaking detective work for which the FBI is justly renowned? But Shorten has no intention of wasting time on all that nonviolent stuff, so he jump-starts the next stage of the plot by having the enemy seize the initiative.
As Higgins (wearing a green business suit, with a briefcase under his arm which presumably contains the superhero outfit) is walking away from the building where he had his meeting, two men spot him and say to each other: "I don't know who he is, but he was in the FBI office." "He must be spying on our gang. Let's get him!"
I'm not following this logic at all. Hundreds of people must walk in and out of FBI Headquarters every day. Are these enemy saboteurs assaulting everyone who leaves the building, without even having a clue as to who this person is? Are they so vain that they assume nobody from that building could possibly have been assigned to any ongoing case except hunting for the Stokians themselves?
So they attack him, but Joe Higgins quickly turns the tables on them and beats them into unconsciousness. (Please note that, according to the origin story on page one, he must be doing this without the use of any artifical "powers.") Searching their pockets, Higgins finds a handwritten note which very conveniently tells him where the next portion of the plot is scheduled to happen. It says, in plain English:
"We meet on top floor of Hotel Braganza -- all the building is in the hands of our friends. Klotz."
So of course Higgins calls his boss and arranges for the whole building to be cordoned off so no one can escape the net, right?
Nope! He decides to go over there solo. When he asks for a room, the desk clerk says they don't have any space left. When he tries to go up in an elevator anyway, the elevator boy refuses to take him unless he states his business. (Since he's not a paying guest.) Then the burly house detective tells him not to loiter here.
Higgins is beginning to feel unwelcome. He leaves the building, sneaks around into a dark alley, and opens his briefcase to change into his flagsuit costume. He also comments that he didn't want to kick up a fuss in the lobby when he wasn't sure of his facts. (Which makes some degree of sense, I suppose).
We are now on the middle of Page 4 as Higgins finally starts showing us exactly what his suit is capable of doing. And the first "power" we see with our own eyes is one that wasn't even mentioned in the summarized origin story on Page 1! A new caption tells us: "Like a human fly, The Shield scales the walls of the hotel." Then, using yet another trick we didn't know about, he pulls a "radio sound detector" out of his pocket and sets it up to eavesdrop on a conference taking place in a "soundproof" room in the hotel.
I blinked. Just where is this room? Say, five stories below him? Remarkable that he could "tune in" on their dialogue so quickly. But on the next page, it becomes clear that by Sheer Good Luck, the room in question is on the top floor, and literally immediately below where The Shield is standing.
(Granted, that handwritten note did warn him that the top floor was supposed to be where the big meeting would take place, but it's still a bit hard to believe that his first wild guess had him standing on the correct portion of the roof, instead of over at the other end of the building.)