Comic Books in WWII: When American Comics Went to War

On March 1, 1941, Captain Steven Grant Rogers, dodging bullets from nearby SS troops, put all his weight behind the punch. His fist landed squarely on Adolph Hitler’s jaw. What better way to introduce a new hero for a generation coming of age during the greatest conflict the world had ever seen? When the American flag-clad Captain America first arrived at newspaper stands and the local drug stores on the first Sunday of March, the United States might still have been isolationist. But now, nobody could deny that, unlike their government, comic books were going to war.

The Second World War was a total war for many nations that mobilized all their societies’ resources and infrastructure to fight it. The United States did not see its cities destroyed by bombs nor its land taken over by foreign forces. However, the American people ultimately came to understand the sacrifices needed to make the world safe for democracy and subsequently preserve their liberties back home.

With the nation amid the Great Depression and characterized by an isolationist sentiment, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) could not openly bring himself to support the European and Asian struggle. When FDR gave his most forceful speech condemning the rise of world dictatorships in late 1937, Japan had already invaded neighboring Manchuria, Italy had conquered Ethiopia, and the newly re-armed Nazi Germany occupied the Rhineland. While the speech called for an international “quarantine” against the aggressor nations as an alternative to American isolationism, US Congress continued to stifle its executive’s wishes.

None of this stopped a new industry dominated by young Jewish writers and artists. Watching their distant family members suffer under European fascism, they took it upon themselves to redefine America’s sentiment toward the most significant conflict the modern world had ever seen.

At first, they were more subtle in their message and then a bit more forceful with the creation of Captain America in March 1941. The artists and writers remained daring, albeit cautious, of US isolationist policy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But with the US thoroughly entrenched in war by 1942, the comic book propaganda went into high gear. The heroes the world knows today, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and countless others, defended American liberty while making their young readers long to grow up, enlist, and fight evil.

The comic book industry emerged in the middle of the Great Depression. With their low 10-cent price point, they were some of the cheapest forms of entertainment available. In 1933, when Dell published the first bound 36-page comic book of popular newspaper comic strips titled Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, the medium quickly became the go-to entertainment for young audiences. Comic books were portable, unlike animated productions that needed to be seen in theaters. They could be carried from place to place and traded, making them not only more accessible but also much cheaper.

The audience soon expanded to include older teens and male adults, making the medium rival the entertainment power of radio and newspapers. According to a 1943 study, around 35% of adults between 18 and 30 regularly read at least six comic books per month, with 15% of those above 30 doing the same. While only three organizations were publishing comic books in 1935, there were eighteen by the end of the decade.

When FDR declared war on Japan in December 1941, as many as 15 million new comic book issues were flying off newsstand racks weekly. By 1945, when the industry had transformed itself into a propaganda machine that touted the virtues of America, condemned the vicious nature of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and enticed every reader, regardless of age, to help bring the conflict to an end, that number doubled.

The young comic book industry began to show subtle opposition to the troubling world events around 1937. Still in allegorical form so as not to upset the national status quo, artists and writers created stories that reflected the alarming situation overseas. Chester Publication’s Star Comics #3 of May 1937 featured a story involving Venus, where friendly citizens of the planet’s “Sun Country” had their lands seized by the “Dark County” bent on world domination.

The emblem on the evil nation’s military helmets was identical to the skull of Nazi Germany’s SS. Smash Comics similarly featured their hero, Black Ace, fighting a fictional ruthless dictator who looked much like Adolf Hitler. Then, in 1938, as the world news was busy reporting the Japanese mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing and Germany’s forced annexation of Austria, Action Comics #1 introduced the world to comic books’ most powerful icon, Superman. The floodgates of subtleness regarding the war “over there” were about to come crumbling down.

The character, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish artists, quickly embodied American righteousness, power, and, most importantly, the willingness to take action where others would or could not. A closer analysis reveals that in most cases, young Jewish writers and artists created most of the golden age (1938-1956) comic books and their superheroes. Antisemitism increased dramatically after the first Red Scare and xenophobia of the 1920s.

During the Great Depression, the leading voice against Jews came courtesy of a Catholic priest, Father Charles Coughlin, whose radio program drew nearly twelve million listeners. A great opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Coughlin believed in a grand Jewish conspiracy to take over the president’s administration and bring the American nation to war with Nazi Germany on their behalf. The antisemitism was not just embodied by the Catholic priest nor his listening base but extended to many aspects of American society.

A 1938 poll revealed that nearly sixty percent of Americans held a low or lower opinion of Jews, and forty percent agreed that Jewish people held too much power in the United States. What caused many young Jews to turn towards the comic book industry was the lack of mainstream job postings in publishing that would hire them.

While daily newspapers refused their comic strips or illustrations, the new industry starved for talent and welcomed them with open arms. While it was not the main impetus for comic books mirroring and highlighting the terrible atrocities directed towards innocent civilians—Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies in Europe, case in point—the artists’ background did help in guiding the medium towards American intervention.

Siegel and Shuster’s publication of Superman took the comic world by storm and hastened the comic books’ entrance into World War II. An immigrant, like many Americans, Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent connected with kids on another level. The new hero epitomized all that was good about “truth, justice, and the American Way.”

With the Depression in full swing, readers enjoyed Superman fighting against individuals who exploited the bad times for their benefit, especially when he took on corrupt business people who mistreated poor and desperate workers. And although Superman could probably stop the war alone, he had to be content fighting at the American home front. Clark Kent failed his army physical by accidentally using his X-ray vision to read a chart in the next room instead of the one in front of him. The doctor declared him disabled and unfit for military service and grounded him in Metropolis for the remainder of the war. However, that did not mean that he did not do his part.

In December 1940, the cover of Action Comics #31 showed Superman swooping down to save a prisoner from being shot down by an unidentified military firing squad. Months later, on the cover of Action Comics #43, the hero was fighting it out in the air with an armed German paratrooper, a Nazi swastika prominently displayed on his chest. In the 1940 special comic issue prepared for Look magazine, the symbol of American patriotism would even apprehend both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, when the Soviet dictator was still part of the Axis powers.

Immediately following Action Comics #1 were new superheroes willing to fight against evil. Also in 1938 came Batman, soon joined by Human Torch, Shock Gibson, and the Sub-Mariner in 1939; Green Lantern, the Shield, and Uncle Sam in 1940; Miss America, Spirit of ’76, and Wonder Woman in 1941. While the United States would not enter the conflict until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, these new superheroes had no reservations about fighting the Axis powers.

None was blunter than Captain America punching the Nazi leader square in the face on the cover of the March 1941 issue. Created by another young Jewish artist, Jack Kirby, Captain America was a red-white-and-blue patriotic superhero and crime fighter who used his scientifically enhanced strength to protect the United States from the enemy abroad and saboteurs and spies at home. Created specifically for the war—and even briefly canceled in 1956—Captain America was different from the other superheroes in that he fought directly in the conflict and not just at home. The adventures saw Cap and his young sidekick Bucky take a first-hand role in fighting the Axis powers when many Americans still thought of themselves as isolationists.

It all changed and kicked into high gear with the US entrance into the conflict in late 1941. A slew of new comic book characters joined the fray to fight evil, some with superpowers and others just ordinary people willing to see the US to absolute victory. Kids and adults devoured stories of Black Terror, the Star-Spangled Kid, the American Eagle, Captain Victory, Liberty Belle, the Minute Man, and Captain Marvel. The latter was so popular that his fan club grew to 573,119 members by the war’s end, with the fictional captain receiving nearly 600 fan letters per week.

The typical storylines were simplistic, featuring American heroes’ virtues and bravery in defeating the evil Axis powers. Although racist and jingoistic towards Germans and the Japanese by today’s standards, the stories ultimately gave the public what they craved in the early 1940s. Gleason Publication’s hero Daredevil fought the Claw, a jaundiced and fanged “Oriental” caricature, as well as Hitler himself in the Daredevil Battles Hitler #1.

Apart from stories featuring Hitler and Tojo, many fictional characters simplified or generalized the enemy, including Captain Nazi, the Red Skull, Baron Gestapo, and Captain Swastika. While many superheroes had special powers, the comic book storylines concentrated equally on showcasing other ways of fighting the war. For every hero, such as the Sub-Mariner who sank Japanese submarines, there was Batman and Robin, who simply sold war bonds, or Wonder Woman, who served as a nurse.

Even Uncle Sam, the original symbol of US Army recruitment, was a hero during the 1940s, blending the lines between official government propaganda and the comic book industry. Once the Office of War Information’s agenda—attempting to sell the war to the American people—aligned with the message the comic book artists had pushed for a few years, the stories finally mirrored national policies instead of going against the long-standing isolationism.

Apart from inspiring those at home, the fictional characters would now also inspire those fighting overseas. According to a poll taken in 1943, more than half of American service members were regular comic readers. Stores on military bases reported that comic books outsold the combined totals of Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and Reader’s Digest at a rate of ten to one. Comic books comprised 80% of the reading material on US Army posts, making the armed forces the industry’s largest institutional customer during the war.

Of those accepted for military service from the United States, 70 percent had dropped out of school, 4.4 million had less than an eighth-grade education, and 500,000 had less than a fourth-grade education, with college graduates making up only three percent of the army’s ranks. Thus, easily accessible and straightforward comic book stories often appealed to the GIs more than books or adult-themed magazines.

Comics became the vessel to sell Americans on the idea of war and to build morale. Many storylines and characters did not rely on extraordinary powers but on good American virtues of grit, toughness, tenacity, and hard work. Reading the weekly storylines that showed the protagonists fighting by the rules and winning against evil’s cunning and cheating forces supported the idea that ultimate victory was inevitable. Comics appealed to young men and encouraged them to develop a wartime mentality. While Captain America featured home ads for membership in his “Sentinels of Liberty” club of loyal believers in Americanism, Superman enticed his readers to become one of the “Supermen of America.” For a nominal fee of 10 cents, the former sent young readers badges and certificates they had to sign as an oath to “assist Captain America in his war against spies in the U.S.A.”

Even the advertisements were war-related enticements, selling the public junior and senior air raid warden kits, paper drives, and recognition flash cards. All while, the storylines pushed forth actual policies, such as endorsing the ideas of the Atlantic Charter, the Four Freedoms, and the creation of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, they also reflected prevalent American societal stereotypes. The all-male superheroes’ Justice Society of America offered Wonder Woman a simple secretarial position even though her powers were equal to or stronger than those of most of its members.

Legacy of Wartime Comics

While commercial interests drove the rapid rise of the comic book industry in the mid-1930s, in the latter half of the century, the publishers saw its real potential as a means of spreading war-related propaganda. It would be a stretch to say that comic books propelled the United States towards entering the war, yet they did, at the least, help shift public perception toward interventionism.

The war disrupted American society and daily life, sending away sons, fathers, and brothers and making it evident that nothing short of victory would bring the nation back to normalcy. Ironically, the federal government’s propaganda agencies, such as the Office of War Information, did not need to seek out the fastest-growing entertainment medium as they did with films and radio; the comic book industry was already just fine spreading the patriotic message on their own. All it took was a glance back at Captain America punching Hitler in the face a year before the US entrance into World War II to know that its authors and writers were more than up to the challenge.