Number 1309: Taking Hitler to hell

I don't think I can adequately describe this incredible, crazy tale from the obscure Great Comics #3 (1942). The best I can do is say it's beautifully illustrated, but it’s like a fever-dream. An invisible man from the future, Futuro, guides his fellow invisibles to Bavaria to kidnap Hitler, then take him to “Hades.”

“I can eat toads and Japs, but...UGH!! Not that rotten dictator!” proclaims a winged demon. Everyone involved with this story certainly made their feelings about Hitler known. The artist is unidentified.

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Number 1163: The Secret Fate of Adolph Hitler!

I've shown several stories over the past couple of years showing what "really" happened to Hitler. Because his body was recovered near his Berlin bunker by the Russians there was always a suspicion that Hitler had gotten away from the allies, and was still alive somewhere. If he was alive, he might be plotting a comeback. And so it goes. It was a perfect theme for postwar fiction, including comic books.

This particular tale, written by Horace Leonard ("H. L") Gold, was drawn by Curt Swan and inked by Jon Small. I don't know about your sense of fictional revenge, but the ending just doesn't seem either ironic nor punishment enough. Hitler was, after all, someone who enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

Gold did scripting for DC from 1942 to '44, went in the Army, and did some more comic scripting for a few years. He also wrote science fiction and fantasy prose, and is probably best known for founding and editing Galaxy Science Fiction, beginning in 1950 (the year this story was published). Here's a scan of the cover of Galaxy #1, which I picked up in a used bookstore a few years ago.

According to biographical information, Gold, who was born in 1914, suffered later in life from agoraphobia, and became reclusive. He died at age 81 in 1996.

From Strange Adventures #3 (1950):

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I'm debuting a new masthead next Friday, June 1, and here's a preview.

I've adapted the cover of Red Seal Comics #14, published by Harry "A" Chesler in 1945. The hero barging in at just the nick of time, the Black Dwarf, wasn't black, and he wasn't a dwarf. He was Shorty Wilson, an ex-pro football player without super powers who hated crime. He put on the cloak and hat and strapped on a gun.

I looked at hundreds of covers and panels and settled on this one. The cover is reminiscent of great pulp magazine covers with similar themes: sex, bondage, a mad doctor and a hip-shootin' hero! Paul Gattuso, the artist, isn 't a household name, but he was one of the journeymen comic book artists of the era.

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The Supreme Villain

Of the Silver Age was undoubtedly Adolf Hitler. Of course he mostly appeared in World War II comics like Sgt Fury and Our Army at War, but there were several occasions where he popped up in the more modern world.



In this story from Blackhawk #115 (Aug 1957), a series of daring attacks sends a rumor around the world: Hitler is alive! However, it turns out to be a hoax as a gang of crooks have plotted to steal the Nazis' hidden treasure which is in the hands of a fanatical Hitler supporter.

Hitler made a memorable appearance in Adventure #314. A criminal manages to evade the Legion's elaborate security system and steal their only time-bubble. He heads back into the past to gather some of the greatest villains of history: Nero, Dillinger and Hitler. When they come to the present he manages to switch the minds of those three villains into the bodies of Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Superboy respectively. But Saturn Girl senses that the villains can be defeated by informing each of the weakness of the others (Superboy to Kryptonite, Mon-El to lead, Ultra-Boy to radiation). Sure enough they all kayo each other and their minds are transferred back into their evil bodies:



Der Fuehrer also popped up in Jimmy Olsen #86. Jimmy is shocked when watching an old WWII film to discover that he had a double on Hitler's staff and decides to go back in time to investigate. He arrives on D-Day and sees Eisenhower on the beach (a goof, since Eisenhower did not travel to Normandy until the day after D-Day). Jimmy convinces the Germans he's one of them, and after some amazing predictions of his come true (all learned from the history books), is rapidly promoted up the ladder to the German High Command. He was that German general he saw in that film.



Unfortunately, Jimmy neglects to tell Hitler about the plot on the latter's life by the German generals and he is about to be killed when the time travel mechanism he used (a Professor Potter "time bomb") returns him to the present.

In Fantastic Four #21, Stretcho and the gang battle the Hate Monger, a man who is stirring up hatred in the US and a revolution in South America. In the end, the villain is killed by his own supporters and revealed:

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