Number 1574: Stuntman doubles down

The origin of Simon and Kirby’s post WWII hero, Stuntman, was presented in Stuntman #1, published in 1946, and as the blog Kirby Museum explains, “. . . Stuntman and Boy Explorers [another S and K title for Harvey Comics] were caught in a post-war comic book glut. With the end of paper rationing, publishers and printers went wild and an over abundance of comic books hit the newsstands.” Stuntman stories showed up in a couple more issues of the title, and then some inventory was released in Green Hornet Comics, but Stuntman himself was done.

The comic has one of those Prince and the Pauper plots, where two people who have never met are so alike they can pass for one another. I have always found this sort of thing even more unbelievable than grown men putting on costumes and masks to fight villains, unless they are identical twins separated at birth. It is because of my “comic book mind,” as Mrs. Pappy calls it. I can suspend disbelief when superheroes do their superheroics, while rejecting other plot devices in comic book stories I consider impossible in real life. In addition, Don Daring, when meeting his lookalike, acrobatic Fred Drake, proclaims, “I’m Don Daring the movie star and amateur detective!” Yeah, Don...sur-r-r-r-r-re you are. Only in this case it turns out to be true.

The dwarf character “Ian Spine” is repulsive. Simon and Kirby, like many other producers of popular culture years ago, used real-life physical defects to create a cruel stereotype of a character who is invariably ugly and abnormal.

I love the classic faux book cover. I also like the header on page one, “Save this first issue of STUNTMAN comics...it will be a valuable souvenir someday...” “Someday” is here, and yes it is valuable.

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Number 1489: Stuntman stunted

After the war Joe Simon and Jack Kirby came up with the character, Stuntman, for Harvey Comics. The problem with introducing a masked crimefighter/superhero at the time was that the fad for those characters had peaked, and many of them introduced before and during World War II simply disappeared. As did Stuntman, who had a short career.

This story, made to hype the Stuntman comic (see the ad that precedes the story), appeared in All-New Comics #13 (1946). The advertised Stuntman #3 did not make it to newsstands, but a “stunted” edition of 24 pages, printed in black line, was mailed to subscribers.

I give Jack and Joe credit for trying. Up until the late fifties they periodically introduced superheroes, including Fighting American, the Fly, and a revival of the Shield, only to find they all had shortened careers. After that, especially for Jack in the sixties, the rest is history.

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