Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age U.S.A. Comics, Vol. 2

Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age U.S.A. Comics #2

by Syd Shores (Illustrator), Al Avison (Illustrator), Bob Oksner (Illustrator)

Hot on the heels of the explosion of star-spangled super heroes, U.S.A. COMICS presented a wild and wooly selection of patriotic characters fighting for the Red, White and Blue. From the Victory Boys and the American Avenger to wilder heroes like Roko the Amazing, the Blue Blade and the Fighting Hobo, U.S.A. was a comics magazine bursting at the seams with crazy concepts. But with the Second World War raging, it became clear there was only one hero who could headline a book titled U.S.A.: Captain America! Backed up by the Destroyer, Marvel Boy and the Whizzer--as well as the adventures of regular joes like Sargeant Dix and Jeep Jones, and true tales of WWII--U.S.A. COMICS was the perfect dose of four-color excitement for the American G.I.! Sporting some of the most famous covers of comics' Golden Age, the early Captain America issues of U.S.A. are some of the rarest Marvel comics of all time, and they're collected here for the first time ever! COLLECTING: USA COMICS 5-8

Genres: Comics, Superheroes

269 pages, Hardcover

First published January 4, 2012

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice collection of some forgotten super heroes of the Golden Age of Marvel (timely) comics. Most of these would be B rated heroes at best but still some good period stories. Recommended

[Adam Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've reviewed a lot of Golden Age comic book collections, but few have left me scratching my head as much as this book, which collects issues 5-8 of Timely's USA Comics.

The fact is that no single feature appears in all 4 issues, though a few appear in 2 or 3.

The highlight of the book is, without a doubt, the full length Captain America stories in Issues 6-8 and adventures of the Destroyer in Issues 6 and 8. The cover for Issue 7 is particularly iconic with Bucky parachuting in with Captain America firing a machine gun at the enemy. Ah, now that's what boys want! :)

Beyond that, the book is a hodgepodge of weirdness. There's the usually amusing Jeep Jones. The bizarre and varied adventures of Sergeant Dix, the non-sensical weirdness of three strangely dressed "Victory Boys." The utterly bizarre Blue Blade who (as World War II demanded) fought the Axis shirtless and with a sword. We have two new "Secret Stamp stories" which has the Secret Stamp moving beyond his typical repertoire of ferreting out spies that refuse to buy stamps. And then there's the lead character least likely to be revived by Marvel any time in the future. ("Japbuster" Johnston.) There's also a few one shot stories. I liked, "Death in the Coral Sea" in Issue 6 which centers on American sailors trying to survive a sinking.

Overall, these aren't the best Golden Age stories, but it gives you a flavor of the era: The mix of great stories, patriotism, stories that are offensive by modern standards, silly stories, stories so bad they're good, and stories so bad they're bad. You'll find a little bit of everything in this book.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume of the Marvel Masterworks series reprinting USA Comics is heavy on wartime propaganda, primarily in the South Seas/Guadalcanal area. Captain America takes center stage as the star of the book, though costumed heroes like the Whizzer, the Secret Stamp, the Fighting Hobo, and the Destroyer back him up, as do a lot of more mundane military features. Sgt. Dix, Captain Daring and the unfortunately named "Jap-Buster" Johnson help fill out the four issues.

One has to read these stories with an eye toward the era they were created in, and the reasons they were popular at the time. This was basically military propaganda for both the home front and the troops overseas, so they stories do tend to be very jingoistic and the enemy is treated and portrayed as either incompetent or inhuman, Japanese and German both.

If you can get past the institutionalized racism and propaganda, you'll find some well-crafted golden age stories.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novelty of reading 1940s comic books has largely worn off for me. What once was a unique experience of reading reprints of comics that are scarce and expensive has become a tiresome academic study of the limited tropes and confines of the infancy of superhero comics as well as a study into societal mores and ills of WWII America.

Some of the strips in this book are good, but most are a touch slog of racist caricatures and below average for the era comic books.