Tuesday, May 23, 2006

 
Flash Gordon vs. Hitler

Comics and Politics part IV, and then I'll stop. So who would win? Actually, a dust-up between the sci-fi hero and Der Fuhrer more or less took place in 1943, when Germany took over Belgium and then France and banned Flash Gordon ("Gordon L'Intrepide") from the funny pages. But while the Nazis took the battle, they didn't take the war; Flash survived at least until his last cinematic appearance in 1980 (apparently there's another one on the way), whereas the Thousand-Year Reich fell 988 years short of its predicted life-span.
The interesting part of the story involves Edgar P. Jacobs, friend to Tintin creator Herge and known throughout Europe as the guy who wrote and drew the Blake and Mortimer series. When the papers could no longer import Flash Gordon strips, Jacobs was hired to draw the last episode that would conclude the story lines; then he was hired to write and draw a replacement series. Years later, in 1974, Jacobs went back and retouched his art, and the result was Le Rayon U (The U-ray), a Flash Gordon rip-off that pretty much outdoes the original.
I wish there were more scans that I could link to, because Jacobs' futuristic airplanes, his Mayan necropolis, and jungle shoot-outs with dinosaurs are masterpieces.

Comments:
Just wanted to add--Superman's face-to-face with Hitler--and Stalin--appeared in Look Magazine, Feb. 27th, 1940. Take a look: http://superman.ws/tales2/endsthewar/?page=3
 
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