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cream/ow pages
Kirby & Simon cvr/art; origin & 1st app. Captain America, Bucky, & Red Skull; classic Hitler cover! (3/41) Comic Book Impact rating of 10 (CBI)


We've said it before, but it bears repeating that the popularity of characters such as Captain America and the willingness of comic writers and artists to confront the Axis threat went a long way toward mobilizing a heretofore isolationist American populace in the long, dark days of the late 30s and early 40s. Many other art forms desperately avoided or ignored the ugly truth of Europe's rapid slide into fascism and Nazism in an obvious attempt to protect their own financial interests overseas. The almost entirely US-based comics business, staffed and developed largely by fugitives from those same wartime horrors, boldly waved the flag of freedom, most notably in this instant classic. In those pre-Pearl Harbor days, such an image was simply incendiary, and copies flew off shelves almost immediately, leading to a decades-long run as the preeminent symbol of American heroism.