CURIOSITIES: ONE MAIDEN, ONE MUSLIM

 

While visiting Comic Book Plus. I came across a listing for a small publisher named Elliot, possessed of only two titles, launched in 1944, near the conclusion of WWII and both showing a strong patriotic air. The above cover is from BOMBER COMICS #3, showing most of the characters featured therein. On top are two costumed heroes, Wonder Boy and Kismet, and on the stage below are a black kid named Sunshine (from KID PATROL), the ghost-busting star of GRIMM GHOST DOCTOR and one of his specters, and hero-pilot EAGLE EVANS beating down an enemy while a hot nurse looks on.

The other title was SPITFIRE COMICS, named for its lead feature, SPITFIRE. This concerned a butt-kicking lady spy named Spitfire Sanders, and it's a minor point that it's probably the first war-themed comic with a female lead. 

The title only had two issues and the only other feature worthy of note is JUNGLEMAN, about a jungle-hero who can literally summon beasts to his aid. According to one source Jungleman first appeared in a Harvey title and so this single story may be a licensed reprint.

BOMBER, the other title, lasted four issues and showed a bit more diversity. GRIMM GHOST DOCTOR also appears to be a Harvey recycling, but I have not yet checked the other character's appearances.  Unlike a lot of ghost hunters, Grimm possesses an arcane weapon against spiritual menaces, a "ghost disintegrator," but the hero doesn't seem to use the device much in these four stories. I notice that most of the stories, mainly Rudy Palais, involve the spirits of comely women.          
      

Wonder Boy had been a hero at Quality, which was not yet defunct in 1944, so maybe this was a rare example of a hero being sold to another company without the first company collapsing. One source says that the Quality version didn't have a girlfriend, so the brunette above, seen catfighting a hefty woman, suggests that these are new stories.

Finally, all four issues of BOMBER play host to KISMET, MAN OF FATE, who may be the first Muslim costumed hero. Kismet has neither origin nor special powers, and all four adventures have him fighting Nazis in Europe while garbed in trousers, a cape and a fez. Each episode has the light-skinned Kismet swearing "by the beard of the Prophet" or invoking Allah, so his creator, billed as "Omar Tahan," almost certainly was seeking some personal representation, not unlike Black artist Matt Baker giving Black African tribesmen White wives in the same time period. The stories are nothing special except for #2, in which Satan is so annoyed with Kismet's victories that he sends two infernal emissaries, a big brute and a sexy siren named "Flame," to give the bumbling Hitler a new super-weapon.