Today in Comics History, May 7, 1915: German murder boat refuses to give a fair chance

This is an expanded and updated version of a post originally published May 7, 2021 and May 7, 2022.


from "The Life of Woodrow Wilson" in Real Life Comics #2 (Pines, December 1941), script and art creators uncredited and unknown, letters by Ed Hamilton



It wasn't long after this that the cast of Newsies also protested the unfair play.


from General Douglas MacArthur one-shot (Fox, 1951), creators uncredited and unknown
The Lusitania also features heavily in this not-quite-EC story from...um, Story Comics that begins with a shipwreck and stranded passengers in a lifeboat...


from "Rescue" in Fight Against Crime #16 (Story, November 1953), pencils and inks by Edward Goldfarb
Survivor Frank Miller Hiller soon realizes that the only way he can survive is to eat the others eliminate his competitors for food! Really, how big is that lifeboat that the others aren't woken up by a guy being stabbed or choked?


After he kills off everyone, including the butler and those meddling kids and their dog, too, Hiller is finally rescued. He's safe and sound aboard a ship named...uh oh.


But who is the guy who single-handedly sank the Lusitania? Well, according to this panel, it's the giant blue smirking Kaiser Wilhelm II! Also, U-5! No, not you five, U-5!


from "Surrender!" in War Comics #18 (Marvel/Atlas, April 1953), pencils and inks by Bob Brown
Ka-boom!


Just remember, not only was Kaiser Wilhelm a cruel monarch who dragged his people into WWI and was responsible for the death of millions, he also chewed his fingernails. Ugh, dirty!


Reminder: DEATH ALWAYS WINS. bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha


Anyway, after all that, you still say you want to experience the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania first-hand? Just get out your scissors, paste, and sense of outrage, bucky, because you'll be seeing it through the eyes of a German submarine gunner!



"Table-Top Dioramas" from Our Army at War #252 (DC, December 1972), pencils and inks by Sam Glanzman