365 Days of Defiance, Day 347: I believe in miracles

Mr. Miracle! The world's greatest escape artist! Incredible defier of odds! Opponent to the evil Darkseid! Created by Jack Kirby! Member of the Justice L

NO NO NO START AGAIN

Because this Mr. Miracle has no relation to the Scott Free version we all know and love ('specially Big Barda!) and is a lont-out-of-copyright and he'd-need-a-new-name anyway mystery man, once again from the pages of the tremendously defiant Captain Fearless Comics, which I've spotlighted here and here with the heroes respectively known as Citizen Smith and Diamond Jim (but really Lana). How powerful is this sorta-Spectreque mystic hero? Why, he wears a green suit, that's how.


Panels from the "Mr. Miracle" story in Captain Fearless Comics #2 (Temerson/Helnit/Continental, September 1941), pencils by Ray Willner

365 Days of Defiance, Day 315: A Man Called Smith

As we saw back in August, the extremely short-lived comic Captain Fearless series was great fodder for scenes of defiance against evil and tyranny. It had ten, count 'em, ten different comic stories of action, adventure, and (um) fearlessness, and here's another one, starring the sure-to-be-one-of-the-biggest-hit-characters of the Golden Age, Citizen Smith! (You may have visited Planet Hollywood and saw on display the smith from Citizen Smith.) Please note the publication date: it was on the newsstands more than six months before Pearl Harbor!



Panels from the Citizen Smith story in Captain Fearless Comics #2 (Temerson/Helnit/Continental, September 1941), pencils by Irwin Hasen (?)

365 Days of Defiance, Day 216: Diamonds Are for Lana

Hey, you're forgiven if you've forgotten Captain Fearless, a Golden Age superhero who headlined his own comic book (wow!) published by that giant of comics, Temerson/Helnit/Continental (who?) and who made all of two appearances before his book was unceremoniously cancelled (aw). Captain Fearless, we're told, "has no superpowers, but his horn can summon up his ancestor for assistance." (Citation.) Why, by those standards of posessing horns, I am twice the superhero he is! Other heroes who took the spotlight in the anthology oriented Captain Fearless include "Alias X," "Rusty Dugan in the French Foreign Legion," "Grit Grady, Adventurer" (what was his mother thinking when she named him that?), and "Citizen Smith: Son of the Unknown Soldier." Well, then, we at least half know who the Unknown Soldier was. There's the ripped-from-the-headlines action-thribble adventures of Sergeant "Dick" Carter of the U.S. Border Patrol, who keeps Mexican banditos out of Texas, Mr. Miracle (no, not that one) and Captain Stone, whose exciting escapades take place...under water.

But for the moment let's tear out all the pages of our copy of Captain Fearless #2 except those that feature Diamond Jim, "adventurous American in the Kimberley region of South Africa." Oh man, there's no way this feature isn't gonna get problematic real fast. So instead let's focus on D.J.'s damsel in distress, Lana, who hires the aforementioned Zircon Zhames to protect her from "Rocky" Stone — geez, doesn't anybody in these comics not have a nickname in quote marks? "Rocky" has threatned to steal "Lana's" diamond "mine" so when "Rocky' "kidnaps" both Lana "and" Diamond "Jim," you'd expect it to be Jim to the rescue by standing up against the "bad guys." Not so:



Panels from the Diamond Jim story in Captain Fearless Comics #2 (Temerson/Helnit/Continental, September 1941), pencils and inks by Saul Rosen
HOLY COW LANA! You go girl! You receive today's ward to defying bad guys and provided the only action that will take place in those comic book! Sisters are doin' it for themselves, baby!

The last panel of the story threatens promises "further adventures of Diamond Jim in next months' issue of Captain Fearless," in which I'm certain he will have his ass saved by a tortoise. Unfortunately, this was the last-ever issue of Cap Fearless, and nobody ever saw Diamond Jim, ever again. But I'd sure give Lana her own comic book feature.