timeline_of_earth-x

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timeline_of_earth-x [2016/01/23 07:52] – created docquantumtimeline_of_earth-x [2016/01/24 04:10] – created docquantum
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-**Return to [[Timeline of Earth-X]]**+====== Timeline of Earth-X ======
  
-===== Ancient History =====+Welcome to Earth-X's chronology. Originally based on Mikel Midnight's short Earth-X timeline, it has been greatly expanded beyond that scope to encompass all major events of history in the Earth-X universe. As we continue to discover more sources of information, we will continue to update this chronology.
  
-==== 64 A.D. ====+====Main Earth-X timeline:====
  
-  * Midnight and his assistants (Doc Wackey, Gabby, Sniffer Snoop, and Hotfoot) use Doc's time pills (which enable both time travel and local language translation) to travel back in time from 1944 to ancient Rome in 64 A.D. during the reign of Nero. There they are captured and brought to Nero himself. Thanks to his knowledge of ancient history, Midnight is honored as a prophet by Nero. But when Midnight saves his friends from being killed in the Circus Maximus, they inadvertently cause the Great Fire of Rome before returning to their own time. [Midnight, Smash Comics #52 (April, 1944)] +  * [[Timeline of Earth-X (prehistory to 1950s)]] 
- +  * [[Timeline of Earth-X (1960s to the future)]]
-==== 507 A.D. ==== +
- +
-  * A warrior named Konar has adventures in Macedonia. ["The Barbarian," Feature Funnies #16-18] +
- +
-===== Middle Ages ===== +
- +
-  * Tyrone Neville becomes the Gallant Knight. [Feature Funnies #7] +
- +
-==== 1642 ==== +
- +
-  * A brilliant scientist named Dr. Cyrus Smythe of London invents a formula allowing one to become a giant, but he is attacked by the now-giant monkey he experimented upon, and his body is smashed against a cabinet full of chemicals, causing his brain to become immortal even as his body dies. Smythe's brain survives in his coffin for the next 300 years, becoming embittered against all of humanity over that time. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #11 (September, 1942)] +
- +
-===== 17-18th Centuries ===== +
- +
-  * The Hawk begins adventures (Hawks of the Seas) [Feature Funnies #3] +
-  * Captain Tyrone Fortune begins adventures. [Feature Comics #25] +
-  * Captain Daring begins adventures. [Buccaneers #19] +
-  * Black Roger begins adventures. [Buccaneers #19] +
-  * Eric Falton begins adventures. [Buccaneers #19] +
-  * Adventures on the Spanish Main begins. [Buccaneers #19] +
-  * Corsair Queen begins adventures. [Buccaneers #25] +
- +
-==== 1776 ==== +
- +
-  * On July 4th the Spirit of America is born with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. +
- +
-==== 1777 ==== +
- +
-  * A patriot named Samuel is killed while distracting a troop of Hessian soldiers working for the British crown from stopping a supply line wagon. The Spirit of America joins with him to become Uncle Sam. ["The True Story of Uncle Sam," National Comics #5 (November, 1940)] +
- +
-==== 1789 ==== +
- +
-  * Our Lady of the Shadows University (or La Université Notre Dame des Ombres) is founded, on the French Riviera. 200 years later, under Dean Sandra Knight, students would include Emma Peel (nee Emma Knight) and Delilah Tyler, who becomes Hourgirl. [Action #636; The Fight Continues] +
- +
-==== 1801 ==== +
- +
-  * Adam Peril, USN, has adventures based in Spanish New Orleans. [Buccaneers #24-27] +
- +
-===== 19th Century ===== +
- +
-  * Jeb Rivers and his young partner Catfish begin adventuring during the great days of the old Mississippi riverboats. [Hit Comics #61] +
-  * Rance Keane begins adventures with Chaps Shaw. [Feature Comics #22] +
-  * Two-Gun Lil begins adventures. [Crack Western #63] +
-  * Arizona Ames, his horse Thunder, and sidekick Spurs and his horse Calico begin adventures. Ames later becomes A. Raines. [Crack Western #63] +
-  * Bob Allen, frontier marshal begins adventures. [Crack Western #63] +
-  * Dead Canyon Days begins. [Crack Western #63] +
-  * The Whip and his horse Diablo begin adventures. [Crack Western #70] +
-  * Paul Bunyan begins adventures in a small logging village in Maine. [National Comics #1] +
-  * Sgt. Jim Reynold (brothers named Tom and Pinky) of the RCMP begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #14] +
- +
-===== 20th Century ===== +
- +
-==== 1929 ==== +
- +
-  * A criminal named John Carver goes into a jealous rage when the woman he loves marries actor Richard Stanton, who became a millionaire playing the stock market. Carver plans his revenge. [Crack Comics #1] +
- +
-==== 1930 ==== +
- +
-  * May 1: Richard Stanton, an accomplished character actor and famous female impersonator, plays the last role of a long and successful career as an old woman when his daughter is born. [Crack Comics #1] +
- +
-==== 1931 ==== +
- +
-  * Richard Stanton's daughter is kidnapped by John Carver. Although Stanton suspects Carver of the crime, he does not want his wife's name dragged through the mud and does not tell the police, who find no clues. Stanton begins tracking down Carver and his kidnapped daughter himself. [Crack Comics #1] +
- +
-==== 1932 ==== +
- +
-  * After his wife dies of a broken heart, Richard Stanton invents the identity of Madam Fatal, his impersonation of an old woman. He spends the next eight years tracking down John Carver, following the criminal from city to city in search of clues to find his kidnapped daughter. [Crack Comics #1] +
- +
-==== 1936 ==== +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * Brian O'Brien has first public case as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Clock</span></html>. [Funny Pages vol.1 #6] +
- +
-==== 1937 ==== +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Ned Brant</span></html> begins adventures in sports. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Jane Arden</span></html> begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Lena Pry</span></html> begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Dixie Dugan</span></html> begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Slim and Tubby</span></html> begins. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Jim Swift</span></html> begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Crack Casey</span> has a <span style="color:#FF0000;">single case</span></html>. [Feature Funnies #1] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * T. James Harrington II becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Hawk</span>, and has a <span style="color:#FF0000;">single case</span></html>. [Feature Funnies #2] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Clock</span></html> resumes adventures. [Feature Funnies #3] +
- +
-==== 1938 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Jim Swift</span>'s</html> last chronicled appearance. [Feature Funnies #6] +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Clip Chance</span></html> (at Cliffside) begins adventures with sidekicks Slim and Chink. [Feature Funnies #7] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Archie O'Toole</span></html> begins comical adventures. [Feature Funnies #10] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * Richard Spencer becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Black X</span></html>, a secret agent ("Espionage"). [Feature Funnies #13] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Captain Cook</span></html> of Scotland Yard begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #13] +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Richard Manners</span></html>, a detective, begins adventures. [Feature Funnies #17] +
- +
-==== 1939 ==== +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Richard Manners</span>'</html> last case. [Feature Comics #21] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * Daniel Dyce, a promising young attorney who is a look-alike to his client, criminal Jake Horn, agrees to replace him so that Horn can see his wife Mary and their newborn son. But after he's been sentenced to life imprisonment as convict #711, he discovers that Horn has been killed in a hit-and-run. He begins to dig a tunnel to freedom. Horn's body, meanwhile, goes missing from the morgue shortly after he is pronounced dead. Possibly Jake Horn revives but retains no memory of his previous life, eventually becoming the mystery-man known as Destiny. [Police Comics #1; "The Marksman: Unusual Suspects, Book Two"+
-  * Hugh Hazard uses Bozo the robot, created by villain Dr. Van Thorp, to fight crime as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Iron Man</span></html>. [Smash Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Chic Carter</span></html> has first public case as a crime reporter for the //Daily Star//. //Note: Chic Carter is already well established by this time. There is also an almost-identical Chic Carter of Earth-2 who became the Sword as well. His existence on Earth-2 does not negate the existence of the Earth-X Chic Carter.// [Smash Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);>Abdul the Arab</span></html> (Abdul Bey), son of tribal leader Ali Bey, begins adventures. [Smash Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Wings Wendall</span></html> begins adventures. [Smash Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Kent Thurston (a former private detective) dons a red cloak and carries a gas-gun to become </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Invisible Hood</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. [Smash Comics #1]</span></html> +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Invisible Hood attempt to rescue from his kidnappers the chemist Hans Van Dorn, who treats his cloak with an invisibility solution, enabling the crime-fighter to gain real invisibility. Van Dorn is shot and killed by the kidnappers, taking the secret of invisibility with him. [Smash Comics #2]</span></html> +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">John Law</span></html> begins adventures. [Smash Comics #3] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Flash Fulton</span></html> begins adventures. [Smash Comics #4] +
-  * The German-Soviet invasion of Poland occurs. Janos Prohaska, a pilot in the Polish Air Force, sees his brother and sister killed by Nazi Captain Wolfgang Von Tepp. Prohaska becomes the legend known only as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Blackhawk</span></html> and begins forming a group of international aviators called the Blackhawks over the next several months. [Military Comics #1] +
-  * Bart Hawk, a daring American pilot descended from Chief Black Hawk, is in Poland assisting the Eagle Squadron during the German-Soviet invasion. While there, he meets three Polish pilots: Janos Prohaska, Stanislaus Drozdowski, and Kazimierc "Zeg" Zegota-Januszajtis. Prohaska is inspired by Bart Hawk's Native American heritage to begin calling himself Blackhawk. //Note: This is speculation based on an apocryphal origin story of the Blackhawks featuring Blackhawk as an American-born pilot.// [Blackhawk #198] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles the Green Lizard, a masked gang leader. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #4 (November, 1939)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Darrell Dane invents a serum that causes him to shrink to six inches tall. He becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Doll Man</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #27 (December, 1939)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man battles Dr. Rodent. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #28 (January, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Capt. S.R. "Spin" Shaw</span>,</html> aviator, begins adventures. [Feature Comics #29] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man battles Germans for the first time when he stops a group of officially sanctioned German smugglers using a U-boat to haul American motors back to Germany. Doll Man's fame begins to grow after this case. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #30 (March, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles the Voodoo Master. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #8 (March, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-==== 1940 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Rex Tyler becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Hourman</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> through the use of a drug of his invention called Miraclo, granting him super-strength for one hour. [Adventure Comics #48]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Zero</span></html>, the ghost detective, begins adventures. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Capt. Bruce Blackburn</span></html>, counterspy, begins adventures. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Rusty Ryan</span></html> of Boyville begins adventures with sidekicks Ed, Pierpont, Lee, and Alababa. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Perry Scott</span></html> begins adventures, finds gold of Atlantis. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Voice</span></html> (Mr. Elixir) begins adventures. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Samar</span></html> of the jungle begins adventures. [Feature Comics #32] +
-  * The Clock gains an assistant named <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Pug Brady</span></html> (who looks just like him). [Crack Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, playboy Tom Hallaway (who is secretly a criminal) becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Spider</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> (Alias the...) in order to eliminate the competition. He is assisted by a tough guy named Chuck. [Crack Comics #1]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Wizard Wells</span></html> begins adventures. [Crack Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Molly</span></html> the model begins adventures. [Crack Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Lee Preston</span></html> of the Red Cross begins her adventures as a nurse and pilot. [Crack Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, an inventor and former U.S. Navy Captain Jim Lockhart names himself </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Red Torpedo</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> after his unique submarine. He stops a German U-boat from sinking a ship full of refugees escaping wartorn Europe. [Crack Comics #1]</span></html> +
-  * Richard Stanton, a wealthy character actor and famous female impersonator who has been dressing up as an old woman under the identity of <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Madam Fatal</span></html> to fight crime for the last eight years, has his first public case. He tracks down John Carver, who kidnapped his infant daughter in 1931, but Carver dies before he can reveal where Stanton's daughter is. Madam Fatal lives alone with a pet parrot named Hamlet. //Note: Since Richard Stanton is known to have had a long career as a character actor by 1930 and was a soldier in World War I, he is likely in his mid-forties and was probably born sometime before 1900.// [Crack Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">January 25: On Earth-2, </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Black Condor</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> (Richard Grey, Jr.), who was raised by condors, has first public case bringing Gali Kan to justice in Hindustan after traveling the world for a few years. [Crack Comics #1]</span></html> +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Red Torpedo battles Nazis, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels. [Crack Comics #2]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles the Green Ghost. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #11 (June, 1940).]</span></html> +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * Joe Hercules, possessing an incredible strength he was born with, has first public case as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Hercules</span></html>. [Hit Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, when the corrupt French Foreign Legion commander Cracket sends a troop of Legionnaires into the desert to die, Tom Corbet is the only survivor. Discovering an oasis with a pool of strange, phosphorescent water, Tom drinks of it and gains great strength and neonic power, enabling him to perform amazing feats, such as matter transmutation, energy blasts, heat, and flight. Using those powers to become </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, he discovers the plans of a millionaire named Morgan Crookes, who has rallied the tribal people of Africa, South America, and Australia together to conquer the world from several secret bases hidden in the jungles of those continents. Neon the Unknown leads the Foreign Legion to destroy these bases, along the way battling the tribal armies, which are equipped with modern planes and armaments. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #1 (July, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Richard Raleigh, an assistant D.A. in District Attorney Darrow office in Superior City, becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Red Bee</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, a fighting man assisted occasionally by trained bees, one of which is named Michael. The Red Bee helps the D.A. bring down Boss Storm, a corrupt political boss who has controlled city politics for decades. </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Note: D.A. Darrow is also called Hawkes. Superior City is located on the Eastern Seaboard.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Red Bee, Hit Comics #1 (July, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">X-5 Super-Agent</span></html> begins adventures. [Hit Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Jack and Jill Doe</span></html>, super sleuths, begin adventures. [Hit Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Casey Jones</span></html> begins adventures. [Hit Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Douglas Strange</span></html>, Scotland Yard agent, and his twin brother <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Rodney Strange</span></html>, former boss of a London gang, begin adventures together as the Strange twins. [Hit Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">The Old Witch</span></html>, a teller of weird tales, begins adventures. [Hit Comics #14] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, in a Midwestern town called Glen Valley, an old shopkeeper named Samuel who speaks out against a terrorist group called the Black Legion is found by the spirit of Uncle Sam, who joins with him to gain a physical body and fight injustice as </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Uncle Sam</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">possessing super-strength, invulnerability, super-speed, and occasional mystical powers. Uncle Sam defeats the Black Legion and rounds them up for the police. Soon after, an old man named Ezra Smith speaks out against the rise of the Purple Shirts, a fascist group led by a man called Scar and secretly run by Andel Cobra, who hopes to topple the government. After Smith is killed, his young grandson </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Buddy Smith</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> (a boy with strawberry blond hair) flees and is found by Uncle Sam. After the Purple Shirts kidnap President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Uncle Sam rescues the President and topples the organization. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: As National Comics #2 indicates, Uncle Sam cannot be photographed unless he wants to be.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> ["The True Story of Uncle Sam," National Comics #5 (November, 1940); Uncle Sam, National Comics #1 (July, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">"Prop" Powers</span></html>, an aviator, begins adventures. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Sally O'Neil</span></html>, policewoman, begins adventures. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Kid Dixon</span></html>, a prize-fighter, begins adventures. [National Comics #1] +
-  * Jock Kellogg, an English playboy in London, loses his wealth but gains a magic cloak handed down to him by his ancestor, the great wizard Merlin. Using it, he becomes the world's greatest sorcerer, <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Merlin the Magician</span></html>. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Wonder Boy</span></html> comes from the vacuous depths of outer space and has first public case. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">"Pen" Miller</span></html>, the cartoonist detective, begins adventures. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">The Kid Patrol</span></html> begin adventures. [National Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Black Condor arrives in New York City for the first time during his travels around the world. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #3 (July, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, an ordinary lineman named Tom Dalton is electrocuted by 10,000 DC volts, then shocked back to life by 10,000 AC volts, causing him to gain powers, including magnetism, super-strength, and telescopic vision. He uses those powers to become </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Magno</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, the Miracle Man. In his first public case, he foils the plans of German agents to capture an American ship. [Magno the Miracle Man, Smash Comics #13 (August, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 22-23: The Black Condor frees a distant land from control by Mount Doom, a dormant volcano controlled by Sihn Fan and equipped with super-scientific equipment. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #4 (August, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Red Torpedo discovers and destroys a German submarine base secretly built beneath New York Harbor and run by Baron Krieg. Red Torpedo's girlfriend </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Peggy Norse</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> begins acting as his assistant. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #4 (August, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown frees all the prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp, then leads them on a march to Berlin, where he confronts Adolf Hitler himself and forces him to sign a peace pact. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Dachau is called Rachaw, Germany is called Dunland, and Adolf Hitler is called Radolf, so these are all obvious pseudonyms used in the story for real-world places and people. It is obvious from world history that Hitler broke the peace pact and found some way to keep Neon the Unknown from ever reaching him again.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #2 (August, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles the Golden Dragon, who kidnaps munitions manufacturers in order to gain munitions for his millions of followers in China ready to follow him in his plan to conquer the world. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #13 (August, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Lanford "Happy" Terrill, reporter for </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">The Daily Globe</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, a New York City newspaper, gains super-powers in an accident that turns him into </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Ray</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, possessing the powers of traveling along light beams, magnetism, teleportation, and even some powers to transform objects. It's possible that the Ray's powers are only limited by his imagination, although he is weakened by darkness and regains his powers through external light. An engineer, Mr. Cliff, becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Dark</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> but does not battle the Ray for another 38 years. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: A newspaper places this story in April. Happy's editor is alternately named Steve, Cory, and Mr. Hines. The full name of the newspaper Terrill works for begins with "The Daily..." but is not named until it is called The Star for the first time in Smash Comics #24, and for several issues afterward; later it is called The Daily Globe in Smash Comics #39, which is the most likely full name of the newspaper. It is also possible that Terrill worked for The Daily Globe only on Earth-X, but worked for The Star while on Earth-2.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Ray, Smash Comics #14 (September, 1940); Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1]</span></html> +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo fights his opposite number, a pirate using an advanced submarine called </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Lone Shark</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> (who is later known as the Black Shark), and apprehends him after a battle beneath the sea. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #5 (September, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Spider battles a foreign mad scientist named Dr. Corsica, who has invented a toxin that supposedly grants great strength, but whose test subjects are all women, all but one of whom die during the experiments. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The last test subject is an unnamed redheaded woman; it remains unknown if Corsica's toxin injection actually worked.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #5 (September, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man battles Doctor Python, the so-called master of minds, a mad scientist who collects the heads of brilliant men and somehow preserves the brain, enabling them to work for him. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #36 (September, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown rescues British explorer Sir Humphrey Walker from a lost land, a prehistoric jungle island beneath the polar ice caps populated by savages. The two decide to keep the lost land a secret. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #3 (September, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">After the Philippines officially gains its independence, and American troops leave, Imperial Japan sends in Yiffendi, a supposed rebel leader, to stir up trouble so that Japanese soldiers can march in and take over in the name of peacekeeping. Uncle Sam and Buddy Smith arrive and provide assistance to Filipino soldiers, who manage to topple Yiffendi and his followers, freeing the Philippines. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: In real history, plans for the Philippines' independence were put on hold by World War II until 1946, but Earth-X history is somewhat different.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Uncle Sam, National Comics #3 (September, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * Denny Colt has first public case as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Spirit</span></html>. //Note: Denny Colt, the Spirit, exists on Earth-X because reprints and original stories featuring the character later appeared in Police Comics.// [The Spirit Section, June 2, 1940] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">The Voice</span></html> has his last known case. [Feature Comics #37] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">After the Kite Men attack New York City from above with powerful bolts of electricity, the Black Condor battles them but is captured and hypnotized into leading an attack on Washington, D.C. There, Black Condor revives from the spell when he is attacked, and he manages to defeat the Kite Men, discovering that their unnamed leader is a white-bearded dwarf. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: With this story, the Black Condor remains in the United States.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #6 (October, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown stops an invasion of America from the nation of Kampfland, who use the Trans-Atlantic Bridge -- a bridge joining America with Europe, known as the greatest engineering feat of mankind -- to march troops toward America. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #4 (October, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Uncle Sam and Buddy Smith discover artificial floating islands that turn out to be a secret mobile Japanese base for spying on the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet. Uncle Sam tows the islands toward the California coast, allowing the Navy to bomb and destroy them. [Uncle Sam, National Comics #4 (October, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray battles a disfigured mad scientist called Cadava, who causes destruction to part of New York City with a powerful beam that causes buildings to crumble. [The Ray, Smash Comics #15 (October, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Darrell Dane is sworn in as a special detective of the New York Police Department. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #38 (November, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Ace of Space</span></html> (Ace Egan) begins adventures, battles the Slogons. [Feature Comics #38] +
-  * Poison Ivy (the Mighty Mite?) meets the Great Colosso, a superhero, and fights Muscletoe. [Feature Comics #38] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);">Max Mercury has first public case as <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Quicksilver</span>, the Laughing Robin Hood, when a mad scientist named Von Lohfer brings several New York City police officers under his chemical hypnotic control as part of a revenge scheme against an industrialist. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Max Mercury is likely a stage name he used when he was a circus acrobat; his real name had not been revealed, but it may be Max Crandall.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [National Comics #5]</span></html> +
-  * Barry Moore, a talented character actor in film, disguises himself as a Chinese man to fight crime as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Scarlet Seal</span></html>. [Smash Comics #16] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Red Torpedo fights the Black Shark (formerly the Lone Shark) once again, and meets Queen Klitra and the Mermazons (mermaid amazons) of the domed city of Merezonia. He assists the Mermazons against their enemy, the King of the Caverns. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #7 (November, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Spider begins using </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">the Black Widow</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, his powerful, super-fast vehicle. [Crack Comics #7]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">New York City is afflicted with a plague of madness, randomly affecting people over several days and causing several deaths and much destruction. Neon the Unknown discovers that the madness is caused by a dust dropped by a plane overhead. Tracking it back to its source, he discovers a secret Nazi base in Nova Scotia, Canada, and destroys the laboratory producing the fear dust. A scientist creates an antidote, and Neon cures everyone still afflicted with madness, then destroys the rest of the fleet attacking the East Coast. ["A Metropolis of Madmen," Hit Comics #5 (November, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles a criminal scientist named Dr. Robb, who possesses the jeweled case of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh, Ra Tutkamen, which allows anyone using it to remove an object's gravity, releasing it into space. Dr. Robb is killed, and the case is destroyed. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #16 (November, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray battles Bela Jat, a Hindu mystic with the magical power to turn himself into a gaseous form. [The Ray, Smash Comics #16 (November, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * Bruce Blackburn first becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Destroying Demon</span></html>. [Feature Comics #39] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo is forced to ally with the Black Shark for a case. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #8 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * The Clock fights an invulnerable giant from Mongolia called Stuporman, who dies. [Crack Comics #8] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Black Condor battles a group of thinking machines called the Spinning Death, invented by and given artificial intelligence by the Asian mad scientist Lung Woe, who is killed by the original thinking machine. The Spinning Death replicates itself and begins attacking American cities, killing thousands until the Black Condor stops them by their only point of weakness. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The Spinning Death machines predate the Daleks by over two decades but are somewhat similar. Surviving Spinning Death machines might also be connected to the artificial intelligence that took over the Nazi Empire in the late 1960s and replaced Nazi officials with androids under its control.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #8 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man discovers a hidden village populated by Puritans who have lived there for over 200 years without contact from the outside world. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #39 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">A mad scientist named Fritz Cardif terrorizes America with his invisible ray. When troops are sent to capture him, he destroys all means of attack -- whether infantry or bombing planes -- before they can even come near him. Neon the Unknown vows to stop him and reaches Cardif's fortress, where Cardif succeeds in temporarily canceling out Neon's neonic powers and capturing the hero. Tying Neon to a rocket, he launches it toward Washington, D.C., intending to destroy both Neon the Unknown and the Capitol in one fell swoop. But Neon escapes as his powers are restored, and he sends the rocket back to Cardif's fortress, destroying it and presumably killing Cardif and his men. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #6 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Red Bee battles a midget mad scientist called Kulak. ["The Swords of Death," Hit Comics #6 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray battles a clarinet-playing musician named Stradivous, who has the power to entrance people with his music. [The Ray, Smash Comics #17 (December, 1940)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * Bruce Blackburn appears as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">the Destroying Demon</span></html> for the last time. [Feature Comics #40] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, radio announcer Dave Clark becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Midnight</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> in Big City when he learns that the Carleton Construction Company has been building with inferior concrete, causing an apartment building to collapse and then the Tri-State Dam. Midnight brings Morris Carleton to justice and decides to keep up his mystery-man act. Midnight also meets Rod Reilly briefly at Carleton's party. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: According to Secret Origins v2 #28, Big City is New York City. Midnight wears reversible suits so he can change into the black-sided suit at a moment's notice.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Midnight, Smash Comics #18 (January, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Lee Preston</span>'s last adventure. [Crack Comics #9]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Red Torpedo rescues Dr. Freiheit, a leader of an opposition group against the Nazis in Germany. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #9 (January, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man captures a sabotage ring operating on the East and West Coasts. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #40 (January, 1941)]</html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Four Lamas in Tibet combine their mystic mental power to cause the peaceful President Karla of a Central European country to go to war. Neon the Unknown uses the president to locate the four Lamas. After a mental battle of wills between Neon the Unknown and the four Lamas, the Lamas' heads literally explode from the strain. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #7 (January, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Uncle Sam discovers a secret Nazi invasion of America by using a fleet of giant underwater destroyers to evade detection. Rallying people on Long Island, he and the people of Montauk fight off the invasion and destroy the fleet. ["Uncle Sam Leads the Way," National Comics #7 (January, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Magno battles an unnamed mad scientist in a facility hidden in a swamp, who has transformed several young men into fanged half-men he uses as slaves while keeping several older men prisoner. Magno discovers that his electric current can restore these half-men back to normal, and he destroys the facility. [Magno, Smash Comics #18 (January, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man briefly joins the U.S. Army as Darrel Dane and saves President Roosevelt from an assassination attempt by Nazi spies before being discharged from the army. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #41 (February, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Poison Ivy meets hockey teams the New York Strangers and the Toronto Tea Leafs. [Feature Comics #41] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Ace of Space</span></html>'s adventures end as he joins the Army Air Corps. [Feature Comics #41] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, after the Red Torpedo helps aid England in the Battle of Britain, the Germans use their hired spy the Black Shark to capture him, but the Red Torpedo escapes. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #10 (February, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Jimmy Slade, a press photographer, becomes mystery-man <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Tor the Magic Master</span></html>. [Crack Comics #10] +
-  * Madam Fatal meets Robert Mason, who becomes the original mystery-man known as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Jester</span></html>, son of the scientist Prof. Mason. //Note: Although this is his only appearance, it is likely that he resumes crime-fighting after the Jester of Earth-2 has returned to that world.// [Crack Comics #10] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown smashes an anti-American bund run by fifth columnists in the United States. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #8 (February, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood discovers a prehistoric land hidden in the Arctic, where he discovers a white man has been enslaving the natives to drill oil wells. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #19 (February, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Magno stops a plot to use a commercial airplane from each major American city as a bomber and strike simultaneously across the country. The leader is a white-haired, bearded American man whose identity is unrevealed. [Magno, Smash Comics #19 (February, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Darrel Dane (Doll Man) celebrates Martha Roberts' birthday. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #42 (March, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">USA, the Spirit of Old Glory</span></html>, a feminine spirit of America, has first public case; she came into being as Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. [Feature Comics #42] +
-  * Zero, ghost detective, time-travels to thousands of years in the future and battles Loro, Mogur, and other Martians. //Note: These Martians of the far future are human and obviously descended from settlers from Earth.// [Feature Comics #42] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">November 14-16: On Earth-2, U.S. Senator Tom Wright goes against the wishes of a crooked political boss </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Jaspar Crow</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, who virtually controls the Senate, when he decides to vote against a bill. When Crow has Wright shot and leaves his dying body on a country road, the Black Condor finds him still alive but mortally wounded and discovers that they are physically identical. Delivering Wright to </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Dr. Foster</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, the Black Condor impersonates him and votes against the bill, then learns that Wright has died. Dr. Foster convinces the Black Condor to take Wright's identity, but Wright's fiancee </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Wendy Foster</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> (Dr. Foster's daughter) is not informed that the real Wright is dead.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> Meanwhile, after the Black Condor prevents Crow's men from killing Senator Gibbs, Crow flees the country. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #11 (March, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown returns to the French Foreign Legion, revealing that he Tom Corbet survived to become the hero. Neon then discovers a secret tunnel joining North Africa with Gibraltar and stops an invasion of Axis troops on British-held Gibraltar, then destroys the tunnel. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #9 (March, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">When German U-boats begin escaping with stolen munitions from ships in American waters, the Red Bee discovers the men behind the scheme and puts an end to it. [The Red Bee, Hit Comics #9 (March, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Midnight battles a sorcerer named </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Chango the Magician</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, an old Vaudeville star with real magic who uses Pig Latin spells to control objects and bring them to life, enabling them to flee from their owners and walk, run, roll, or fly into his hands. Midnight finally stops Chango when he steals the U.S. Bullion Depository building, stopping it mid-flight out of Fort Knox. [Midnight, Smash Comics #20 (March, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Magno has his last solo published case. [Magno, Smash Comics #21 (April, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">When Senator Tom Wright (Black Condor) attempts to push through a bill granting better conditions to miners, it is defeated thanks to the political machine of Jaspar Crow, who has set himself up in an exploitative mining operation in Pennsylvania. After Crow frames the murder of a foremen on the miners, turning the sympathy against them in the hopes of quelling a possible strike, the Black Condor prevents further bloodshed but fails to capture Crow himself. The mining bill passes after a second vote. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #12 (April, 1941)]</span><html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Red Torpedo prevents an invasion of Manila in the Philippines. The Red Torpedo's submarine displays the ability to fly or leap short distances out of the water long enough to act as a short-range bomber. [The Red Torpedo, Crack Comics #12 (April, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown stops a plot in South America by Nazi fifth columnists who try to use natives to cause disruption and sabotage throughout South American cities. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #10 (April, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Midnight meets Gabby, a monkey given human-level intelligence and the ability to talk through scientific experimentation by scientist Alice O'Day. After Alice is killed by criminals who want her formula, Midnight adopts Gabby as his sidekick. At this time Midnight begins using his vacuum-gun, which fires a line of fine silk cord with a suction cup at the end of it. [Midnight, Smash Comics #21 (April, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Happy Terrill saves the life of a freckled, dark-haired boy named Jackie, who is orphaned when a plane is shot down over the Pacific. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray stops a raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by Japanese planes commanded by a pirate called </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Captain Blue</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, who wants war in the Pacific in order to gain an empire for himself.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Ray, Smash Comics #21 (May, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-==== 1941 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * Zero, Ghost Detective, meets the Reaper (Death). [Feature Comics #44] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, rookie patrolman Chuck Lane becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Jester</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> in New York City. As the direct descendant of a real court jester, Lane took his mystery-man gimmick from his ancestor. [Smash Comics #22]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Adolf Hitler, frustrated by how such figures as Neon the Unknown have thwarted his plans again and again, consults the last living necromancer in Germany, Damus the wizard. Damus summons Neon the Unknown and has a wizard's battle with him until Neon manages to convince Damus to leave Hitler's service and flee the country. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Adolf Hitler is called Otto Shickler in this story, but Shickler is a thinly veiled version of Hitler.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #11 (May, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Happy Terrill (the Ray) takes in the orphaned Jackie as his guardian and nicknames him </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Little Bud</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. Little Bud is kidnapped from his bed and brought to a hidden fantasy land called Elixir, ruled by King Peveral. The Ray arrives and fights off an invasion by a mad ruler named Kulik, who is assisted by Captain Blue. After crashing a flying ship he took, Little Bud later awakes in his bed; it was all supposedly a dream, although it may have really happened. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: This story takes place during the winter, as evidenced by snow everywhere.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Ray, Smash Comics #22 (May, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="font-weight:bold;">Rusty Ryan</span></html> forms <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Boyville Brigadiers</span></html>, a team of six patriotic young men in flag-inspired costumes. [Feature Comics #45] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo again battles Black Shark, who is paid by Imperial Japan to kill the Red Torpedo. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: While the Black Shark was previously shown to be a bald man with a goatee, he now has a full head of dark hair and a goatee; presumably he either stopped shaving his head or now wears a wig.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Crack Comics #13]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">February 12-13: Black Condor investigates the murder of an inventor named Carl Stark by thugs in order to gain a remote-control bomb detonator that they use to destroy several buildings at once with pre-planted bombs. The Black Condor also prevents the Senate from being destroyed in the same way and discovers that the man behind the attacks is U.S. Army General Korn. After his arrest, Korn claims that he was the real inventor of the remote-control detonator and used Stark as his front-man. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #13 (June, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown exposes a secret pact between Adolf Hitler and Tchebitsky, the leader of the small country of Slovia, to allow Nazi Germany to annex it, and he leads a revolution that ousts </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Tchebitsky</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> and fights off a German invasion. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #12 (June, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">A wave of sabotage sweeps across America, damaging most of the country's arsenals. In Mammoth City, Uncle Sam and Buddy Smith take a stand to prevent the sabotage of Mammoth Arsenal, the destruction of which is intended to be the signal for a German invasion of the United States. [Uncle Sam, National Comics]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood battles the Crystal Queen and Caglio the magician, who steal the ancient Blue Crystal and use its strange powers to kill people with the Blue Death and fire destructive blasts. But the Crystal Queen and Caglio end up killing each other after arguing over control of the Blue Crystal, and the object is apparently lost in an explosion of her fortress, which the Invisible Hood alone survives. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #23 (June, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Midnight investigates a string of bank robberies by an eccentric old scientist named </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Mortimer "Doc" Wackey</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, who uses a formula to turn adults into babies almost instantly. After Midnight and his talking monkey Gabby confront him, Doc Wackey turns Midnight into a baby until Gabby uses an untested antidote to change him back to normal. After Midnight chases down the fleeing Doc Wackey, he offers him a chance to become his partner against crime, and the mad scientist accepts. [Midnight, Smash Comics #23 (June, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Doll Man gains a one-time only partner in young Ray Corley, who learns his secret identity and who goes to school with Tommy Roberts, younger brother of his fiancee Martha Roberts. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: This story is set in the spring.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #43 (April, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Chic Carter, crime reporter, has first public case as a mystery-man named <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Sword</span></html>. [Smash Comics #24] +
-  * Wings Wendall dons a new costume. [Smash Comics #24] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">The Scarlet Seal</span>'s</html> last case. [Smash Comics #24] +
-  * USA the Spirit of Old Glory stops the Advance Front, an army of Nazi American fifth columnists, from marching on Washington, D.C. [USA, the Spirit of Old Glory, Feature Comics #46 (July, 1941).] +
-  * USA the Spirit of Old Glory assists the FBI to capture a gang of Nazi saboteurs. //Note: The FBI man called the chief is most likely Tim Healy, whose Earth-2 counterpart later employs Joan Dale, alias Miss America.// [USA, the Spirit of Old Glory, Feature Comics #47 (August, 1941).] +
-  * Merlin the Magician personally presents a huge diamond called the All-Seeing Eye to Prime Minister Winston Churchill for England's war effort. [National Comics #13] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Wizard Wells</span>'</html> last adventure. [Crack Comics #14] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo again battles the Black Shark, who is still working for Imperial Japan. [Crack Comics #14]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">March 12-15: Jaspar Crow hires a man to discredit the Black Condor by masquerading him and causing strife amongst steel workers who go on strike against the horrible conditions Crow forces them to work under. The real Black Condor intervenes and terrorizes Crow into signing a humane labor contract. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #14 (July, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">When the great physicist Dr. Albert Einstein is the latest in a string of scientist kidnappings, Neon the Unknown tracks him down and discovers that the scientists have all been abducted by a renegade scientist named Dr. Marko. Working in a remote location on a river island near the Grand Canyon, the scientist are forced to create new gases and war materials to be sold to Germany and Japan. Neon puts a stop to the operation, frees the kidnapped scientists, and arrests Marko and his henchmen. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: In the story, Einstein is called Dr. Enfield, but it is obviously the same man with the same appearance as Einstein.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #13 (July, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood travels to Panama and is taken to the hidden Mayan city of Tempera, ruled by the tyrant Chac Mool, who overthrew the real ruler Chima and works with Nazi agents planning to blow up the Panama Canal. The Invisible Hood defeats the false ruler and the Nazi agents and restores Chima to the throne. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #24 (July, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray captures a group of Nazi spies. [The Ray, Smash Comics #24 (July, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * The full membership of <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">the Blackhawks</span> (Blackhawk of Poland, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Stanislaus Drozdowski</span> of Poland, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Kazimierc "Zeg" Zegota-Januszajtis</span> of Poland, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Chuck Wilson</span> of Texas, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Hans Hendrickson</span> of Holland, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Andre Blanc-Dumont</span> of France, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Olaf Bjornson</span> of Sweden, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Boris Zinoviev</span> of Russia, and <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Ian Holcomb-Baker</span></html> of England), a flying squadron comprised of international pilots, begin first chronicled adventures. [Military Comics #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 12: The Spider foils the plans of a Nazi saboteur named Hansel, who has repeatedly sabotaged efforts to build a tunnel under the river in New York City. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #15 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Aviators <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">"Loops" McCann</span> and <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">"Banks" Barrows</span></html> of the Red Dragon Squadron (Loops and Banks) begin adventures in China. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * Captain "Wild" Bill Dunn and Boomerang Jones pilot the //Blue Tracer//. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Archie Atkins</span></html>, desert scout, begins adventures in Africa. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Col. Shot</span> and <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Slim Shell</span></html> (Shot and Shell) begin adventures in the U.S. Army Corps. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * Larry Noble (also called Jerry), an ex-Hollywood stuntman and the son of Senator Walter Q. Noble, with his pet eagle, Sam, has first public case as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">the Yankee Eagle</span></html>, helping out the U.S. Navy. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">The Death Patrol</span>, an independent flying squadron led by Del Van Dyne, and comprised of several escaped criminals (<span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Butch<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">, </span>Hank<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">, </span>Peewee<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">, </span>Slick<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">, </span>Gramps</span>) are formed. <span style="color:#FF0000;">Peewee</span></html> is killed. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Capt. Foghorn</span></html>, a privateer like his ancestor John Paul Jones, begins adventures on the four-masted schooner Albatross, a deceivingly advanced ship built in the form of an old schooner, and even equipped with a Q-boat; the ship's crew are all children, and the Captain's officers are first mate Bob Wayne, bosun Dick Martin, and Marmaduke "Freckles" Van Weyden. [Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Rod Reilly, an idle millionaire playboy, becomes a crime-fighter named </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Firebrand</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, with the help of his assistant and butler, ex-prize-fighter "Slugger" Dunn. Rod has recently become engaged to a debutante named Joan Rogers. Rod's father is "Emerald" Ed Reilly, while his mother is unnamed. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Firebrand has been active prior to this case. Slugger Dunn is also referred to as Slugger Shea.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Firebrand, Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Daniel Dyce finally completes a tunnel leading out of the prison he's in after two years imprisonment, but stays and becomes the mystery-man known as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">711</span></html>, secretly operating both in and out of the prison via the secret tunnel. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Eagle Evans</span>, flier of fortune, along with his sidekick photographer Snap Smith begin adventures. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Steel Kerrigan</span></html>, a 20-year-old prisoner, is pardoned by the Governor after he stops a prison riot while serving his third year at State Prison (after being tricked by a gang to act as a lookout when he was 17), and becomes an amateur crime-fighter. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * Newly elected D.A. Bill Perkins has first public case as the mystery-man known as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Mouthpiece</span></html>. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Dick Mace</span></html>, a young American detective, begins adventures. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 10-13: On Earth-2, Black Condor again battles Jaspar Crow, this time in Miami, Florida, when Crow uses a freighter line to smuggle guns to revolutionaries in Cuba, and Crow is arrested and charged for his crimes for the first time. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #15 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 12: On Earth-2, Sandra Knight saves her father, Senator Henry Knight, from would-be kidnappers who call her a "phantom lady." </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Sandra Knight soon begins adventuring as a costumed mystery woman called </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Phantom Lady</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, using a black-light ray invented by a scientist-friend of her cousin Ted Knight. Her love interest is Don Borden, a State Department investigator. In her first case as a costumed mystery-woman, Phantom Lady saves a bomb inventor named Raphael from Wenner, a man who planned to steal his uranium explosive and sell it to foreign powers. [Phantom Lady, Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, chemist Roy Lincoln of Washington, D.C., son of a famous explosives expert, assists his father to create a new super explosive 27-QRX. Nazi agents kill his father, and he ingests the explosive capsule, gaining invulnerability and the power to cause explosions with his hands, and becomes the mystery-man known as </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Human Bomb</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. After he discovers that the German Consul is behind the murder of his father, he uses his explosive power to kill him. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Carol Vance Martin becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Wildfire</span></html>. [Smash Comics #25] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 12-19: On Earth-2, criminal "Eel" O'Brien is shot and doused with acid at the Crawford Chemical Works, and discovers his body has become completely pliable and elastic, allowing him to stretch and become any shape at will. He decides to fight crime with his powers and becomes the mystery-man known as </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Plastic Man</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. In his first case, he captures his old gang, led by Skizzle Shanks. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo battles and captures Black Shark again, who uses his Bat Plane. [Crack Comics #15]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">April 21: The Jester nabs a group of Nazi saboteurs after they target the Navy yard. [The Jester, Smash Comics #25 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * April 22: <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">USA the Spirit of Old Glory</span></html> has her last case of this era before transferring her magic to Joan Dale to become Miss America. [USA, the Spirit of Old Glory, Feature Comics #48 (September, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, having an hour to spend before a meeting, </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Daily Star</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> reporter Joan Dale falls asleep at the foot of the Statue of Liberty and wishes for the power to do good; then the spirit of liberty herself (which is actually USA the Spirit of Old Glory) grants Joan the magical power of transmuting anything or anyone and several other magical powers, such as teleportation and imbuing personalities into objects she's transformed. Joan becomes the patriotic mystery-woman known as </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Miss America</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, originally acting in an ordinary red dress. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Unlike the Post-Crisis version of her origin involving Project M, Miss America's Pre-Crisis origin and powers are clearly magical in nature.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Miss America, Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * Test pilot <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Tex "Spitfire" Adams</span></html> begins adventures in his Spitfire. [Crack Comics #15] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown finds mines placed in New York Harbor that destroy war supplies heading to England. He soon discovers and destroys an underwater Nazi base with an arsenal large enough to invade the United States. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #14 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">An epidemic of blindness plagues factories with defense contracts all over America, and the FBI discovers that all or most of the men hired to replace them are members of the Black Legion, the fifth columnist organization. Uncle Sam also discovers that military personnel are also going blind. Uncle Sam meets with President Roosevelt and the Congress to come up with a plan to fight the Black Legion. Uncle Sam and Buddy Smith find the Pacific Island base used by the Black Legion and discover their plans to make not only all of America's armed forces blind but the entire country in preparation for a massive invasion. Uncle Sam causes all the Black Legion workers to become blind, and the U.S. Army Air Corps brings down all the planes over the Atlantic before they can drop the blindness powder on the country. Then everyone afflicted with blindness is cured by an antidote created by a team of government doctors. The Black Legion in America is rounded up and arrested, and President Roosevelt publicly thanks Uncle Sam. [Uncle Sam, National Comics #14 (August, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * Quicksilver uncovers a plot by the leader of the Lansmen (an offshoot of the Black Legion) to create local revolutions across America, beginning in Smithtown, for the eventual purpose of weakening the United States for a German invasion. [Quicksilver, National Comics #15 (September, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">May 10-12: Plastic Man gets a job with the New York City Police Department under Captain Murphy when he captures both a Canadian opium-smuggling ring and Senator A.J. Simms, who is involved in the ring. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #2 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">May 11-12: On Earth-2, Black Condor again battles the plans of Jaspar Crow, who hires a killer known as the Ghost-Gun Killer in order to scare the owners of a factory to sell it to him. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #16 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Doll Man uncovers a Nazi plan to use Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana as a base for an invasion, and he calls in the U.S. Army Air Force to bomb the island after a Luftwaffe fleet arrives. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #48 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Miss America foils a gang of fifth columnists when they try to forcefully recruit a young German-born American. [Miss America, Military Comics #2 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Gen. Alfredo Muerte leads a revolution on the Caribbean island nation of Libertad. Rod Reilly, vacationing in Miami, flies into Libertad and crushes the revolution by capturing Gen. Muerte and restoring the popular president to power. [The Firebrand, Police Comics #2 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Human Bomb discovers a plot to destroy all of America's Atlantic seaports by a Nazi group called the Suicide Squadron, based on Calona Island, an island that sank fifty years ago. [The Human Bomb, Police Comics #2 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">When the Hermese Embassy in Washington, D.C., burns down, killing the ambassador, the tiny Asian nation of Herma blames the U.S. and threatens war. Phantom Lady discovers that the fire was caused by agents of Imperial Japan, who plan to step in and take over Herma in the guise of protecting it from the U.S. Phantom Lady finds and rescues Ambassador Kivoya of Herma, ending the threat of war between the U.S. and Herma. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Imperial Japan is referred to in this story as Kioland.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Phantom Lady, Police Comics #2 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Invisible Hood stops a criminal named Zergon from stealing the </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Waterbug</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">, an advanced submarine invented by Prof. Saxon, and selling it to Nazi Germany. Both Zergon and the original </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Waterbug</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> model are destroyed in a battle with the newest </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Waterbug</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #26 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">The Ray, investigating the assassination of a government official in Washington, D.C., uncovers a Nazi spy ring that has its own poison gas factory. The Ray smashes the ring and brings its leader to justice. [The Ray, Smash Comics #26 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo again battles Black Shark, who invades the Red Torpedo's South Seas island base with a troop of Japanese soldiers and captures the Red Torpedo's craft. [Crack Comics #16]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Much of America's defenses are blown up by a fantastic weapon -- a mobile cannon with a long-range able to accurately bomb its targets from afar -- invented by a brilliant Nazi scientist whose name remains unknown. Uncle Sam puts a stop to the cannon and arrests the scientist. [Uncle Sam, National Comics #15 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Neon the Unknown discovers that Nazi agents are planting bombs in the basements of skyscrapers in New York City, intending to blow up all major buildings as a prelude to invasion. Neon confronts Adolf Hitler himself. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #15 (September, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">After Dr. Roberts is kidnapped by Nazi agents, who seek the secret of his new ray, which he's building for the War Department, Doll Man tracks down the kidnappers and rescues Dr. Roberts. ["The Red Light of Doom," Doll Man Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo invades the Black Shark's island stronghold and retrieves his stolen craft, which he flies to a secret island. [Crack Comics #17]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">"Chop-Chop"</span></html> (Weng Chan, a.k.a. Liu Huang, a.k.a. Wu Cheng) joins the Blackhawks, first as a cook and later as a pilot. [Military Comics #3] +
-  * Justin Wright becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Just 'N' Right</span> and has a <span style="color:#FF0000;">single case</span></html>. [Doll Man #1] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Spider battles an invasion of green-skinned monster men from beneath the earth in Manhattan, armed with green rays and a green gas that causes many people to become paralyzed. Defeated by the horde, the Spider is brought to the underground world to meet the leader, who claims that his brain controls his men and that he can blow up every surface city at the touch of a button. The Spider overcomes the leader and chokes him to death, causing all the invaders to collapse and die, and he reverses the paralyzing green gas. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #17 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">June 5-10: On Earth-2, the Black Condor battles Jaspar Crow, who forces a harsh new tax bill for American Indians to go through, causing strife. The Black Condor learns that Nazi agents have provided arms to the Indians and incited them to violence, and he stops the riots, exposes the German agents, and defeats the tax bill. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #17 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Doll Man and Dr. Roberts foil a Nazi fifth columnist plan to ship faulty aluminum ore to aircraft manufacturers. [The Doll Man, Feature Comics #49 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Neon the Unknown smashes the super-technology gathered by mobster Scar Lioni, boss of Rackets, Inc. In retaliation, Lioni has his scientists invent an anti-Neon device to neutralize the hero's powers, and after 14 days they come up with an idea. In another week, they finish building it. Using it, they magnetically pull Neon there from afar and make a failed attempt to kill him. Neon captures Lioni and his gang before they can flee the country. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #16 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Miss America foils a forgery scheme, then as Joan Dale threatens to quit her reporter job at the </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Daily Star</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> after receiving no respect for her work from the editor. [Miss America, Military Comics #3 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Firebrand uncovers a plot to swindle poor Oklahoma farmers out of their land, which holds large pockets of oil beneath them, all to supply the Axis with millions of barrels of oil. [The Firebrand, Police Comics #3 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, after Don Borden is kidnapped by a Nazi spy nest, Phantom Lady frees him and helps subdue the spies. [Phantom Lady, Police Comics #3 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Invisible Hood battles the White Wizard, a mastermind villain based in an underground city below Metropolis. Although the Invisible Hood stops the villain and causes the underground city to explode, the White Wizard escapes. [Invisible Justice, Smash Comics #27 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Ray uncovers a Nazi laboratory built below the site of a more recently built U.S. Army base and stops the Nazi agents, who are armed with advanced tanks and an atom-smasher ray. [The Ray, Smash Comics #27 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Doll Man battles a winged super-villain called the Vulture, alias a man named Aylmer who owes money to the mob and goes on a theft spree in New York City, and later strikes dead his father, a pet show owner. Doll Man saves Martha Roberts, who is targeted by the Vulture when she wears a valuable diamond, but the villain escapes. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Although they were shown to be engaged as early as the Doll Man's origin story, this story implies that Darrel and Martha are merely dating, and that he hasn't yet popped the question.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> ["The Vulture," Doll Man Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Darrel Dane is briefly framed for murder by a couple of confidence men with a fake oil field, and even Martha Roberts and Dr. Roberts think he's guilty, until Doll Man clears his name. ["Black Gold," Doll Man Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Darrel Dane battles a costumed thief called the Black Gondolier. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Martha Roberts is again referred to as Darrel Dane's fiancee in this story.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> ["The Black Gondolier," Doll Man Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Roy Lincoln is invited to the White House, where President Roosevelt asks him to become the head of a new chemical laboratory in Washington, D.C. There, the Human Bomb discovers that the President has been blackmailed by the threat of a purple mist. The Human Bomb tries to save the President when a group of armed Nazi agents enter the White House, hidden by the purple mist. The Human Bomb helps navigate the President's limousine through the purple mist outside, which is full of hidden German tanks and war vehicles, until President Roosevelt is safe from the assassination attempt. Then the Human Bomb returns and stops the rest of the Nazi strike force. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: Roy Lincoln's fiancee, seen here for the first time, is Jean Caldwell.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [The Human Bomb, Police Comics #3 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, a famous Hollywood director named Emil Von Blon receives the help of the U.S. Navy to film a massive naval battle supposedly for a patriotic movie. Uncle Sam's sidekick Buddy Smith gets a job reading a script in a submarine, while Uncle Sam observes while aboard one of the battleships. But the battle ends up being absolutely real, sinking the U.S.S. Idaho and the U.S.S. Oregon. The spirit of George Washington himself warns Uncle Sam that this supposed movie battle is a real invasion of America, and Uncle Sam uncovers Nazi agents supposedly hired as extras for the film take over several ships, while a German fleet several miles out in the Atlantic awaits the signal to join the invasion. Uncle Sam and Buddy each work to stop the invasion, but after it is all over, the general public still believes it was all just special effects done for a movie. [Uncle Sam, National Comics #16 (October, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * June 22: German troops successfully smash into the Soviet Union. //Note: In Earth-X history, the Nazis were able to largely defeat the Soviet Union before the United States became involved in the war. Because the war on the Eastern Front was much less difficult, the Germans were able to better defend the Western Front.// [All-Star Squadron #31] +
-  * While battling Nazi spies on Earth-2, Uncle Sam suddenly has an urge to create a vortex that allows him to travel from Earth-2 to Earth-X for the first time. There, he learns that the Nazis are more successful on Earth-X, and there are no masked mystery-men to defend freedom. //Note: Uncle Sam is probably unaware at this time of the handful of mystery-men that exist on Earth-X, such as the Clock. On the other hand, he may be aware that, except for Merlin the Magician, Wonder Boy, Bozo the Iron Man, Hercules, Wong Chiu, and the Ace of Space (and possibly also Wildfire, debuting this month), the mystery-men of Earth-X are largely non-powered detective types. Since Uncle Sam's kid sidekick Buddy continues to appear in his adventures, Uncle Sam likely brings Buddy along with him to Earth-X soon after his arrival.// [All-Star Squadron #31] +
-  * Senator Northrup Bristol hires Curwen, a famous sculptor, to create realistic masks allowing his hired men to impersonate more than half the U.S. Senate, at the same time kidnapping all those senators, so he can pass a slavery bill conscripting children as young as twelve to a government camp for a year's worth of training. Senator Mason speaks out against the bill, and a mob of angry parents marches on Washington, D.C. But Bristol's uniformed men, the Steel Helmets, fight off the crowd. When President Roosevelt refuses to sign Bristol's slavery bill, he has the President replaced by a double, Curwen himself. Soon, the Steel Helmets arrive to pick up all the kids, including Uncle Sam's ward Buddy Smith from their home in Everytown. Buddy escapes and tells Uncle Sam that the camps are selling kids like slaves for work in steel mills and the like, but the children of America continue to be lawfully rounded up by the Steel Helmets to go to Bristol's camps despite the public being against it. Senator Mason, the only man in Washington brave enough to stand against Bristol and his men, is assassinated on the Senate floor. Uncle Sam goes to President Roosevelt and is puzzled when Roosevelt's dog Fala doesn't recognize him. An Uncle Sam impostor created by Curwen has the real Uncle Sam arrested. Eventually, the real Uncle Sam overcomes his double, and Bristol accidentally kills himself with dynamite in an attempt to kill Uncle Sam and Buddy Smith. The two then discover the imprisoned President Roosevelt and the missing senators in a hidden room exposed by the dynamite. Uncle Sam confronts the false President Roosevelt at a steel mill as he makes a speech calling for war, and he and members of the U.S. Marine Corps arrest Curwen and the Steel Helmets, freeing the nation's children. While battling the Steel Helmets, Uncle Sam has a vision of the future Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and decides to prevent it. //Note: This story and the others in this issue take place on Earth-X, according to All-Star Squadron #32.// ["Forged Faces," Uncle Sam Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941); "Crisis on Earth-X: The Prequel," All-Star Squadron #32 (April, 1984)] +
-  * Two mad scientists, Dr. Link and Dr. Blink, gather 50 brains from the bodies of some of the worst killers in the world and use them to somehow transform a two-bit hood into a Frankenstein-like powerful figure intended to be the greatest criminal the world has ever seen -- <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">King Killer</span></html>. King Killer turns against his creators and leaves to go on a crime spree, then forms a gang that builds fortified cities for him in the desert. After crime seems to disappear in America for several weeks, King Killer uses his influence in Washington to make the desert county of Rex, containing his Rex City (his capital) and other cities, into its own state. Then criminals are able to escape into Rex to avoid prosecution for their crimes. When Uncle Sam learns that the bank president is being kidnapped, he impersonates him and allows himself to be kidnapped and taken to Rex himself. Uncle Sam then prevents King Killer from emptying the Everytown Prison. A mob of American citizens and police then march on Rex City, and Uncle Sam personally battles King Killer, his physical match, destroying Rex City in the process. After King Killer takes Buddy Smith as a hostage, Uncle Sam manages to overcome King Killer, who is imprisoned in a specially constructed, solid steel prison in Everytown, but King Killer vows his revenge. //Note: This story takes place in the summer.// ["The King of Crime," Uncle Sam Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">June 28: On Earth-2, Hourman retires from crime-fighting and takes a leave of absence from the Justice Society of America. [All-Star Squadron Annual #3]</span></html> +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * The Steel Helmets under the control of Senator Northrup Bristol stage a coup and manage to overcome Uncle Sam himself after the people lose faith in him due to a newspaper smear campaign, causing him to lose all his strength. Killed in a bomb, Uncle Sam is sent to a heavenly realm where he meets the spirits of other wartorn nations and is determined to return to Earth to fight back. Meanwhile, Bristol puts himself in the White House and controls the United States as a dictator. Buddy organizes a group of kids into an Uncle Sam Club, causing Uncle Sam to slowly regain his strength as he fights to return to the earthly realm. Upon his return, the Steel Helmets mount an army to fight him, and Buddy gathers true Americans to fight for Uncle Sam in Everytown. During the battle, Uncle Sam's full strength returns, and the Steel Helmets are overcome. Bristol is shot by his own men after he tries to escape. ["The Steel Helmets," Uncle Sam Quarterly #1 (Autumn, 1941)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo battles Black Shark again. [Crack Comics #18]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Spider captures the Crow, the most feared man of the underworld. [Crack Comics #18]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Neon the Unknown as his last </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">solo adventure. [Hit Comics #17]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Joan Dale quits the </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Daily Star</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> and joins the FBI under Tim Healy. As Miss America she creates a patriotically themed costume for herself; prior to this she used her powers in plainclothes. [Military Comics #4]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Midnight and Gabby the talking monkey battle a group of criminals armed with a liquefying ray, who attempt to destroy New York City</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The story refers to the city as Big City, but Big City only exists on Earth-X.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Hit Comics #17]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">X-5 Super Agent</span>'s</html> last adventure. [Hit Comics #17] +
-  * Germany attempts a five-point invasion of England by sea and air one night, and six members of the Death Patrol stop the invasion at each of the entry points. [Military Comics #4] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * Stormy Foster becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Great Defender</span></html> after gaining strength through his own Super-Vitamin. [Hit Comics #18] +
-  * Rip Graves becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Ghost of Flanders</span></html>. [Hit Comics #18] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Sniper</span></html> (identity unknown) has first public case, based in Europe. [Military Comics #5] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Don Q</span></html>, a spy, begins adventures. [Crack Comics #19] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo battles Black Shark again. [Crack Comics #19]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Midnight battles Chango the Magician again. ["The Return of Chango," Smash Comics #29 (December, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">August 7-9: On Earth-2, Black Condor rescues President Franklin Delano Roosevelt after the president is kidnapped and replaced by a Nazi-controlled double who halts all foreign aid and dismantles all U.S. Army encampments. [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #19 (December, 1941)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">August 18: On Earth-2, Plastic Man stops Prof. McSneer and his gigantic Eight Ball, which he used to destroy Denver, Colorado, and prevents it from doing damage to Kansas City. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The Eight Ball is similar to the later War Wheel encountered a few times by the Blackhawks.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> ["The Eight Ball," Police Comics #8 (March, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * August 21-22: <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Woozy Winks</span></html> saves Zambi the Soothsayer from drowning and in return is granted the protection of nature, keeping him from all harm. Flipping a coin, Woozy ends up using it for crime and comes to the attention of the law and Plastic Man. ["The Man Who Can't Be Harmed," Police Comics #13 (November, 1942)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Margo the Magician</span></html>, daughter of the famous stage magician the Great Presto, has first public case. [Uncle Sam Quarterly #2] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * September 5: On Earth-2, Plastic Man convinces Woozy Winks to give up crime and turn himself in. Woozy becomes Plastic Man's sidekick. ["The Man Who Can't Be Harmed," Police Comics #13 (November, 1942)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Red Torpedo </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">has his last solo case as he battles Black Shark again. [Crack Comics #20]</span></html> +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Miss America has her last solo case. [Military Comics #7]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">October 5: On Earth-2, Woozy Winks is released into Plastic Man's custody</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #14 (December, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Hack O'Hara</span></html>, a taxi driver, begins adventures. [Crack Comics #21] +
-  * The Clock meets <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Butch</span></html>, a tough-girl sidekick. [Crack Comics #21] +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">November 4: On Earth-2, Plastic Man is drafted into the armed forces through the peacetime draft, but President Roosevelt himself personally asks Plastic Man to join the FBI instead</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. Plastic Man and Woozy Winks begin working under the direction of Chief Branner of Earth-2. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #18 (April, 1943)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Returning to Earth-2, Uncle Sam begins searching for recruits for a team of heroes to fight the Axis on Earth-X. In doing so, he inadvertently gains the attention of Midnight and Doll Man, who begin investigating him, independent of one another. [All-Star Squadron #31-32]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Black Condor again battles Jaspar Crow. [Crack Comics #22]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Madam Fatal</span>'s last case, retires. [Crack Comics #22]</span></html> +
-  * Red McGraw becomes known as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">the Dragon</span></html>. [Doll Man #2] +
-  * In her first well-documented adventure, the mysterious woman known only as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">X of the Underground</span></html> successfully impersonates a male Gestapo officer, and also meets Bob Gray, an American war correspondent who becomes infatuated with her. //Note: The dialogue indicates that X has already been causing trouble for the Nazis, conducting clandestine operations in several of the nations they occupy, for quite some time before the events of this story.// [Military Comics #8 (March, 1942)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Donald Daniel Richards becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Manhunter</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> in Big City. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The origin of Manhunter in Secret Origins v2 #22 places this story in late November, a fortnight (14 days) before Pearl Harbor.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Police Comics #8 (March, 1942)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">December 4: On Earth-2, Plastic Man goes on his first assignment for the FBI, battling a scientist who has discovered a way to imbue plants with animal characteristics and vice versa. Plastic Man battles Hugo, a monster who is half-man, half-tree</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. ["The Forest of Fear," Police Comics #19 (May, 1943)]</span></html> +
-  * December 7: Uncle Sam, having recruited the Red Torpedo, Magno, Miss America, Neon the Unknown, and the Invisible Hood, finally travels to Rex Tyler's lab and recruits Hourman, who names their team <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Freedom Fighters</span></html>. Bringing the team back to Earth-X over the Pacific Ocean some miles west of Hawaii, Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters successfully battle a squadron of Japanese Zeros. Miss America uses her matter-creating powers to create out of thin air the Red Torpedo's flying submarine, upon which the team is resting when one Zero divebombs the team and crashes into the submarine, disintegrating the submarine and apparently killing <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Red Torpedo</span>, <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Magno</span>, <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Neon the Unknown</span>, and <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Invisible Hood</span>, although <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Miss America</span></html> survives, as do Uncle Sam and Hourman. The Japanese, meanwhile, call off the Pearl Harbor attack, figuring the chances of a surprise attack are now slim. The U.S. does not enter the war at this time. //Note: This occurs sometime after Hourman takes a leave of absence from the Justice Society of America on Earth-2, which occurs on June 28, 1941, as shown in All-Star Squadron Annual #3. Although there is a reference to Uncle Sam visiting Hourman in the summer, he actually visits him on the morning of December 7, a date which is confirmed later in the same issue.// [All-Star Squadron #31-32] +
-  * December 7: The same vortex that transports Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to Earth-X also transports Midnight and Doll Man, who independently track Uncle Sam down to Rex Tyler's lab and decide to jump into the vortex when they see the others disappearing into it. The two also end up on Earth-X, only across the world in German-Occupied Paris, France. There, Midnight and Doll Man save the lives of two French Resistance fighters (a blonde named Simone and an unnamed male) and are soon introduced to the head of the local Resistance. They fight with the French Resistance for the next two months. [All-Star Squadron #32] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">December 7: On Earth-2, Plastic Man meets Hawkman, Doctor Mid-Nite, the Atom, Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, and Robotman, and becomes a charter member of the All-Star Squadron, acting as its FBI liaison</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. ["The World on Fire," All-Star Squadron #1 (September, 1981)]</span></html> +
-  * Hourman is found unconscious by the Japanese, who keep him a prisoner for the next two months, trying to discover the secret of his tremendous strength. [All-Star Squadron #35] +
-  * Uncle Sam washes up on a beach in Hawaii days later and is found by U.S. soldiers who don't believe his story about preventing an invasion of Pearl Harbor, thinking him crazy. Uncle Sam is incarcerated in a padded cell by the military for the next two months, during which time he realizes that by stopping the attack on Pearl Harbor, America does not join in the war effort, allowing the Axis powers to invade even more of Europe and Asia. Uncle Sam spends much of his time attempting to create a vortex to return to Earth-2. [All-Star Squadron #32] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">December 7-10: On Earth-2, Danette Reilly becomes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">Firebrand II</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> after she gains powers, and her brother Rod Reilly (Firebrand) is injured during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. [All-Star Squadron #1-5]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Hercules</span></html> retires. [Hit Comics #21] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Jack and Jill Doe</span>'s</html> last case. [National Comics #22] +
- +
-==== 1942 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * Polish nobleman Baron Povalsky becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Marksman</span></html>. [Smash Comics #33] +
-  * The Clock switches to a domino mask from the full-face cloak he wore previously. [Crack Comics #23] +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">February 1: On Earth-2, Plastic Man battles a scientist gang leader called Hairy Arms, who attempts to take over New York City with an army of robots, which is only stopped by Eel O'Brian and a group of patriotic crooks</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">. ["Satan's Son Sells Out to the Japs," Police Comics #9 (May, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">February 1: The Spider battles a Japanese spymaster known as the Yellow Scorpion</span>, who leads a group of Japanese saboteurs, but escapes. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #23 (May, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Phantom Lady and Black Condor team up against a crooked politician. [[http://www.5earths.info/earth-2/bravebold-e2-pl-bc-tp1942/|The Brave and the Bold: Phantom Lady and Black Condor: Times Past, 1942: Lethal Legislation]]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the Red Bee has his last solo case. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: According to the date of publication, the Red Bee's last case is in August, 1942, but due to the fact that he dies in February, 1942, the Red Bee's cases grow more frequent over the last few months.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Hit Comics #24]</span></html> +
-  * February 22: Uncle Sam, still locked away in a padded cell, has another vision of an attack on U.S. soil, this time on the coast of California. He now finally succeeds in creating a vortex that transports him back to Earth-2. Unbeknownst to him, one of his preliminary attempts allows Baron Blitzkrieg to transport himself from Earth-2 to the Berlin, Germany, of Earth-X. [All-Star Squadron #32, 35] +
-  * February 22: Baron Blitzkrieg, displaying his powers and loyalty to Hitler, is hailed a hero by the Nazis. Hearing of masked men fighting for the French Resistance in Paris, he travels there. Midnight and Doll Man, having learned of a planned Japanese attack on the U.S. set to take place the next day, battle German soldiers, resulting in Doll Man being injured. As Baron Blitzkrieg confronts Midnight on the edge of a rooftop, the latter spots the tell-tale signs of Uncle Sam's vortex just below him and leaps into it with Doll Man in his hand, followed by a few Nazi soldiers. They all ended up in Earth-2's New York City. Back on Earth-X, Baron Blitzkrieg mentally commands his aide Zwerg on Earth-2 to authorize an outbreak of Axis sabotage on the American East Coast in order to keep most All-Star Squadron members too busy to interfere with the invasion on either Earth's California. [All-Star Squadron #32, 35] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">February 22: On Earth-2, Plastic Man, the Jester, Phantom Lady, the Human Bomb, the Red Bee, Manhunter, the Black Condor, and the Ray are among the attendees of the first meeting of the full roster of the All-Star Squadron. Uncle Sam, finally able to return to Earth-2 from Earth-X, addresses the team and pleads for their help to return to prevent the invasion of the U.S. mainland. [All-Star Squadron #31]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">February 23: On Earth-2, Midnight and Doll Man arrive at All-Star Squadron Headquarters for the same reason as Uncle Sam, to warn of an attack on Santa Barbara, California, an attack that will occur on both Earth-X and Earth-2. The All-Star Squadron splits into two teams, one to fight off the invasion on Earth-2, and the other to fight it on Earth-X. [All-Star Squadron #32]</span></html> +
-  * February 23: Using the power of the Spectre, Uncle Sam leads an All-Star Squadron task force (Doll Man, Black Condor, Phantom Lady, the Human Bomb, the Ray, and the Red Bee) back to Earth-X. Arriving at Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara, California, as the Japanese invasion begins, the team assists in the defense of California. Meanwhile, the Spectre, forbidden to enter Earth-X, inadvertently causes the two parallel universes to enter the same vibrational plane and struggles to keep them from destroying each other. On Earth-X, attacking a Japanese Destroyer, the team finds Baron Blitzkrieg, who has Hourman chained to the front of a cannon, having discovered the Japanese had him. The team battles Baron Blitzkrieg, who singlehandedly defeats and captures them. All except the Red Bee, thought dead in the battle, awaken in the ruins of a fortress on the Channel Islands off the California coast, where Baron Blitzkrieg has brought them to die while the Japanese shell the coastline. The Red Bee, having survived and swam all the way there, attacks Baron Blitzkrieg, acting as a diversion just long enough for Hourman to regain his powers and break loose, but not before Baron Blitzkrieg breaks <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Red Bee</span>'s</html> back, killing him. Hourman and Uncle Sam battle Baron Blitzkrieg, who manages to create a vortex himself to escape with three Nazi lackeys back to Earth-2. The Spectre, communicating with the team, says that to maintain the cosmic balance three heroes must remain on Earth-X to compensate for the three Earth-X Nazis. Uncle Sam, the Black Condor, and the Ray stay on Earth-X as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Freedom Fighters</span></html>. [All-Star Squadron #32-35] +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">March 11: On Earth-2, after Doc Wackey's atom reviser device is stolen by Nazi agents led by Von Kamp, Midnight stops the Nazi invasion of Iceland with the help of Gabby and Doc. Dr. Mortimer Wackey is honored by President Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: The date is surmised by the shape of the quarter moon in the comic with the phases of the moon in the month of March, 1942, the earliest after Pearl Harbor this story can take place. Midnight's vacuum-gun is being repaired, indicating that it was damaged while he was on Earth-X.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> ["War Over Iceland," Smash Comics #32 (March, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * March 15: Black Condor stops a joint German-Japanese attack on the Panama Canal with the help of a former fifth columnist named Jed Hawks, who sacrifices his life to destroy the second of two German carriers. //Note: The date of March 15th is mentioned in-story. The December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor is also mentioned by Black Condor, who only remembers it from Earth-2, since that attack was prevented by the original Freedom Fighters on Earth-X.// [The Black Condor, Crack Comics #23 (May, 1942)] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">March 27: On Earth-2, Midnight, Doc Wackey, and Gabby discover a lost tribe of Africans in the Florida Everglades and led by the white Jungle Queen, descendants of a shipload of would-be slaves who were freed by the first mate, who detested slavery and whose family protected the Africans from civilization for over a century. After Midnight demonstrates that slavery was abolished long ago and that African-Americans are integrated into American society, the Jungle Queen returns to her tribe to share the good news. </span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);font-style:italic;">Note: This takes place during a Joe Louis boxing fight, the earliest of which must be his March 27th bout with Abe Simon, which took place after Louis joined the U.S. Army.</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> [Midnight, Smash Comics #33 (May, 1942)]</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">March 31: On Earth-2, the Spider has his final encounter with the <span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">Yellow Scorpion</span>, who escapes after attempting to destroy a U.S. battleship docked in the harbor. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #24 (July, 1942)]</span></html> +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * April 1: Due to the havoc-wreaking passage of Harbinger from Earth-1 in the year 1985 to Earth-2 in 1942 (bringing bits of the Crisis era with her), Uncle Sam believes the barrier between the worlds might close permanently. He and Black Condor and the Ray recruit several mystery-men from Earth-2 to fight the Axis on Earth-X, including the Blackhawks, the Spider, Manhunter and his dog Thor, the Human Bomb, Midnight, the Jester, and Doll Man. Their last recruits are Plastic Man and Phantom Lady. //Note: At some indeterminate time later, Rod Reilly (Firebrand) travels to Earth-X as well. Also, the Jester and the Spider both return to Earth-2. The Blackhawks find their Earth-X counterparts and bring them together to form their own team of Blackhawks before returning to Earth-2. A few other individuals, such as Martha Roberts, also later travel from Earth-2 to Earth-X. It is never explained how so many individuals from Earth-2 can travel to Earth-X without upsetting the cosmic balance. An untold story may explain who returns to Earth-2 and who decides to remain on Earth-X permanently.// [All-Star Squadron #50] +
-  * Plastic Man joins the police department in Mammoth City, working under Captain Murphy. +
-  * Dianne Grayton becomes <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Spider Widow</span></html>. [Feature Comics #57] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Unknown</span></html> has first public case. [National Comics #23] +
-  * Adventures on the U.S.S. Pawnee Destroyer 171 begin. [National Comics #23] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Ensign Jack Smith</span></html> begins fighting the Japanese in the Pacific using his electric battery-operated one-man submarine, the //Swordfish//. [Hit Comics #22] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * Midnight battles Prof Porgy, a mad scientist and former partner of the now-reformed Doc Wackey. But Prof chemically causes Wackey to temporarily become a criminal once more, and the two go off to invent a rocket ship over the next several weeks in order to travel to the planet of gold. [Midnight, Smash Comics #35 (September, 1942).] +
-  * King Killer, enemy of Uncle Sam, aligns himself with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. [Uncle Sam Quarterly #3] +
-  * Uncle Sam meets and teams up with John Bull, the Spirit of Great Britain. [Uncle Sam Quarterly #3] +
-  * Hack O'Hara battles recurring foe <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">the Butcher</span></html> for the first time. [Crack Comics #24] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">The Raven</span></html> makes his first appearance, his identity unknown. [Feature Comics #60] +
-  * Black Condor again battles Jaspar Crow and Elsa Papendorf. [Crack Comics #25] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Ned Brant</span>'s</html> last story. [Crack Comics #25] +
-  * Doc Wackey and Prof Porgy complete their rocket ship and take off for the planet of gold in outer space, and the two scientists and Prof's hired men sleep through the voyage. But when the rocket lands, it turns out that it simply circled the Earth, then landed in the desert, where Midnight followed them through Doc's wrist radio. [Midnight, Smash Comics #35 (September, 1942)] +
-  * July 27-28: Plastic Man battles a 17th century scientist named Dr. Cyrus Smythe, whose brain has survived intact for 300 years, and who has invented a serum allowing himself to grow into the size of a giant and back at will. Although the body he's in is killed, Smythe's brain survives burial once again. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #11 (September, 1942)] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Douglas Strange</span> and <span style="color:#FF0000;">Rodney Strange</span>,</html> the Strange twins, have their last case together. [Hit Comics #24] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Ensign Jack Smith</span>'s</html> last adventure in the //Swordfish//. [Hit Comics #24] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">A large Nazi expeditionary force invades the United States, but just as it seemed certain to defeat the U.S. military in battle, it turns back into the sea and returns to Europe.</span></html> //Note: This invasion, never pictured but only mentioned, is most certainly the basis for an untold Freedom Fighters story.// ["The Death of Midnight," Smash Comics #36 (October, 1942)] +
-  * Midnight dies in battle with a criminal named Cyclops Ceylon, and the world mourns one of its greatest crime-fighters. Given the opportunity to pass into Heaven, Midnight instead decides to go to Hell in order to pick a fight with the Devil, where he learns that the Devil's wife and boss is a female named Satan. Midnight is captured and tortured in Hell for several days. Then Midnight leads a rebellion of American lost souls and successfully prevent the imminent Nazi invasion of the United States by forcing the Devil to order the Nazis to call it off. Just as Midnight is summoned back to Heaven, where he is told that he was taken ahead of schedule, an unnamed professor who struck a deal with Doc Wackey (a life for a life) begins an arcane ritual that brings Midnight back to life after a week of being dead. Midnight is told he was only unconscious and dreaming over that week. ["The Death of Midnight," Smash Comics #36 (October, 1942)] +
-  * Francisco Rivera, a South American dictator, flees to the Moon in a rocket ship when his dictatorship is about to be overthrown. The paranoid Rivera sabotages his men's space suits, causing them to die upon reaching the Moon, which he proclaims as his new domain. As he slowly dies of starvation and then oxygen deprivation, Rivera writes down his account in a book that will be found by the First Lunar Expedition of 1952, led by the Spirit. //Note: It is possible that the rocket ship used by Rivera was stolen and was the same one invented by Doc Wackey and Prof Porgy in Smash Comics #35, a month earlier.// [The Outer Space Spirit] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">The Mouthpiece</span></html> has his last known case. [Police Comics #13] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">"Prop" Powers</span>'</html> chronicled adventures end. [National Comics #26] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Wonder Boy</span></html> disappears for the first time. [National Comics #26] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Tor the Magic Master</span></html> has his last known case. [Crack Comics #26] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Don Q</span></html> has last adventure and disappears. [Crack Comics #26] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">X of the Underground</span></html> has last adventure and disappears. ["There Are More Ways Than One to Skin a Cat," Military Comics #13 (November, 1942)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Yankee Guerilla</span> makes a <span style="color:#FF0000;">single appearance</span>.</html> [Crack Comics #26] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, Rod Reilly has his last public case as <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Firebrand</span>. [Police Comics #13]</span></html> +
-  * The professor who brought Midnight back from the dead arrives after one month to claim Doc Wackey, using him in a dangerous experiment that grants him super-speed and causes him to go crazy and commit a super-speed crime spree, until the effects wear off. ["Doc Wackey Goes Berserk," Smash Comics #37 (November, 1942)] +
-  * Midnight battles Zor the caveman, a supposed living Neanderthal discovered frozen in Siberia by naturalist Sir Squinchworth. But Zor becomes docile once he's eaten, indicating he was purposely starved by Squinchworth to make him appear vicious. Midnight brings him back to Doc Wackey's home to live for the next two months, where Doc civilizes Zor and teaches him to speak English. ["Cave-Man Menace," Smash Comics #38 (December, 1942)] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * A boy known only as Kit and his grandfather are killed by Nazis, and in Eternity they find that he still has 75 years of life left to live. Kit does not, however, become Kid Eternity, though his Earth-S counterpart does. //Note: All of Kid Eternity's adventures in Hit Comics and the Kid Eternity series take place on Earth-S.// [Hit Comics #25] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, in an untold story, the Earth-2 Blackhawks return to Earth-2.</span></html> +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">G-2 the Unknown</span></html> begins adventures. [National Comics #27] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Samar</span>'s</html> last known adventure. [Feature Comics #63] +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * Lance Gallant's brother Michael Gallant dies, and although Lance constantly has the feeling that he should've been a hero, he does not become Captain Triumph. However, his Earth-2 counterpart does. //Note: Captain Triumph's adventures in Hit Comics all take place on Earth-2.// [Crack Comics #27] +
-  * Hack O'Hara battles the Butcher again. [Crack Comics #27] +
-  * After Roy Lincoln (the Human Bomb) is forced to give a timid married man named <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Hustace Throckmorton</span></html> a blood transfusion, Throckmorton gains the power to explode things with his feet and becomes the Human Bomb's sidekick. [Police Comics #15] +
-  * Midnight discovers that Zor the caveman is actually a modern-day man who was disfigured and trained to be a Neanderthal by Sir Squinchworth and his wife Lady Squinchworth, who planned to sell him to a circus. Midnight is captured by the Squinchworths. To get his revenge, Sir Squinchworth has a hired thug impersonate Midnight and go on a crime spree, making Midnight an outlaw hunted by the police. Zor helps Midnight escape, and he captures the fake Midnight, while Gabby captures Sir Squinchworth. Midnight is then challenged to a fight to the death by a criminal called Two-Face. ["Cave-Man Menace," Smash Comics #38 (December, 1942)] +
-  * In an untold tale, Midnight battles a criminal called Two-Face. +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">711</span></html> (Dan Dyce) is gunned down by a racketeer named Oscar Jones. [Police Comics #15] +
-  * A psychic tells an ordinary man on the street whose name remains unknown that he has the occult power to foresee death, trouble, and disaster. As <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Destiny</span>,</html> the man can transport himself to an unknown destination full of danger whenever he blanks his mind. Destiny tries to bring to justice 711's killer, Oscar Jones, who instead escapes. As he watches the ghost of 711 soar into the sky for his final reward, Destiny vows to carry on where 711 left off. //Note: The unnamed man known as Destiny is not, as some think, Dan Dyce's ghost, but another individual altogether. He may or may not be Jake Horn, the man whose place Dan Dyce took in prison and who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in 1939 but whose body went missing at the morgue shortly after.// [Police Comics #16; "The Marksman: Unusual Suspects"+
-  * While in pursuit of a crook called Bullets Balow, Midnight discovers a fantasy land in the clouds called the Land of Flight, where Balow arrived sometime earlier (and where time acts differently) and married the ugly Queen of Flight. After Midnight captures Balow, a beautiful woman named Velvet provides Midnight with a rocket ship, and he uses it to return to the real world before it disappears. [Midnight, Smash Comics #40 (February, 1943)] +
- +
-==== 1943 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * Destiny arrests Oscar Jones, who killed 711. [Police Comics #17] +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * Brenda Banks has first public case as <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Lady Luck</span>.</html> [Smash Comics #42 (April, 1942)] +
-  * Plastic Man, having worked with the Mammoth City Police Department for several months, is invited by President Roosevelt to join the FBI for counter-espionage work. Plastic Man and Woozy Winks begin working under the direction of Chief Branner. //Note: According to All-Star Squadron #1, Plastic Man was already an FBI agent before Pearl Harbor, but that was only when he was on Earth-2.// +
-  * Midnight meets a private detective called Sniffer Snoop, who has a baby polar bear named Hotfoot as a sidekick and competes with Midnight for the title of greatest detective of all time before settling in as another of Midnight's assistants. ["The World's Greatest Detective," Smash Comics #42 (April, 1942)] +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * While protecting the secret of camouflage invisibility, Plastic Man is kidnapped by a Japanese spy named Amisaki Komiwabi and brought to Tokyo, Japan, where he is tortured with the hopes of making him an Axis agent. Plastic Man escapes custody, steals back the plans, and flies back to the U.S. with the help of an American pilot who crash-landed. [2nd story, Plastic Man #1 (Summer, 1943)] +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * The Marksman attempts to kill Adolf Hitler, but Hitler escapes death once more. [Smash Comics #43] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * The Marksman begins a series of cases outside of Europe, mostly fighting the Japanese, until 1945. [Smash Comics #44] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Montague T. "Coily" McGurk</span>, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Swordo the Sword Swallower</span>, and a woman named <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Red Rogers</span> are provided with limited explosive powers by the Human Bomb and join in a series of raids on the Japanese army as <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Bombardiers</span>.</html> [Police Comics #21] +
-  * Tom Halloway retires as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Spider</span>.</html> [Crack Comics #30] +
-  * Red McGraw has his last case as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">the Dragon</span>.</html> [Doll Man #6] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * July 9-10: Allied forces invade Sicily and Italy. //Note: In the timeline of Earth-X, this is the only front the Allied forces are able to make in Western Europe, since the D-Day invasion of Normandy is a disaster. The Allies have some success and eventually occupy Italy and strike through the Balkans. The fighting continues in Eastern Europe for some years until the end of the war in Europe.// +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">The Raven</span></html> retires. [Feature Comics #71] +
-  * The members of <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">the Kid Patrol</span></html> retire, presumably to join the U.S. Army. [National Comics #35] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Spider-Widow</span></html> retires. [Feature Comics #72] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Black Condor</span></html> has last solo case. [Crack Comics #31] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Phantom Lady</span></html> has her last solo case. [Police Comics #23] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * Uncle Sam and Buddy travel to Occupied Europe to assist their friend the Vagabond, a wandering guerilla leader in the Resistance whose real name is unknown. [National Comics #37] +
-  * Midnight battles supposed invaders from Mars, who are really crooks working for Prof. Drizzpan and equipped with his inventions, who steal blueprints of inventions for the lazy scientist. ["Midnight Meets the Menace from Mars," Smash Comics #48 (November, 1943)] +
-  * Plastic Man is framed when Dr. Phineas T. Gleason, working for gangster Pinky Flowers, creates a robotic Plastic Man out of reconstituted rubber tires to commit robberies. Woozy Winks, seeking to prove Plastic Man's innocence, is captured and sent through the Plastic Man-making machine, which doesn't kill him (due to nature protecting him) but instead makes him look like an overweight version of Plastic Man and temporarily gives him super-bouncing powers. ["Find the Real Plastic Man," Police Comics #24 (November, 1943)] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Beezy Bumbles</span></html> begins adventures. [Crack Comics #32] +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Wonder Boy</span>'s</html> adventures continue as he reappears. [Bomber Comics #1] +
-  * November 12-13: After Chief Branner discovers that Plastic Man is really the wanted criminal Eel O'Brian, he gives Plastic Man three of the toughest tasks to complete within a week in order to keep his job. Plastic Man brings in Slugger Crott and keeps him from committing suicide before capture, discovers the identity of an unknown gang leader and brings him in, and solves a series of mysterious murders in the deep south district of Bayou County. While in Bayou County, Plastic Man battles a werewolf named Pike Ronan, who is killed with a silver dagger by his girlfriend, Vida. With the three jobs completed, Chief Branner absolves Plastic Man of his criminal past and welcomes him back into the FBI. ["Plastic Man Battles Body, Mind and Soul," Police Comics #26 (January, 1944)] +
-  * The Blackhawks meet Wang the Tiger, a Chinese freedom fighter against the Japanese Army whose secret identity is Mandarin Wang, a collaborator with the Japanese. //Note: This story concept is later reused as the 1964 origin story of Chop-Chop in Blackhawk #203, which portrays Liu Huang (Chop-Chop), a Japanese collaborator who is the spoiled son of a Chinese ruler, but who is secretly the freedom fighter called the White Dragon.// [Military Comics #25] +
- +
-==== 1944 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a fatal heart attack, causing the governmental balance of power to go the wrong way when Vice President Henry Wallace succeeds him as president. President Wallace pushes for an Allied invasion of Normandy for June even though intelligence reports that the German defenses are much too strong for such an invasion. +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * Midnight and his assistants (Doc Wackey, Gabby, Sniffer Snoop, and Hotfoot) use Doc's time pills (which enable both time travel and local language translation) to travel back in time from 1944 to ancient Rome in 64 A.D. during the reign of Nero. There they are captured and brought to Nero himself. Thanks to his knowledge of ancient history, Midnight is honored as a prophet by Nero. But when Midnight saves his friends from being killed in the Circus Maximus, they inadvertently cause the Great Fire of Rome before returning to their own time. [Midnight, Smash Comics #52 (April, 1944)] +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * The adventures of Carnie Callahan, nicknamed <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">the Barker</span></html> (a carnival barker) begin. [National Comics #42] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * Working from a plan by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. Deering places six men together as a Europe-focused paramilitary group called the <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Black Hawks</span>, inspired by the original Blackhawks, who have moved their operations to the Pacific Theater of War by this time. <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Bart Hawk</span>, an American Indian descended from Chief Black Hawk, becomes the field team leader, and other members include his friend <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Weng "Chopper" Chan</span> of San Francisco, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Donald Friedriksen</span> of Denmark, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Roger Duval</span> of France, <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Franz Ritter</span> of Germany, and <span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Johnny Sirianni</span></html> of Brooklyn. After months of training, on June 3, the Black Hawks are brought by submarine into Normandy, France, where they meet their contact in the French Resistance, Heracles. There, the Black Hawks investigate a secret underground factory built by the Germans to thwart an invasion, and they discover that the Nazis have several secret weapons, including an anti-gravity beam, a bladed wheel, and an electricity ray, which are combined into one giant robot with all these capabilities. The group attempts to stop or sabotage the weapon, but are unsuccessful, and they fail to send a message back to Allied Command to halt the planned invasion of Normandy before it's too late. //Note: The original version of this story is very similar, except it ends with the Blackhawks stopping the giant robot, and the D-Day invasion is successful. The adventures of this squadron is documented in various World War II Combat Diary stories in the Blackhawk series published by DC Comics in the 1960s, although the names are not the same, and some of the events are different.// [Blackhawk #198] +
-  * June 6: The Allies make an attempt to invade Normandy, but the D-Day invasion proves a disaster, since the German defenses are deemed too secure. Thousands of Allied soldiers die or are captured in the doomed invasion. The Allies give up on Normandy as an invasion spot and redouble their efforts fighting the Germans in Italy and the Balkans. +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * After last case, Brian O'Brien retires as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Clock</span></html>. [Crack Comics #35] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * Rusty Ryan and the Boyville Brigadiers, fighting in the Pacific, land on an island populated by dinosaurs. There, they kill a young Tyrannosaurus Rex and its adult mother. [Feature Comics #83] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Merlin the Magician</span></html> disappears. [National Comics #45] +
-  * Stormy Foster retires as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Great Defender</span></html>. [Hit Comics #34] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Wonder Boy</span></html> disappears once again. [Bomber Comics #4] +
- +
-=== November === +
- +
-  * President Henry Wallace, very unpopular because of the D-Day disaster, barely wins the election against Thomas E. Dewey of the Republican Party. +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">G-2 the Unknown</span></html> retires. [National Comics #27] +
- +
-==== 1945 ==== +
- +
-  * The Dragon (Red McGraw) is killed in battle while fighting the Japanese in Occupied China. He leaves behind a wife and son in the United States. ["The Marksman: Unusual Suspects"+
-  * The White School on the multi-dimensional island of Tourmaline is attacked and bombed by a group of former students turned Nazi mystics from Earth-X, members of the Thule Society who seek to use the Clock Tower to conquer parallel universes and other dimensions. To defend itself, the island disappears into the mystical dimension of Darkworld, causing the Nazi mystics to drown in the ocean. Most of the instructors and students are saved, each returning to his or her world of origin and given partial amnesia about the island and the school. [[http://www.5earths.info/earth-s/bravebold-es-mm-ab1987/|The Brave and the Bold: Mary Marvel and Atom Blake: Magic and Demons and Ghouls, Oh My!]] +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * Allied Forces continue to push through Italy and into the Balkans, the only war front left in Europe. The German Army is still divided, fighting the Allies in Italy and the Balkans in the west and the Russians in the east. +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">The Marksman</span>'s</html> last known case in the Pacific. [Smash Comics #58] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Chic Carter</span>'s</html> adventures end. [National Comics #47] +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * Mallory Drake becomes mystery-man <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">the Whistler</span></html> and begins adventures. [National Comics #48] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * May 8: After four years of battling the German Army, the Soviet Union unconditionally surrenders to Nazi Germany. Now that Germany has one less front to worry about, it concentrates its forces to fight the Allied armies in the Balkans. +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * Midnight battles a sultry villainess called the Lorelei. ["Lured by the Lorelei," Smash Comics #62 (December, 1945)] +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * Imperial Japan wins World War II in the Pacific with the United States' withdrawal from Hawaii and all of the Pacific west of Hawaii, although it takes about two months for the U.S. withdrawal to fully take effect. //Note: The war in the Pacific lasted until December, based on the fact that the Blackhawks fight their last battle with the Japanese in Modern Comics #46, which takes place then.// +
-  * The adventures of a beautiful and seductive dame named <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Torchy Todd</span></html> begin. [Doll Man #8] +
-  * Hack O'Hara again battles the Butcher. [Crack Comics #41] +
- +
-==== 1946 ==== +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * Celebrating its victory in the Pacific, Imperial Japan lays down its arms in triumph. Nazi Germany takes this opportunity to turn on Imperial Japan, forcing the Japanese Empire to bend to the Third Reich's will and become its puppet government. +
-  * Meanwhile, the United States, having been defeated in the Pacific, is forced to withdraw from Hawaii and all territory west of Hawaii. After withdrawing all U.S. troops and most civilians, U.S. President Wallace leaves an atomic bomb in Pearl Harbor on Oahu, destroying the naval base there and crippling the Japanese Navy after it had begun to use it. Numerous uprisings against the Germans in occupied territory begin, since the Allies are convinced that the atomic bomb will now win the war in the eleventh hour. +
-  * Adolf Hitler, seeing the use of the atomic bomb as a threat to German supremacy, quickly makes further demands on Imperial Japan. When Japan refuses as expected, Germany drops two atomic bombs on Japan. One in Hiroshima and the other in Nagasaki. Japan surrenders days later, and the Third Reich places a puppet government in charge of the Empire of Japan. +
-  * The Third Reich's takeover of Imperial Japan proves to be a mistake, as it causes the loss of much occupied territory held until then by Imperial Japan and diverts Germany's attention there for years as it tries to regain the lost territory. Japan's occupied territories begin to rebel, allowing several Asian nations to successfully regain their freedom, including parts of China and much of Indo-China, as well as India. The United States gives aid to Korea, which is divided according to a peace treaty along the 38th parallel, creating South Korea (run by a Nazi- and Japan-backed government) and North Korea (run by a U.S.-backed government). The Nazis are only willing to sue for peace there until they gain control over the Asian mainland, which is in chaos with the collapse of Imperial Japan. The U.S. also gives support to Post-Occupation China, which eventually has a government that is a coalition of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Nationalist Party. //Note: Much of this is speculation based on the fact that a version of the Korean War occurred on Earth-X.// [Justice League of America #107-108] +
-  * The Blackhawks celebrate the weakening of both Imperial Japan and the Third Reich, which results in the dissolution of Japan's hold on much of Asia. It is a bittersweet victory, however, since most of Europe is still under Nazi domination. The team becomes world-traveling adventurers from this point on. //Note: In this story, the Blackhawks are shown celebrating peace in the Pacific over a defeated Japan in Modern Comics #48, the same issue in which the World War II-era military series are replaced by humor series. Although Japan is not defeated by the Allies on Earth-X, they celebrate it nonetheless, knowing Imperial Japan's collapse of control over the area allows for freedom in the formerly occupied nations and will also keep the Third Reich busy for many years to come, allowing the Allies to eventually invade Nazi-held Europe sometime in the future.// [Modern Comics #48] +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * Realizing that World War II could only escalate and result in worldwide destruction for all, now that both the Axis and the Allies possess the atomic bomb, President Dewey negotiates an armistice between the Allies and Nazi Germany. Most of Europe remains within the empire of the Third Reich, while Italy, much of the Balkans, and half of the Mediterranean remain under Allied protection. A cold war between the Allies and the Axis sets in for more than a decade. +
-  * The Blackhawks meet <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Lady Fear</span></html>, lady adventuress in the Far East. [Modern Comics #49] +
-  * Hack O'Hara versus the Tigress (not any of the Earth-2 versions). [Crack Comics #42] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">The Death Patrol</span></html> has its last adventure. [Modern Comics #52] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * Roy Lincoln has his last solo case as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">the Human Bomb</span></html>. [Police Comics #58] +
- +
-==== 1947 ==== +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Eric Vale</span>'s</html> last adventure. [Crack Comics #50] +
- +
-==== 1948 ==== +
- +
-  * The multi-dimensional island of Tourmaline emerges into the physical realm from the Darkworld, appearing as a seemingly new island in the South Pacific simultaneously on Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-S, Earth-X, and Earth-4. Gareth Gallowglass, a 12-year-old psychic prodigy from Earth-1, takes up residence on the island, now called Grim Island, after his fellow Sentinels of Magic of Earth-1 are killed protecting the five Earths from being invaded by Hell. [[http://www.5earths.com/earth-1/showcase-e1-sentinelsofmagic-tp1948/|Showcase: The Sentinels of Magic: Times Past, 1948: Sacrifices Must Be Made]] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * "Pen" Miller meets J. Edgar Hoover. [Crack Comics #55] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * When Prof. Hangnail invents a rocket ship to fly to Mars, Midnight's assistants Doc Wackey, Gabby, Sniffer Snoop, and Hotfoot become test subjects in the first experimental flight. Shortly after, Hangnail announces an imminent war with Mars, and during the ensuing panic, criminals dressed as pseudo-Martians loot Big City. Investigating, Midnight discovers that Hangnail is behind it, and that his assistants are not in the rocket at all but kept prisoner under the observatory. ["Midnight Battles the Men from Mars," Smash Comics #79 (October, 1948)] +
- +
-==== 1949 ==== +
- +
-  * Richard Stanton (Madam Fatal) finally locates his daughter and heir to his fortune, kidnapped 18 years earlier as an infant by John Carver. Now fifty years old, Stanton retires from crime-fighting as Madam Fatal. ["The Marksman: Unusual Suspects"+
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Floogy the Fiji</span>'s</html> has his last adventure. [Crack Comics #36] +
- +
-=== March === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">"Pen" Miller</span>'s</html> last case. [Crack Comics #60] +
- +
-=== April === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Rusty Ryan</span></html> has his last known adventure. [Feature Comics #135] +
- +
-=== May === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Batch Bachelor</span></html> begins adventures. [Crack Comics #61] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Quicksilver</span></html> disappears after his last case for several years as he goes forward through time into his future. [National Comics #73] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Molly the model</span>'s</html> last appearance. [Crack Comics #62] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Batch Bachelor</span>'s</html> last appearance. [Crack Comics #62] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Hack O'Hara</span>'s</html> last adventure. [Crack Comics #62] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Beezy Bumble</span>'s</html> last adventure. [Crack Comics #62] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * During <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Midnight</span>'s</html> last known case, Dave Clark moves from radio into television. ["Midnight Stymies a Singing Swindle," Smash Comics #85 (October, 1949)] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Black X</span></html> retires. [Smash Comics #85] +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, </span><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">the Jester</span><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);"> retires. [Smash Comics #85]</span></html> +
-  * The Freedom Fighters are battling German soldiers in Europe when the criminal scientist Dr. Gwythyr Doome and his partners arrive from 1943 on Earth-2 in a time craft, then subdue and kidnap the heroes to use against the All-Star Squadron on Earth-2 in 1943. The Jester and the Spider remain on Earth-2. //Note: The Freedom Fighters presumably went on several missions in Europe and the Pacific as a strike force against the Axis, coordinating their efforts with the Allied command. They were probably parachuted in to their locations and flown out once again after their missions were done.// [DC Universe: The Time-Space Gambit, Book 1] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Stuntman Stetson</span></html> begins adventures. [Feature Comics #140] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * Policewoman <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Sally O'Neil</span>'s</html> adventures end. [National Comics #75] +
-  * The adventures of <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">the Barker</span></html> end. [Barker #15] +
- +
-==== 1950 ==== +
- +
-  * <html><span style="background-color:rgb(236,236,236);">On Earth-2, the death of the Spider.</span></html> +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Stuntman Stetson</span></html> retires. [Feature Comics #144] +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Lady Luck</span></html> retires. [Lady Luck #90] +
-  * Donald Daniel (Dan) Richards retires as <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Manhunter</span></html>. [Police Comics #101] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">Torchy Todd</span>'s</html> adventures end. [Torchy #6] +
- +
-==== 1951 ==== +
- +
-  * Margo the Magician battles ghostly pirates in San Francisco. Tracing their origin, Margo reaches the multi-dimensional Grim Island and meets Doctor Occult of Earth-2, Doctor Mist of Earth-1, Captain Marvel of Earth-S, and Yarko the Great of Earth-4. Together, the mystical heroes of five Earths confront Gareth to stop his island from being a menace to each of their worlds as a gateway to Hell. After a short battle commences, a time-traveling Abby Cable of Earth-1 from 1987 convinces Gareth to allow the other mystics to help him ward off the forces of Hell by founding a new school of magic called the Grimoire Academy to defend five Earths from a demonic invasion. Margo the Magician becomes one of the school's founding fathers. Grim Island is renamed Grimoire Island. [[http://www.5earths.com/earth-1/secretorigins-e1-booksofmagic-tp1951/|Secret Origins: The Books of Magic: Times Past, 1951: Founding Fathers]] +
- +
-=== February === +
- +
-  * South Korea, backed by the Nazi puppet government of Japan, invades North Korea, which is backed by the Allies, and the Korean War begins. The Blackhawks pledge to fight for North Korea. //Note: This is the very first Quality Comics story mentioning the Korean War, although Korea remains unnamed in the story. The Korean War exists on Earth-X because of this story and depictions of the Korean War in G.I. Combat.// [Blackhawk #39] +
- +
-=== July === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);">Pete "T-Man" Trask</span>,</html> Treasury Agent, begins adventures. [T-Man #1] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * Martha Roberts, fiancee of Darrell Dane (Doll Man) becomes mystery woman <html><span style="color:rgb(0,153,0);font-weight:bold;">Doll Girl</span>,</html> teaming up with him as the Doll Team. [Doll Man #37] +
- +
-==== 1952 ==== +
- +
-=== January === +
- +
-  * The Grimoire Academy of Applied Learning on the multi-dimensional Grimoire Island opens its doors to students from Earth-X, Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-S, and Earth-4. This school is built and founded by the 16-year-old prodigy Gareth Gallowglass of Earth-1, Margo the Magician of Earth-X, Doctor Mist of Earth-1, Doctor Occult of Earth-2, Yarko the Great of Earth-4, and Shazam of Earth-S, who each contribute their knowledge and experience to the curriculum. [[http://www.5earths.com/earth-1/secretorigins-e1-booksofmagic-tp1951/|Secret Origins: The Books of Magic: Times Past, 1951: Founding Fathers]] +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * The First Lunar Expedition occurs when the Spirit agrees to go on a voyage to the Moon in a rocket ship invented by Prof. Hartley Skol, chairman of the Interplanetary Flight Commission. Since the experimental ship is largely manned by convicts receiving pardons for their crimes in exchange for assisting with the dangerous voyage, the Spirit is recruited to head the crew and keep them in line. On the Moon, the men discover a book that indicates a South American dictator named Francisco Rivera escaped to the Moon ten years earlier when his overthrow was imminent. [The Outer Space Spirit] +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * The First Lunar Expedition led by the Spirit returns to Earth after more than five weeks in space and on the Moon. Dutch Birch, a crewman, decides to stay behind on the Moon and is equipped with enough supplies to keep him alive for the next two months. The rocket ship is drawn back to Earth by the Central Rocket Station in Central City. The rocket ship has a close encounter with a UFO on the way back. [The Outer Space Spirit] +
- +
-==== 1953 ==== +
- +
-=== August === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Doll Man</span> and <span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Doll Girl</span></html> have their last solo case. [Doll Man #47] +
- +
-=== December === +
- +
-  * The Korean War ends with a ceasefire and an armistice signed by Japan-backed South Korea. //Note: This is the last known Quality Comics issue depicting the Korean War as being fought in the present, indicating that this war on Earth-X lasted until this time.// [G.I. Combat #13] +
- +
-==== 1954 ==== +
- +
-  * Imperial Japan (a puppet government of the Third Reich), begins flexing its military might to recapture lost territory in China and Indochina. The United States becomes involved in the Indochina Wars, fighting Japanese and Japanese-backed troops in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. //Note: This is speculation based on the numerous wars fought in Indochina as depicted in G.I. Combat from this issue on, although on Earth-X the enemy is Imperial Japan, not the Communists.// [G.I. Combat #14] +
- +
-==== 1956 ==== +
- +
-=== September === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;font-weight:bold;">Plastic Man</span></html> goes into retirement. [Plastic Man #64] +
- +
-=== October === +
- +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">The Blackhawks</span></html> go into semi-retirement as Blackhawk marries and has a son. [Blackhawk #107] +
-  * <html><span style="color:#FF0000;">T-Man</span>'s</html> adventures end. [T-Man #38] +
-  * The Indochina Wars end with victory for Imperial Japan (a puppet government of the Third Reich) over Allied forces. //Note: This is speculation based on the last issue of G.I. Combat published by Quality Comics.// [G.I. Combat #43] +
- +
-==== 1957 ==== +
- +
-  * After a 10-year cold war between the Allies and the Axis, Nazi Germany uses a faked English attack on a German ocean liner to invade England, where it installs its own puppet government led by Oswald Mosely. Queen Elizabeth II and much of the Royal Family is rescued and brought to safety in Canada. Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936, is invited back to England to assume the throne as king. Many underground resistance groups throughout the British Isles are formed and fight back against the Occupation for the next decade. +
- +
-=== June === +
- +
-  * Will Prohaska Hawk, son of Blackhawk (Janos Prohaska) and Bart Hawk's sister, is born. +
- +
-**Continue to [[Timeline of Earth-X: 1960s to the Future]]**+