Gold Nuggets: Spy Smasher!

The Obscure Adventures of Comics' Greatest Generation!

Despite being the most confusing first issue of all time, Whiz Comics #2 (yes, you read that correctly...#2 was actually the first issue) featured the debut of several characters from fledgling publisher Fawcett Comics .

Of course, the most famous member of this first issue fraternity was Captain Marvel, who would one day surpass even Superman in comic book sales.  Other new characters included a bowman named the Golden Arrow, the crime-fighting magician Ibis the Invincible, and Spy Smasher, arguably the second most popular Fawcett character behind Captain Marvel (and the various Marvel Family spin-offs).

Eventually gaining his own series, as well as starring in a 12-part film serial, Spy Smasher was secretly Alan Armstrong, one of seemingly hundreds of wealthy socialites throughout the Golden Age of comics who decided to use his wealth and assorted talents to fight crime. In Armstrong's case, he used his aviation knowledge to build the Gyrosub, an amalgamation of an airplane, helicopter, and submarine. 

As his name implies, Spy Smasher hunted down Axis spies and saboteurs for the duration of World War II.  One of these America-hating schemers was named Herr Von Fere, who made his first (and only) appearance in Whiz Comics #53 (1944). Best classified as a sort of "Axis Botanist",  Von Fere created "Flowers of Fear", which could cause overwhelming fear in any who caught a whiff of their scent. Planning to send the flowers to various members of the U.S. government (including the President), the monocled maniac hoped to bring America to its knees in a wave of irrational fear...that is, until Spy Smasher intervened!

Holding his breath to avoid breathing the flower's scent, a chair to the head soon knocked the wind out of Spy Smasher, which forced him to inhale the fear-inducing fumes.  Shaking with fright, our hero faced an impossible dilemma...

(click on the panels for a larger view)

Hah!  Take that Fritz and Horst! Nothing like a good table-turning on Nazi scum...unless you top it off with some poetic justice! Spy Smasher does just that by subjecting the Axis agents to the fumes of their own Fear Flowers, which make them sing like America-fearing canaries for all of Germany to hear!

Comments

[Posterboy]

That ws great but I wanna know what happened with Whiz Comics #1 that was apparently so extraordinary that they couldn't even re-use the number!

[Mark Engblom]

I did a little digging and came up with this (from a "Whiz Comics" Wikipedia entry):

"Fawcett (Comics) created two black-and-white ashcan #1 issues to solicit advertisers and to secure the copyrights to the material. The two copies were identical but carried different titles: Flash Comics and Thrill Comics; the Captain Marvel character was called Captain Thunder. When Fawcett went to press with the magazine, the first issue was retitled as Whiz Comics #2, a name inspired by the company's bawdy humor magazine, Captain Billy's Whiz Bang. The cover art for the first issue showed Captain Marvel throwing a vehicle and was inspired by the cover of Action Comics #1."

So there you have it. It was apparently due to some finagling with the ashcan (or prototype/copyright securing) versions of the title. It still doesn't make complete sense to me, since the eventual name of the title was neither Flash Comics nor Thrill Comics...so I'm not tracking why Whiz Comics had to be started as #2. Maybe a lawyer out there can explain it. Lawyers?

[Posterboy]

Thanks. That's pretty darn definitive at shedding light on the confusion that swirled around the question.

BTW, I wonder if, after the Nazi spies in the story were humiliated, they were then shot? (Maybe it was implied and they didn't bother to depict it.)

Spy Smasher's battle cry for death seems bloodthirsty by today's standards, but would certainly have been in line with the official penalty for espionage at the time.

Of course that would mean that his adversaries, once caught, wouldn't return in future issues for revenge, etc. So long, Herr Von Fere!

[John Nowak]

I remember reading somewhere that you have to pay a fee to the Post Office every time you start mailing out a new magazine at the special reduced magazine rate, so a common trick was to start a new magazine by "retitling" an old one, while maintaining the consecutive numbers.

So, for example, "Moon Girl Adventures #3" would be followed by "Moon Girl Romances #4" -- two completely different magazines, except as far as the Post Office was concerned.

Since there was no significant collectors market out to grab #1 issues, it saved some money.

[Mark Engblom]

Thanks for the added insight, John! I would add to your comments that there was a time when #1 issues were thought to be a negative influence on sales and that a high issue count conveyed popularity and stable longevity. This was the thinking behind the numbering of DC's second Flash series that launched in 1959. Instead of re-starting with a #1 issue (as is so common today), they chose to continue the numbering of the previous Flash series that ended a decade earlier...despite the fact that this second version was a completely different person with a whole new origin and costume.

It's hard to comprehend that trend in today's "First Issue Collector's Item!" market, isn't it?

[Dr. Retro]

Since DC now owns the rights to the Fawcett characters, I wonder if Spy Smasher will be returning. If so, on which earth will he be a resident? Perhaps Earth-5, which bears resemblance to the pre-crisis Earth S.

[Mark Engblom]

Well, Spy Smasher was used very briefly in a few of Jerry Ordway's Shazam issues, but yeah, I would love to see Spy Smasher and the rest of the old Earth-S characters in their own environment, instead of lost in the crowd like they are now.

[John Nowak]

A new Spy Smasher showed up in a recent [i]Birds of Prey[/i] arc.

And yeah, it's hard to believe that people used to avoid #1 issues...