Every Sunday morning we showcase a classic comic cover, complete with compelling commentary, for your cordial contemplation. It’s the Classic Comic Cover Corner!
World’s Finest #4 – December, 1941
Cover Art by Fred Ray
At first glance you’re probably thinking we’ve uncovered the plot for the upcoming Superman/Batman film, where Lex Luthor unleashes evil bunnies on the Gotham ski slopes and only the Man of Steel, the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder can stop them. But, alas, the highly anticipated movie’s storyline is still locked up tight in Warner Bros. Fortress of Solitude, and World’s Finest #4 is simply our “Winter Sports Edition” of Classic Comic Cover Corner.
Even though this book was published in 1941, some of the stories within its pages seem as if they could have been pulled from today’s headlines regarding the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia. Take “The Case of the Crime Crusade,” a Superman story written by Clark Kent co-creator Jerry Siegel where the hero takes on corrupt politicians and the Metropolis Railway Company who are putting the public in danger with their decrepit old street cars. (Sounds just like some of the shenanigans in Sochi.)
And then there’s the Batman & Robin story, “The Ghost Gang Goes West!” by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson; or “Adventure of the Torpedoed Trawler,” starring the old school Air Force pilot, Hop Harrigan; “The Radium Treasure Hunt,” featuring the little known hero, Lando, Man of Magic; “The Story of the Secret Six,” with the original Sandman; and “The Pageant of Plunder,” starring Zatara, the master magician (the father of Zatanna.)
The build-up to these Winter Olympics has been so crazy I can easily imagine any of those WF #4 story titles to be the headlines for the Sochi games in tomorrow’s news. But let’s hope that instead they’re all about the United States winning the gold – go U.S.A.!
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