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 #9 – March, 1943
Cover Art by Jack Burnley
The excellent new World War II film, Fury, opened in theaters last week (read our review HERE), and the 2014 Major League Baseball World Series begins this week. What do these seemingly unrelated events have to do with each other? Not much, but as we are wont to do here at the CCCC we wondered what it might look like if WWII and baseball were mixed together with a classic superhero comic book.
In an answer to our meandering thoughts, on the cover of DC Comics’ World’s Finest #9 (March, 1943), Superman, Batman and Robin are plastering the World War II Axis leaders (Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Hideki Tojo) with good ol’ American baseballs, in an effort to promote war bonds and savings stamps.
Superman especially looks like he’s bringing the heat, getting up extra close, not that proximity should make much difference for the Man of Steel. Maybe he just has trouble keeping it in the zone.
Of course this was the height of the war and the cartoonish depiction of Japanese General Tojo is considered racist by today’s standards, although this cover by Jack Burnley is actually pretty tame compared to a lot of the comic portrayals of Asians during the WWII era.
The interior of this book is a veritable who’s who of comic book legends, containing work by creative heroes like Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson and Superman co-creator, Jerry Siegel. Coincidentally, Kirby, Simon and Siegel all actually served in the military during World War II.
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