WINGS COMICS "Captain WIngs Meets the Commie Korean called 'The Fanatic'!"

Ten-Hut!

Though you leathernecks and dogfaces may not realize it from this cover...

...this was, arguably, the first Korean War comic book!

Yes, behind this cover from Fiction House's Wings Comics #105 (1949) lurked the first comic book story featuring Americans battling Communist North Koreans...a year before the war broke out!

Note: May be NSFW/NSFS due to racial stereotypes common to the era!

To go a bit "meta" for a second, I'd suspect a Commie told the Fanatic that his name meant "Patriot" or "Hero" in English!

Otherwise why use such an obvious villainous name?

Cover/interior artist Bob Lubbers was also the Art Director and primary cover artist of Fiction House's comic line.

So if his interior artwork seems a little loose, or rushed, remember he was dealing with a humongous workload encompassing a dozen books at any one time!

Note, BTW, that the Koreans are wearing modified WWII Japanese uniforms and flying Japanese aircraft.

Even the precognitive unknown writer didn't know the Chinese and Russians were supplying uniforms and aircraft to the NKs!

Captain Wings was a black-ops operator in the vein of Blackhawk or Captain Midnight, going wherever his country needed him.

Whaever the current threat was, from Nazis to Commies to flying saucer-piloting aliens, Captain Wings fought them all...usually with a beautiful woman at his side...and always won!

Unfortunately, the ultimate villain, cancellation, caught up with him and Wings Comics in 1954!

Until next time...

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WINGS COMICS Ghost Patrol "Revenge of the Shadow Squadron"

Ten-Hut!

From deep space in the not-too-far future to the haunted skies of World War II...

 ...as we present the first of a long-running series that combined the aerial with the ethereal!

Starting with this tale in Wings Comics #66 (1946) published by Fiction House, Ghost Patrol* (retitled Ghost Squadron in #71) ran new stories for 35 issues, plus heavily-edited reprints in it's last two appearances in Wings as well as three issues of Ghost Comics.

Each story in this anthology series featured a different aviator encountering specters who aided him in accomplishing his mission against otherwise impossible odds.

All were scripted by "Capt. Derek West", a pen name used by numerous writers for a series of one-shot tales in Wings as well as this series.

This premiere tale was illustrated by Rodlow Willard, who did only a half-dozen comic book stories before going on to handle the art on Scorchy Smith, a popular aviation newspaper comic strip.

*DC Comics had an ongoing feature in Flash Comics about three deceased French Foreign Legion pilots who fought the Nazis called Ghost Patrol when the similarly-named Wings Comics feature debuted.

No doubt a letter from DC's lawyers to Fiction House was the cause for the change to Ghost Squadron.
When this story was reprinted in Wings Comics #112, the title page was altered...

...plus several panels detailing Elaine's killing a German guard with a garrote wwere deleted, and two pages (6-7) were combined into one (making her look much less competent than in the original tale)...

Thus is history rewritten!

Until next time...

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