FIGHT COMICS Volume 2

Power Man cover by Lou Fine! Featuring Power Man (aka Rip Regan) who is given a "power suit" by his friend and mentor Dr. Austin which gives him super-strength, a rare Fiction House superhero! Plus regular features Shark Brodie, Kinks Mason, Spy Fighter, Chip Collins, Big Red McLane by the notorious Fletcher Hanks, Kayo Kirby, Oran of the Jungle, and Strut Warren. All masterfully brought to life by Fine, the excellent George Tuska, underrated fine artist Charles Sultan, John Celardo (who later drew the Tarzan syndicated strip), Dan Zolnerowich, and 1940s icon, Bob Powell. Also featuring artwork by Steve Broder, Leonard Frank, Fred Schwab, and Klaus Nordling, who is best known for his sexy crime-fighter Lady Luck, the long-time backup story in Will Eisner's The Spirit Sunday Supplements. Fight Comics started the same year and month as Planet Comics: January, 1940. And the line-up of artistic talent is pretty similar, though I see some names here lacking in Planet. Fight would soon feature many of the classic good-girl covers and bondage covers that have become extraordinarily collectible today. These early issues still show the influences, and the artwork, of Eisner and Lou Fine, whose Iger/Eisner studio was putting these books together for Fiction House. Eisner may have been instrumental in creating several of the characters here, but much of that is lost to history now. Fiction House only ran a couple super heroes ever in their titles, preferring two-fisted men and sexy women adventurers. Since their market was strongly young men, often in the armed forces, perhaps they thought superheroes were too far fetched for titles like Rangers, Fight and Wings. Power Man is an interesting exception, having a lot in common with Quality heroes like The Ray, Hercules, the Black Condor and Stormy Foster, all strong men and occasional flying men, also probably created by Eisner.