Sunday is Flag Day, and I can think of no better way of celebrating the anniversary of the official adoption of the Stars & Stripes by the Continental Congress in 1777 than by displaying action figures of the original patriotic super heroes: The Shield and Captain America.
The Shield first appeared in the first issue of Pep Comics, which had a cover date of January 1940 and no doubt appeared on newsstands before then, meaning that the super-strong, super-smart G-man was punching out Nazi-like bad guys about two years before America entered World War II. He continued his adventures throughout the war before eventually yielding not to a masked criminal or world-dominating fiend, but to a redheaded teenager and his pals. Archie Andrews, Jughead, Betty and Veronica, who had grown wildly popular during the war years, eventually subplanted all of the company's masked avengers--even the company name was changed from MLJ to Archie.
To The Shield's right is, by far, the best-known patriotic hero of all time: Captain America, who also appeared in print--with a March 1941 cover date--well before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 of that year. Cap, however, didn't bother with beating up villains from made-up countries; he's shown on the cover of Captain America Comics #1 socking none other than Adolf Hitler squarely in the jaw. Captain America and his teenage sidekick, Bucky, continued to fight the good fight until 1949, when another then-popular trend--horror comics--put an end to their exploits...for a little while, anyway, until super heroes came back into fashion.
There have been many action figures of Captain America over the years--some great, others awful, most reasonably bland (like the Toy Biz figure from 1990 seen in the photo above). The Shield, however, has only had one action figure, made by Remco in 1984 during one of the character's infrequent revivals. Today, however, they stand proudly next to one another, celebrating the colorful piece of cloth that has waved from flagpoles all over the world for more than two centuries-- and the people, the spirit that cloth represents.
3 comments:
What, no Uncle Sam?
Saving him for the 4th of July.
Reuben “American” Flagg would be another good choice, but apparently no such figure exists.
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