He's been a minor star in Action Comics since the very first issue - Tex Thomson! A blond Texas boy who abandoned a possible future as an oil baron to pursue a more adventurous lifestyle with his friend Bob. Their lighthearted globe-trotting and thrill-seeking ended in 1940, in this very issue, when the Nazis sank an American liner carrying food to Europe. Thompson was watching over this liner and was presumed dead by the world at large. The disaster inspired him to don a patriotic costume, dye his hair black, and wield a whip to fight for his country as... Mr. America! (He'll also eventually invent a magic carpet, which doubled as a cape.)
So the superhero craze is starting to co-opt traditional adventure strips... at least he didn't get turned into a gorilla ;-).
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