One Panel #530-536: December 1941 Quality Roundup

From Tor the Magic Master: "The Bombing" by Ferd Guardineer, Crack Comics #21 (February 1942)

With all due respect to its headliner, the Black Condor, Crack Comics never so deserves its name as much as it does in the Tor strip, which can always be counted on for weird visuals.

From Doll Man (untitled story) by William Erwin Maxwell and Reed Crandall, Feature Comics #53 (February 1942)

No title, huh? Well, it's about Fifth Columnists who gets their asses handed to them by Doll Man with stalactites. Yes, one of them gets impaled in the back. Another gets beaten unconscious as if by a baseball bat. The rest blow themselves up accidentally. How about "Somebody Put Us Up the Bund"? I know, as terrible as it is anachronistic.

From The Ghost of Flanders: "The Spy Snatchers" by George E. Brenner, Hit Comics #20  (February 1942)

I don't think I've ever used a panel of Quality's Captain America-like Ghost of Flanders, so here's a nice splash panel of the now-forgotten character. Supposedly dead in the Battle of Marne during World War One, "Rip" Graves (a name full of portent) operated in the Second as a masked superhero from a crypt beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington. He secretly and single-handedly excavated and built this sub-crypt base. The Ghost of Flanders used a red poppy as his trademark, commemorating the Second Battle of Ypres, on Flanders Fields. He used a WWI biplane and throwable bayonet. Would have worked better as a British or at least Commonwealth native (there are monuments to the Unknown Soldier all over), but we all know where Quality Comics was published. His strip only lasted from Hit 18 through 25, so that's probably why he never made a comeback at DC.

From Inferior Man: "The Green Terror" by Al Jaffee, Military Comics #7 (February 1942)

It's the home of the Blackhawks, Miss America and the Blue Tracer, so why Inferior Man? Well, it's some pretty early comics work from Al Jaffee of Mad Magazine fame! Best known for all those fold-in back covers (from 1964 to 2019!!!), he actually started his comics career in 1941 creating humor strips for various publishers.

From Miss Winky (untitled story) by Arthur Beeman, National Comics #20 (February 1942)

A bit of meta-text from the All-American Girl's one-page strip. Some people just know they're in a comic; they don't have to like it.

From The Firebrand: "The Rescue of Sir Fallon Farnsworth" by Jerry Iger and Reed Crandall, Police Comics #7  (February 1942)

With his transparent shirt clinging tightly to his chest, Firebrand cuts a mean figure ride-wrestling a shark, and who can resist a guy fighting a shark? (Spoiler, shark gets knifed then thrown at a couple of armed goons. Don't call PETA.)

From Rookie Rankin: "Burly Monahan" by Arthur F. Peddy, Smash Comics #31  (February 1942)

When your nickname is "Rookie", you might well find that your mom and her mop are required to bail you out of trouble. He's in fact comics' clumsiest hero and I'm really into it. Gotta ferret out more Rookie Rankin strips if they exist.