Bulwark Comics: Golden Age Characters
Originally published at The Codex Continual. You can comment here or there.
For some reason, there are trinities in comic books. Since the birth of the medium, certain characters become the paramount representatives for their respective comics companies. For some reason, it seems to run in trios of characters; it’s only a theory but perhaps the presence of “The Big Three” (Allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) during the heyday of World War II solidified the image in people’s heads.
It’s not which characters came first-it’s the ones who grabbed the most readers’ imaginations. These characters defined their publishers. National Periodicals (aka DC Comics) had BATMAN, SUPERMAN, and WONDER WOMAN. Timely Comics had CAPTAIN AMERICA, the HUMAN TORCH, and the SUB-MARINER. Quality Comics had BLACKHAWK, the DOLL MAN, and PLASTIC MAN. Fawcett Comics had the Marvel Family of CAPTAIN MARVEL, MARY MARVEL, and CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.). Fox Features’ trio of heroes was SAMSON, the BLUE BEETLE, and THE FLAME. Who did Bulwark Publications (via Bulwark Comics and Guardian Comics) have?
Guardian Comics, one of the few Canadian comics companies during the Golden Age, started as early as National/DC did (More Fun Comics published for years before Action Comics #1). By 1941, it had its trio of representatives in FULMI-NANCY THE ELECTRI-GAL, THE HUMAN SWORD, and the MANTICORN. Guardian’s biggest star was FULMINANCY, whose book Electri-Comics saw rise to the FULMINTRIO (Nancy, LT. FULMINANT, and FULMIN-ANDY THE ELECTRI-KID). Guardian’s enduring lineup of heroes also included BOB BLAST, COLONEL LIBERTY & THE REBELS, the COMET CORPS, DOC DRAGON, the EVERGLADIATOR, FIREFIST, FLINT FAIRMONT, GOLIATH GIRL, HANDORR THE SORCERER, NITA OF THE TROPICS, REX RACER (28th Century Boy), SIR FALCON & PEREGRINE (a British “homage” to a certain “dynamic duo”), the STAR-SOLDIERS, SUB-MARIE, TOR-KAN THE JUNGLE LORD, WARPATH & THE TRAIL-BLAZERS, and the WIDOW & VEIL (another “duo” of female detectives-and by all accounts Guardian’s best-written strip).
Bulwark Comics debuted in 1938 due to Guardian’s successes and the wealth of properties already owned via the Bulwark pulp magazines. As a result, this company has some confusion as per its “trio” due to the reuse of characters from another medium. The three most popular adapted characters are ACE BARRIGAN, BRASS BRADLEY, and DOCTOR ENIGMA. Of the Bulwark pulps characters, BC also adapted (oftimes with vast differences between the original character and its comic book variant) the CHANTEUSE, the GASLIGHT, SOLOMON LAZARUS, the REDRESSOR, and the STRAIGHT-SHOOTER.
Bulwark Comics had its share of unique characters created for the comics. Among these, the representative trio becomes the BULLETEENS (four orphans with identical powers), the UNSEEN SERGEANT, and MIASMA; the BULLETEENS even rivaled Brass Bradley’s high sales numbers in their Super-Thrills Comics. Other new characters created for BC include BLAZE BERET, the BROOKLYON, CALAMITY KID, CAPTAIN RADIUM, the CRIMSON CORSAIR, EERIE COMPANY, the FEAR PATROL, the haunted B-29 GHOST BOMBER, GUNNERY GORILLA, HEADLINE HAL, JOHN UNKNOWN, the KRAUT-KRUSHERS, MAJOR MIDNIGHT, ZEB PETERS (Mountain Man), SARGE SKELETON, the SCARLET MARVEL, SGT. RAVEN, SWIFT SCOTT of the Pony Express, and TANK TAYLOR. BC also had a rival superteam (to compete with All Star Comics’ JUSTICE SOCIETY-the G.U.A.R.D. (Global Union (for) Armistice, Reform, and Détente), which starred a mixture of BC heroes operating as a multinational super-squadron all over the world.
(C) 2008 Steven E. Schend All rights reserved.