If you missed the last one…
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The tin robot enters World War II in 1942 and will remain throughout the war until 1945. Sometimes the robot is a figure of fun in Funny Animal comics but more often is a weapon of the enemy. The superheroes are out in force in these two years, smashing giant robots. (If Swastikas and war images bother you, then this isn’t the post for you.)
As with many Golden Age comics, the writers are often unknown. We’ve tried to list them if possible. Some of these images are fiche, which is never the best case but….one comic was even burned badly. I can imagine that kid screaming as his mother lit the cast iron stove with his copy of Captain Midnight. No Mylar bags in those day.
1942
“The Groom Strikes” (Daring Mystery Comics #8, January 1942) was written and drawn by Frank Pretsch. The first episode of the series that uses the cliche of the wacky inventor and his crazy robot. Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore would do the same thing with the Hogben stories at Astounding Science-Fiction starting in 1943. (Kuttner was writing comic books only four years earlier.)
“The Birth of Robotman” (Star-Spangled Comics #7, April 1942) was written by Jerry Siegel. First in the long-running series inspired by 1939’s Adam Link series especially as Adam became more and more of a superman (bot). DC gives us a tin robot, when Dr. Robert Crane, a cripple, has his brain placed inside a robot body. Robotman is the first of the bot superheroes that will include Clifford Steele of Doom Patrol and The Metal Men. Unlike Bozo the Robot, who was the first robot with a series, Robotman is autonomous, not requiring a human driver. The series ran from Star-Spangled Comics #7-82 (75 issues) and Detective Comics #138-202 (63 issues). Maybe not first, but certainly the longest running robot character of the Golden Age.
“The Radium Robots” (Leading Comics #3, Summer 1942) features the Golden Age Arrow. A well-meaning inventor creates the Radium Robots but they are taken over by an evil assassin. It is up to the Green Arrow to stop them. I like the head gear George Papp gives the robots. It will be recycled later by the Cybermen on Doctor Who.
“Klang the Killer” (Captain Marvel Adventures #15, September 18, 1942) was written and drawn by Marc Swayze. Captain Marvel faced off against several robots. Klang is the first of several bots the Big Red Cheese will defeat. Klang turns evil when he drinks bad gasoline. For more, go here.
“Seven Steps to Conquest” (Leading Comics #4, Fall 1942) was written by Bill Finger. If one superhero wasn’t enough, try seven! This time around the head robot turns out to be a guy in a suit, which is a fake of course but the tin robot image is found throughout the story. Ray Cummings wrote a similar fake robot in “The Robot God” (Weird Tales, July 1941) only a year earlier.
“The Thing” (Military Comics #12, October 1942) was written and drawn by Fred Guardineer. As the title of the comic suggests, this a war comic. The giant killer bot belongs to the Japanese. The bot known as “The Thing” gets sliced in two by the Blue Tracer.
1943
“The Black Terror” (Exciting Comics #25, February 1943) was written by Richard Hughes. An evil scientist creates the Mecanons to attack the city. The Black Terror and his sidekick stop them by throwing bottles of gasoline on them.
“Automatic Writer” (The Spirit, February 21, 1943) was written by Manly Wade Wellman. Cicero Swunk is a bad author so he invents Oscar, the Automatic Author. It can write an entire novel in one hour. Swunk becomes a huge success, even taking over Will Eisner’s job of writing The Spirit. But it all falls apart when the robot falls in love. Wellman takes on ChatGPT eighty years early and even suggests a solution. We simply have to get all the AIs to fall in love and become broken hearted…
“Metal Monsters” (Marvel Mystery Comics #41, March 1943) has more wartime bots, this time Nazi robots. Namor defeats them by leading them into a bottomless pit.
“The Mighty Mite” (Doll Man Quarterly #5, Spring 1943) was written and drawn by Gill Fox. Even ‘lil baby superheroes take on giant robots.
“The Mechanical Man” (Captain Midnight #9, June 1943) has Samson the robot, the mechanical man with the big ears. Since the machine is controlled by a microphone, whoever holds the device commands Samson. Once Captain Midnight gets the mic, the robot becomes his sidekick, fighting on the side of justice.
“The Metal Man” (Flash Comics #47, November 1943) was written by Ted Udall. The enemies of America attack with a gigantic metal bot. It is up to the Ghost Patrol to save the commandos being attacked. This happens when Pedro, a dead soldier who still fights for America, enters the bot, causing it to explode.
Conclusion
1942 certainly belonged to the superheroes, and it is no surprise. Since 1940’s Superman comic strip and 1941’s Superman cartoon, the caped crusaders have been front and center. No spacemen need apply. We did get a little innovation with Robotman becoming DC’s first tin-plated crimebuster. He wasn’t the first robot to get a comic but he certainly became the best-known. Manly Wade Wellman’s Automatic Author is an eerily predictive piece, wonderfully self-referential as well as funny. Two themes seem to dominate these wartime comics: robots as weapons of war and robots that are not inherently evil but slaves to a human controller. Neither is particularly new but somehow more relevant during World War II. Comic book readers could easily imagine such device existing. (People today get to see actual warbots used in the Ukraine. They don’t look like tin men though.)
More Wartime comics in 1944-1945
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