Stop Him Before He Destroys Us All!

We have on this cover Uncle Sam, the Ray, and the Black Condor, and issues I read also featured Phantom Lady, the Human Bomb and Doll Man.

The thing was, while these were old Golden Age characters from the '40s, they weren't DC's characters until much later. These were all originally published by "Quality Comics" back in the day. Well, that company eventually went defunct, and somewhere along the line DC bought up the rights to all of Quality's characters. But in terms of 1970s comics continuity, they weren't an established part of the universe that contained Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

But DC did have their multiverse going strong at this point. Golden Age versions of the Flash and Green Lantern had been relegated to "Earth-2", while their modern Silver Age counterparts lived on "Earth-1". The Fawcett characters (including Captain Marvel, who goes by "Shazam" these days) lived on their own separate world, Earth-S.

So when DC brought in these old Quality characters, they created yet another Earth, "Earth-X", an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WWII, and the Freedom Fighters were the last super-powered resistance fighters left on their world. Through some shenanigans, they wound up transported to Earth-1. That in itself was an odd undercurrent, that these heroes came from Nazi Hell Land and were walking around "our" relatively Nazi-free universe.

Some of the issues I read featured a weird "crossover" with the Marvel universe. Marvel had its own 40s characters - Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the original Human Torch all predated their successes in the 60s with Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the rest. In the 70s, they told stories of this trio and a few newly-created characters as the team "The Invaders", as Cap and company ran around Europe during WWII fighting the Nazis. Someone noted the parallels and both companies, at about the same time, featured stories where their own team of patriotic fighters faced off against a team of characters that were obvious knock-offs of the other company's heroes. This was unofficial, but obviously deliberate - both imitation teams were called "The Crusaders". And so the Freedom Fighters faced off against a team led not by Captain America, but "Americommando", and the Invaders met up with "The Spirit of '76".

truthfully the disposability of fandom culture makes me a little sick to my stomach sometimes. like the way that things burn so bright and fast, people obsess over it for months or years only to retroactively hate it once they’re tired of hearing about it. no room for the art, flaws and all, to sit in the thoughts and minds of an individual for longer than its initial shelf life; only a clean break and direct moral opposition is appropriate. deadass this is why i don’t usually participate in trendy fandoms because there is no guarantee the love and time you pour into it will be worth it when its all said and done

A small, incomplete collection of “The Sal Buscema Punch.”

1905 Lacloche Frères Pig Bag