Shield-Wizard Comics #8 (October, 1942). Cover by Irv Novick.
The Shield fights dirty - punch to the throat! - as he battles his shield-wielding nemesis, the Hun!
I wonder if the Hun was a not-so-subtle dig at Timely’s Captain America. Despite the Shield being the first patriotically themed superhero, beating Cap to the scene by over a year, Cap quickly overtook him in popularity.
Not the result of some metallurgical mishap, the Hun’s shield was given to him by the spirit of Attila the Hun himself (with a swastika on his helmet, no less). Attila wanted the Hun to carry on his “legacy of hatred.”
The Shield’s battle with the Hun is continued from the previous issue, and takes up the bulk of this one as well.
The Wizard, despite sharing the title of the book, gets relegated to the back of the book. Despite the cover image, he does not assist the Shield against the Hun. And don’t ask me who those little red Japanese demons are.
Luckily, Irv Novick’s art improved considerably over the next few decades. By the 1970′s he was working for DC as the artist for both Batman and The Flash.