The first issue of
Captain America famously shows the superhero giving Adolf Hitler a much-deserved sock on the chin.
Art by Jack Kirby
It's a classic, iconic image. But, when the comic first hit the stands back in December 1940, the cover caused a stir. After all, Pearl Harbor was still a year away and the United States was keeping very intentionally to the sidelines as the Nazis rolled through Europe. Cap's creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby even got some threatening mail from isolationists and Nazi sympathizers who said the cover was over the top.
Ha!
If anything, Kirby and his fellow artists upped the ante with all the covers that followed. The earliest issues of the series feature some of the wildest, most manic imagery ever to grace a comic book cover. Each cover was crowded from corner to corner with hyper-exaggerated action and the most devilish Nazis imaginable. On nearly every cover, there's a woman in bondage or peril or both. Oftentimes, Cap's young sidekick, Bucky, is in trouble too.
This is pure propaganda, and Simon and Kirby--both proud Jewish Americans--made no bones about it. Unfortunate stereotypes, particularly of Japanese people, on the covers became more and more extreme as the war progressed. But this was a much different, more fearful time.
I'm taking a less serious take on the covers here, which are presented for their sheer over-the-topness. Enjoy--if that's the right word for it.
Art by Jack Kirby
Art by Jack Kirby
Art by Jack Kirby
Art by Jack Kirby
Art by Al Avison
Art by Al Avison
Art by Syd Shores
Art by Alex Schomburg
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