Number 2124: TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite give us a charge!

Tex N. Thomas, a teacher, and Dan Dunlop, a student, are a team of superheroes whose powers are brought out by touching their rings together. The feature, which appeared in Star-Spangled Comics from DC, didn’t have a long lifespan, just a mere 17 episodes during the early days of World War II. It is..,.dare I say it? Filler. What is interesting to me is the cliché of having a grown man running around with a young (very young) boy. Tex is a teacher, for cryin' out loud. Maybe that sort of relationship didn’t set off alarm bells nearly 80 years ago as it does today. I am not sure if Robin was the first kid sidekick, but I understood the reason for attaching him to Batman (as a “ward” no less) was so kids could identify. Jules Feiffer, in The Great Comic Book Heroes, made a point of saying how much he hated Robin. Robin was what he, Jules, should be like. The better fantasy for Feiffer was allowing himself to grow to adulthood and become Batman, rather than have to immediately become the young, athletic Robin. And Dr Wertham had something to say about Batman and Robin, also, that he saw the relationship as being kinky.

There is also the element of danger kid sidekicks were subjected to in superhero comics. The whole idea seems silly to me now, but was common in comic books. I was interested to read what the late Don Markstein had to say of TNT and Dan in his Toonopedia listing for the pair. He mentions that Star-Spangled Comics #23 was the last appearance, and: “TNT and Dan weren't seen again for decades, and even then, underwent only a slight revival. The fact that they got included in the '80s All-Star Squadron scarcely counts, since practically every DC-owned 1940s costumed character did that. Of slightly more significance is that Dan subsequently allied himself with Merry, the Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks, and several other former young superheroes, to form Old Justice — an activist group, devoted to keeping children from being endangered by superhero work, as Dan had allowed himself to be endangered during his own youth.”

This is a tale of Tex and Dan in the dangerous world of sandhogs, from Star-Spangled Comics #13 (1942), artwork credited to Louis Cazeneuve.

Posted in: Pappy Comics