Number 1954: Super-American takes the time to help

Super-American was a short-lived patriotic superhero feature for Fiction House’s Fight Comics. He lasted four issues, numbers 15 through 18, in 1941. In this origin story he volunteers to come back in time from a far-future America where the President of the United States wears tight underwear and hangs out with other men in underwear.

This is one of those headache-inducing (for me, anyway) stories about time travel. If Super-American had saved America from invasion by hordes of fifth columnists in 1941, then Allen Bruce, inventor, would not have had to call on him in the future through the Chronopticon, because it would have already been done. (I can feel the throbbing in my head already. Rather than risk a stroke I shall change the subject.)

Dan Zolnerowich, a really fine artist/illustrator working in comic books in those early days, did the story. And the story is outrageous: ruthless dictator takes over, forces Congress to change laws, which causes Super-American to proclaim, “This seems a trifle unconstitutional!” Well, yeah...and more than a trifle.

From Fight Comics #15 (1941):

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