Fighting American #1 (Titan)

Fighting American #1 (Titan)

Gordon Rennie (w) Duke Mighten (a)

The return of a classic Joe Simon & Jack Kirby creation, the patriotic Fighting American. Courtesy of a British comic company Titan! Who says we don't have a "special relationship" with our North American cousins.....

Originally published in the 1950's by Prize Comics this comic was yet another all-American boy fighting the good fight against the red menace! The commies were a real threat to freedom back in the fifties as the Cold War got colder and the Cuban missile crisis was still in the future. The Soviet Union was at the height of Stalinism, though the murderous dictator himself died in 1953.

 

Kruschev's speech exposing Stalin's crimes was also yet to come as was the suppression of Hungary in 56. The world was a truly divided place. There were "reds under the beds" everywhere according to contemporary ideology.  The Communist Party and it's cadres were agents of a foreign power biding their time to seize power if freedom loving americans and their allies didn't watch out.

With that in mind the arrival of Fighting American and his sidekick Speed Boy by time travel into the 21st Century is going to prove a real culture shock. The Communist threat is long gone (except in the British Labour Party Party with Jeremy Corbyn and his Marxist mates) and the threat today comes from religious fanatics.

Pursing Red Ivan and his cronies the Fighting American is at first oblivious to some changes despite being forced to sleep in an alleyway as his Liberty HQ has long been torn down....

There's some great quotes in this first issue well worth the price of entry on their own, though perhaps someone does need to explain the difference between Stalinism and Trotskyism to the writer. Variations of a theme I know but the followers of Stalin and Trotsky hate each other more than, well even the Capitalist ruling class and their running dogs......

Put that little "Red Book" away.