Seven Soldiers Saturday #4

Hi there and welcome to our 4th installment of Seven Soldiers Saturday.

Each Saturday, I'm posting an installment of a comic book story featuring the Seven Soldiers of Victory, DC's other super hero team from the 1940s.

The story was written in the 1940s by Joe Samachson but never published until it was discovered by Adventure Comics editor Joe Orlando in the 1970s. Then Joe had the script illustrated and serialized as a back up in Adventure. 

So far, we've seen the SSoV brought together to confront a nefarious magical imp, Wee Willie Wisher. Wee Willie then wished the individual members into different places within the Land of Magic to confront mystic mayhem. So far, we've had installments with the Shining Knight, Green Arrow & Speedy and the Crimson Avenger (AND Wing!). 

Today, we present the oddest magical world yet in today's exploit featuring the Star Spangled Kid & Stripesy.  

The artist for this story is Ernie Chan. Yes, it reads "Ernie Chua" in the credits. Due to a misprint on his immigration paperwork, Ernie Chan spent the early part of his career as "Ernie Chua".  

a pair of Batman covers pencilled and inked by Ernie Chan

Now it may be hard to reconcile this with the art style above but most of that early career was spent at DC as the main principal penciller for Batman in his own title and in Detective Comics. 




So what the hell is Ernie doing with today's installment? 

The artists Joe Orlando assigned to this storyline either drew as they normally did (like Dick Dillin and Mike Grell) or adapted a bit to fit the style of the artist associated with the character (like Howard Chaykin adopted a style closer to Frank Frazetta who drew Shining Knight back in the Golden Age of Comics).   

Here, Ernie seems to be aping the art style of Hal Sherman who co-created the Star Spangled Kid & Stripesy. 

The other creator? None other than Superman co-creator, Jerry Siegel. 

Sylvester Pemberton became the Star-Spangled Kid to fight Nazi spies because it's what you do. The trope of kid sidekicks was inverted in that the young SSK's sidekick was an adult,  Stripesy a.k.a. Pat Dugan. The pair was accomplished acrobats and fighters. Their chief weapon in their fight against Nazis and crime was the Star Rocket Racer, a hyped up limo that could also function as a rocket and a helicopter.  

In the credit where credit is due department, the scans for these SSoV stories come from Diversions of the Groovy Age. Sadly, the Groove Agent is no longer posting as he once did but the site remains a treasure trove of comic books from 1968 to 1980.  

Next week in Seven Soldiers Saturday #5, it's Vigilante's turn in Wee Willie Wisher's Land of Magic.