Number 1248: Rangers of Freedom and the Super-Brain

Some planning was done at Fiction House's comic book line in 1941. War was coming, men were being conscripted, so how to involve the kids and entice them to buy their comic books. In Rangers of Freedom three boys, “the best specimens of American youth,” get the opportunity to battle America's enemies.

The comic's creators probably figured it was a good idea to leave out any parents, because this was fantasy, after all. Many a child may have dreamed of kicking enemy butt in World War II, but their real-life tasks were simple yet important: collect scrap, newspapers, grease and fats, and buy war stamps every week. Use those dimes for defense instead of comic books.

The boys calling themselves Rangers of Freedom are sent to fight an internal, not external, enemy. Some mind force is turning Americans into lunatics. It turns out to be a guy with a really big head called Super-Brain. The artwork on this story is excellent, some of the best Golden Age art of that era I've seen. It's by Joe Doolin, who worked for Fiction House during the 1940s, and whose distinctive covers sold millions of comic books.

Someday I'll show episode two in this story. Rangers of Freedom didn't last long, just seven issues. The name was changed to Rangers Comics, a name it kept until its demise a decade later.

From Rangers of Freedom #1 (1941):