Comics Archeology

More Fun Comics #73 (1941)
by Mort Weisinger & George Papp
cover by Howard Sherman

Doctor Fate was still the star of the book, but he would eventually be overshadowed by the protagonist of the second story.

That would be Green Arrow, who might not technically be the first archer superhero (for example Golden Arrow from Fawcett and Alias The Spider from Quality predate him) but will become the first popular one.

Green Arrow is the second creation that I cover from future editor Mort Weisinger.
If Johnny Quick took clear inspiration from Flash, it’s abundantly clear that Green Arrow his doing his best to follow Batman

You might excuse him for having a younger sidekick, since everybody started doing it once Robin proved successful.
But then you have stuff like the Arrowplane™, which despite the name is a car.

Green Arrow is so much into arrows that he has HIMSELF be shot like an arrow.

The story is a mystery… a Detective Comic, if you will… about someone who is going around killing people with interesting names.

So how do you kill a guy with protected heels?

Any way you want, because who the heck kills people by their heels!?

Green Arrow runs after the killer, and let’s take a moment to appreciate the artwork.
George Papp will be the regular Green Arrow artist for a while, and as we’ve already seen plenty of times he’ll become a regular Superboy artist.
I don’t think he’s appreciated enough as a Superman artist, but he’s one of the greats. And for the Golden Age in particular, it’s much better than most of the competition.

Here’s something you won’t see Green Arrow do very often in the Silver Age: use arrows AS ACTUAL ARROWS.

Because he’s not copying enough from Batman, Green Arrow is also a master of disguise.
Also: up to this point Speedy hasn’t done anything.

Well I guess he’s not THAT much of a master. How do you miss that the guy you’re impersonating is missing a finger?

I must once again point out that Speedy hasn’t done anything.

Well at least he’ll redeem himself by saving Green Arrow from being killed by poison gas, right?
NOPE! Less useful than a freaking shoe.

Green Arrow then deducts where to find the next victim, and for the first time I have to praise the writing because the reason why the window is open is perfectly believable.

Ladies and gentlemen, Speedy finally does something!

Hey, I didn’t say something cool.

The next victim is called Samson. And while I appreciate the gag of him being bald, this is a rather flimsy connection since I’m pretty sure there are no bombs involved in Samson’s story.

Speedy is certain to have identified the killer, since A) he’s the last one we haven’t seen B) he’s as tall as the guy they’ve already met.

Except this Socrates guy is about to be another victim.

And so we find out that the culprit was Samson all along, just faking being the tall guy.
Kind of disappointing having a story revolving around people with deaths that reflect their namesakes and the guy called Samson is not connected to anything involving hair.

How the heck does he manage to escape!? They’re RIGHT THERE in front of him and his clothes are pinned to the wall!!!

Wait, if you already knew that the bomb was fake, why did you follow Speedy’s advice to check on Socrates instead of confronting Samson?

Maybe Samson should’ve risked fighting the heroes. One of them was Speedy after all, it couldn’t have been that hard.

And so we end the story with Green Arrow guessing the criminal’s motive and gaining a souvenir.

Historical significance: 4 /
Green Arrow will eventually be an important part of the DC Universe, as will Speedy, but almost nothing from this story remains.

Silver Age-ness: 2 /
The Arrowplane™ is the only truly ridiculous thing. The fact that it’s yellow instead of green drives me nuts, however.

Does it stand the test of time? 6 /
Jokes aside, it’s actually relatively solid as this kind of Golden Age story goes. It’s probably better than the majority of Green Arrow stories in the 40s.
That being said, it’s not a particularly GOOD story. The mystery is kind of boring, the action is minimal and the only thing Speedy contributes is making a ladder. Which, considering Green Arrow keeps jumping into and from windows, I’m not even entirely sure he needed!

How close is this to the modern character? 2 /
Aside from the arrow motiv and having a sidekick, not a whole lot remains: there’s not even special arrows yet.
Green Arrow even starts out with brown hair, but will later get blonde. Once the multiverse is established, he’s sometimes back to having brown hair to differentiate him from the Silver Age one.

Green Arrow would replace Doctor Fate as the cover feature with #77, and with a few excepstions (most of which are Johnny Quick) would keep it until #101 in 1945.
He didn’t seem popular enough to join the Justice Society, but both him and Speedy would be part of the Seven Soldiers of Victory for the entirety of the team’s existence (which isn’t much, it ended in 1945).
But it’s on the pages of World’s Finest first and Adventure Comics later where he would thrive, lasting over 20 years as a backup feature.
Despite that longevity, the only time he shows up on the cover is a Superboy story, where Green Arrow is taught archery by Superboy himself.

If you know your DC history you might be wondering: wait a minute, if he met Superboy that has to be the Silver Age version right?

Well Green Arrow is a weird exception when it comes to characters that started in the Golden Age but have a Silver Age counterparts.
Because they tend to fall into two categories:
A) characters that are completely replaced (Green Lantern, Flash, Atom)
B) characters that never cease publication but are slowly changed into the Silver Age version.
We tend to think that only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman belong in the second category, that they’re the only ones to be regularly be published without interruptions… but they’re the only ones with their name on the title: Green Arrow technically belongs there!

While I don’t think he ever admitted it, it’s widely thought that Mort Weisinger used his position as the editor of the Superman books to keep Green Arrow as a backup feature, ensuring his longevity.
As such there isn’t really a clear separation between the Golden and Silver Age versions, but Adventure Comics #250 is generally considered the first Silver Age story.
Check that review for a discussion of the details for why.

I will eventually discuss Green Arrow’s evolution once I get to the Silver Age version, because while the separation is not official he DOES get a full origin story there.
The Golden Age version however has an official death: it’s the last issue of Crisis On Infinite Earths, appropriately enough.

By contrast, Speedy is just fine.

More Fun Comics #73 also has the first apperance of the OTHER Golden Age superhero created by Weisinger, who will get his own review.
But other than that, as per the cover there’s Doctor Fate… who by this point has switched to his awful half-helmet.