Hit Comics #17
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeHit Comics #17 (November 1941) is a representative example of Quality Comics' mid-run anthology formula at peak Golden Age form — a monthly showcase that kept the Red Bee, Betty Bates, and Joe Hercules all under one cover during the very weeks the United States was on the cusp of entering World War II. The issue belongs to the stretch of Hit Comics numbers (roughly #1–#24) that preserved the Red Bee's complete Golden Age run, a character DC Comics would later absorb into its continuity and revisit across titles like All-Star Squadron, Starman, and Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. While the issue introduces no brand-new characters, it demonstrates Quality's editorial commitment to sustaining one of comics' most unusual heroes — an assistant district attorney who deployed trained bees — alongside a rare female legal protagonist at a time when both concepts were genuinely unconventional. The sustained talent pool assembled here, including Lou Fine on cover art and Reed Crandall on interior Hercules pages, makes it a snapshot of some of the most technically accomplished draftsmanship the Golden Age produced.
Hit Comics #17 is an anthology issue featuring multiple stories. The Red Bee battles criminals on a ship and later confronts thugs in a car who are heading to a factory, with the Red Bee using his strength to defeat them and recover stolen money. Neon, a hero with amazing sight and neon-based powers, pursues a mysterious shell heading toward an arms plant, following its trail across the Gulf of Mexico to a Caribbean island where he encounters ghostly figures guarding a castle. Additional features include stories starring Betty Bates, Kid Glory, Lion Boy, Bob and Swab, among others.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Hit Comics was published by Quality Comics (whose corporate indicia read 'Comic Magazines Inc.'), with the line edited by S. M. 'Jerry' Iger, who also ran the Eisner-Iger shop that supplied much of the talent. Lou Fine, who had joined the Eisner-Iger shop in 1938 and became Quality's go-to cover artist through roughly 1943, supplied the cover for this issue, as he did for many of the run's mid-period numbers. Reed Crandall, whose relationship with Quality owner Everett 'Busy' Arnold was direct rather than purely shop-mediated, handled the Hercules interior story, continuing a role he would hold across multiple Quality anthology titles before his celebrated run on Blackhawk. Jack Cole, one of the era's most versatile creators, contributed the single-page Dan Tootin strip under the pseudonym Ralph Johns, a pen name he used regularly for humor filler work during this period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published November 1941 by Quality Comics (indicia publisher: Comic Magazines Inc.), cover-dated to coincide with America's final weeks before Pearl Harbor.
- Cover art by Lou Fine, widely regarded among his peers as one of the finest draftsmen of the Golden Age, who provided covers for Quality's Hit Comics during his tenure at the publisher from roughly 1939–1943.
- Interior Hercules story (Joe Hercules battles 'Big Red Lopez') drawn by Reed Crandall — one of the premier illustrators at Quality, later famous for his Blackhawk run and EC Comics work.
- Includes a Red Bee story scripted by Toni Blum and drawn by Witmer Williams (under the house pseudonym B. H. Apiary); the Red Bee (Rick Raleigh, Assistant District Attorney) was co-created by Toni Blum and Charles Nicholas and first appeared in Hit Comics #1 (July 1940).
- Features Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law — one of the only female attorney protagonists in 1940s comics — who had debuted in Hit Comics #4 (October 1940) and continued her run through this issue.
- One-page Dan Tootin humor strip scripted and drawn by Jack Cole under the pseudonym 'Ralph Johns,' a pen name Cole used for his lighter filler work at Quality.
- Additional stories in the issue feature Klaus Nordling (Bob Masters and Swab Decker) and Henry Kiefer (Lion Boy), along with The Strange Twins — reflecting Quality's multi-feature anthology structure edited by S. M. Iger.
- The Red Bee's Quality Comics appearances (Hit Comics #1–#24) were later acquired by DC Comics in 1956, and the character received a profile in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #19, cementing his place in DC's Golden Age continuity.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Steranko History of Comics #2 (1972), Ace Comics Presents #4 (1987), Men of Mystery Comics #46 (2004), Men of Mystery Comics #91 (2013)
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