Star Spangled Comics #14
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeStar Spangled Comics #14 (November 1942) represents the anthology format at full Golden Age stride, gathering under one cover no fewer than six concurrent superhero and adventure features — the Simon & Kirby Newsboy Legion and Guardian, Jerry Siegel's Robotman and Star-Spangled Kid, the TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite duo, and the Tarantula — making it a remarkable single-issue document of how densely DC packed talent and concept onto wartime newsstands. Though none of its characters debut here (all headliners launched in issue #7 seven months earlier), the issue sits squarely inside the productive Simon & Kirby run that critics and historians have identified as the creative engine of the title's best period, giving readers the 'kid gang with adult hero' template that would influence everything from the Boy Commandos onward. The Newsboy Legion story's theme of Suicide Slum housing reform reflects the title's consistent habit of grounding superhero action in recognizable urban social problems, a storytelling approach far ahead of its peers. As a mid-run issue of one of DC's busiest wartime anthologies, #14 is an honest cross-section of the Golden Age's most innovative creative partnership.
In "The Meanest Man on Earth!", the Legion faces a cunning con artist who masquerades as a philanthropist in Suicide Slum, charming residents into funding a housing project—only to vanish with their savings. Written by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with art by Kirby and inks by Simon, this 1942 classic blends wartime grit with a sharp moral twist, all rendered in the dynamic style that defined the era. The cover, by Kirby and Simon, captures the tension of deception in a single, striking image.
In "The Meanest Man on Earth!" from Star Spangled Comics #14 (1942), the Legion faces a cunning con man who wins the trust of the desperate residents of Suicide Slum by promising to build them a better life—only to vanish with their hard-earned savings, leaving the community in ruins.
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Star Spangled Comics launched in October 1941 as a vehicle for the Jerry Siegel and Hal Sherman-created Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy — a hero-sidekick pairing notable for reversing the usual age dynamic by giving a teenager an adult partner. When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby moved from Timely to DC, the title was restructured with issue #7 (April 1942), which introduced the Guardian, the Newsboy Legion, Robotman, and TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite in a single landmark issue; subsequent issues, including #14, continued those strips month to month under Kirby and Simon's creative stewardship of the lead feature while Siegel and other hands managed the remaining strips. By the time #14 was published in late 1942, the series was operating at its commercial peak — historian accounts note Simon and Kirby drove it as a bestseller for roughly its first thirty issues before both were eventually drafted.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: November 1942; published by National Periodical Publications (DC Comics) at a cover price of ten cents for 68 pages.
- The lead Newsboy Legion story, 'The Meanest Man on Earth,' was written and drawn by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with inks credited to Arturo Cazeneuve (signed as Joe Simon); it follows the Guardian and the four Newsboys — Tommy Tompkins, Big Words, Gabby, and Scrapper — as they uncover a housing-fund swindle in Suicide Slum.
- The Guardian (Jim Harper) and the Newsboy Legion first appeared in Star Spangled Comics #7 (April 1942), created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; issue #14 is their eighth consecutive appearance in the title.
- Robotman (scientist Robert Crane, living as 'Paul Dennis' with a lifelike face mask) was created by Jerry Siegel and first appeared in Star Spangled Comics #7; the #14 installment, scripted by Siegel and drawn by Sam Citron, involves Robotman going undercover on a film set to solve an attempted murder.
- TNT (Tex N. Thomas) and Dan the Dyna-Mite (Danny Dunbar), created by Mort Weisinger, also debuted in Star Spangled Comics #7; their #14 installment 'The Little Man Who Wanted to Be Brave' is drawn by Louis Cazeneuve and features the pair activating their powers by touching their atomic-energy rings together.
- The Tarantula (secret identity: writer John Law), who uses a web-gun, appears in 'Case of the Killer Chairs'; The Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton) and his adult sidekick Stripesy (Pat Dugan) appear in 'Sylvester Acts His Age,' in which Sylvester must pretend to be an ordinary teenager to fool a child psychologist hired by his concerned father.
- The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy were created by Jerry Siegel and Hal Sherman; their feature was the original lead strip of the title through issue #6 before being demoted to a secondary slot when Simon and Kirby took over the cover position with issue #7.
- The Newsboy Legion stories from Star Spangled Comics #7 through #32 — including issue #14 — were collected and reprinted in The Newsboy Legion by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Vol. 1 (DC Comics hardcover, March 2010, 360 pages); the original run of #7–14 was also reprinted in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #141–148 (1971–72).
Cast · 17 characters
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Reprinted in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #148 (1972), The Newsboy Legion by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby #1 (2010)
Key issues in Star Spangled Comics
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