Young Allies #16
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeYoung Allies #16 (Summer 1945) occupies a modest but genuine place in Timely Comics history as an anthology packed with more first appearances per issue than most of its contemporaries. Most significantly, its backup story 'Battle of the Giants' delivers the Marvel Universe's earliest action-focused depiction of the mythological Antaeus as a character in his own right — a full two decades before the modern Olympian mythology would be codified in the Silver Age — alongside an early guest appearance of Hercules that later continuity folded into Earth-616 canon. The issue also introduces Prince Shinto and his Suicide Battalion in the lead story, a villain conceived in the final months of World War II that reflects the wartime propaganda function of the Young Allies title at its most unvarnished. As a late-run issue released just months before the war's end, it stands as a cultural time-capsule showing Timely's kid-adventure formula still running at full throttle even as the Axis conflict it was built around was collapsing.
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By mid-1945 the Young Allies title was well into its run under editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who had taken over editorial duties from Vincent Fago and had been guiding the series since its early issues. The lead story's script is attributed to Joe Millard through textual analysis by researcher Lou Mougin, though the credit was never formally published — ink credits on the issue were originally misassigned to Mike Sekowsky before being corrected by Tony Isabella in 2006, underscoring how casualized Timely's production records were in the wartime era. The cover was supplied by Alex Schomburg, who was the near-ubiquitous visual voice of Timely's superhero line across titles from Marvel Mystery Comics to Young Allies throughout the war years.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Published by Timely Comics (indicia: Young Allies Inc.) with a cover date of Summer 1945; on-sale date confirmed as May 16, 1945 via the Catalog of Copyright Entries.
- First appearance of Antaeus (Earth-616) — the Greek giant who draws his strength from contact with the ground — in the backup story 'Battle of the Giants,' penciled by Charles Nicholas and inked by Al Bellman.
- First appearance of Hercules in a substantive action role within what became Marvel's Earth-616 continuity; later retroactive canon incorporated this depiction into the modern Olympian character's history.
- First (and only) appearance of villain Prince Shinto and the Suicide Battalion in the 15-page lead story 'The Mad Prince Shinto and His Suicide Battalion,' penciled by Vince Alascia and written by Joe Millard (credit via textual analysis).
- First appearance of street villain The Shiv in the third story, 'Mystery of the Sacks of Death,' also attributed to Joe Millard.
- Stan Lee served as editor-in-chief on this issue, continuing his oversight of the Young Allies series he had helped shape since its earliest numbers.
- The ink credits on the issue were originally — and erroneously — assigned to Mike Sekowsky; the error was publicly corrected by comics historian Tony Isabella on March 30, 2006.
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