Brave and the Bold "Annual, No 1" - The Invasion of America

One of DC's best reprint lines in recent years have been their 80 and 100-page Giant books, mixing in "replica" editions of actual giants from the 1960s and 1970s with "lost" editions, books designed to look like they could have been published back then. This book is designed to look like it could have been a 1969 BRAVE AND THE BOLD annual (although it contains a Captain Atom story from Charlton, which wouldn't have been in there).

Among the contents is a 1943 Boy Commandos story by Simon&Kirby, reprinted from DETECTIVE COMICS #76. The logic of it being in a team-up title is that there are brief cameos by the other S&K stars of the time, Sandman and the Newsboy Legion (oddly, the cover of this issue bills it as a Newsboy Legion / Sandman crossover, not even mentioning the actual stars of the story) (also oddly, the credits have Kirby as writer and inker, with Simon as penciler, which doesn't seem likely).



Anyway, the 12 page adventure has Rip Carter and the boys making a trip to New York for a goodwill tour, and finding themselves kidnapped by German spies. Along the way, the encounter their fan club, the Kid Commandos, led by Sally from Flatbush, who get around on a variety of go-carts, and in the end meet FDR. It's a fast-moving adventure, a great example of the kid-gang genre and patriotic wartime comics. I did think the accents of the foreign characters (especially the Germans and the British Boy Commando Alfie) were a bit overdone and distracting, but other than that it was all fun.

Published 2001