The Revolutionary War Wheel--Tomahawk 102-118 Writers

In "The Attack of the 'Gator God" Bill Finger reuses not only the War Wheel that he originated in Blackhawk 56 (Sept/52) at Quality; his heroes use pretty much the same method to defeat it (and Tomahawk's is a little more ingenious, as he leaves footprints over the trap).

Most stories from Tomahawk 102 through 118 are drawn by Fred Ray, but for "The Attack of the 'Gator God" in #105 he only pencils; Bob Brown inks the story. Brown draws "Battle Hat" (#101), "The Frontier Frankenstein" (#103), and "The Ghost of Tomahawk" (#104) as well as the covers through #115. Irv Novick draws "The Mad Miser of Carlyle Castle" (#113).A letter column credits Jerry Grandenetti's pencils along with Joe Orlando's inks (credited for the only time in that combination that I'm aware of, after all the ghosting Grandenetti did for Orlando) on "Tomahawk: Guilty of Murder" (#118). Neal Adams draws the covers of #116-118.

The back-up stories not entered here are reprints; in "The League of Tomahawk Haters" in #113 (from #54), Dan Hunter has been minimally redrawn, recolored, and relettered into the young Ranger, Stovepipe.

Tomahawk 102-118
Writers (underlined=credited on story splash or in another issue's letters page)

J-F/66	#102	The Dragon Killers	France Ed Herron
		Bring Back a Prisoner—Alive	Bill Finger
M-A/	#103	The Frontier Frankenstein	Herron
		The Super-Ranger with Nine Lives	Herron
M-J/	#104	The Fearful Freak of Dunham's Dungeon	Herron
		Take Me Alive	Finger
J-A/	#105	The Attack of the 'Gator God	Finger
		Hold That Bridge	Herron
S-O/	#106	The Ghost of Tomahawk	Herron
		One-Man Fort	Herron
N-D/	#107	The Tribe below the Earth	Herron
		Last Stand of the 3-in-1 Ranger	Herron
J-F/67	#108	New Boss for the Rangers	Herron
M-A/	#109	The Caveman Ranger	Finger
		The Toy Tiger	Herron
M-J/	#110	Tomahawk Must Die	Finger
J-A/	#111	Vengeance of the Devil-Dogs	Herron
S-O/	#112	The Rangers vs. Tomahawk	Finger
N-D/	#113	The Mad Miser of Carlyle Castle	George Kashdan
J-F/68	#114	The Terrible Power of Chief Iron-Hands	Carl Wessler
		Traitor of the Totem Pole	Finger
M-A/	#115	The Deadly Flaming Ranger	Wessler
M-J/	#116	The Last Mile of Massacre Trail	Wessler
		The Making of a Hero	Wessler
J-A/	#117	The Rangers' Last Stand	Dave Wood & Murray   Boltinoff
		The Gauntlet of Doom	Wessler
S-O/	#118	Tomahawk: Guilty of Murder	Kashdan
		The Ranger Who Wouldn't Fight	Herron

Splash page credits begin consistently with #119; the one story thereafter presented uncredited (drawn by Frank Thorne) is this one:

M-A/70

#127

Big Anvil's Big Lie

Kashdan

Tomahawk 83-101 Writers

When Murray Boltinoff took over editing Tomahawk he changed the format from three stories per issue to a double-length one and a back-up (with #95 a full-lengther). #83, his first issue, introduces the "G.I.s of 1775," Tomahawk's Rangers, as supporting cast for the lead stories, but through #93 the back-ups still team Tomahawk with his original young partner Dan Hunter. The use of some fantastic elements carries over from Jack Schiff's stewardship.

Boltinoff didn't make any great change in the creative personnel; on this run the feature's mainstay artist Fred Ray drew all but one story, and one-time Tomahawk artist Bob Brown every cover, as well as the lead story in #98 and the backup in #101. Ed Herron and Dave Wood had been sharing the writing chores for a number of years under Schiff.

Boltinoff credits Herron, Ray, and letterer Stan Starkman every so often in the letters columns. The sure sign of Ed Herron's work in the Sixties is the sound effect Kwhamma; note the "a" at the end that the other DC writers at the time don't use. Some lettercol credits for Herron are for individual stories and some are general; he wrote most of this run, but not every single story before Bill Finger's first credit.

Tomahawk 83-101
Writers (underlined=credited on story or in letters page)

N-D/62	#83	20 against the Tribe	France Ed   Herron
		The Mighty Hand of Chief Great Storm	Herron
J-F/63	#84	There's a Coward among the Rangers	Herron
		Miss Liberty's All-Girl Army	Dave Wood
M-A/	#85	The Whispering War	Herron
		The Giant from Inside Earth	Herron
M-J/	#86	The Rangers vs. King Colosso	Herron
		Lord Shilling—Yankee Ally	Herron
J-A/	#87	The Secrets of Sgt. Witch Doctor	Herron
		The Tick Tock Terror	Herron
S-O/	#88	The Rangers Who Held Back the Earth	Herron
		Miss Liberty Rides Again	Herron
N-D/	#89	The Terrible Tree-Man	Herron
		Hold That Bridge	Herron
J-F/64	#90	The Prisoner in the Pit	Herron
		Booby-Trap Town	Herron
M-A/	#91	The Tribe below the Earth	Herron
		The Straw Soldiers of Devil Pass	Herron
M-J/	#92	The Petrified Sentry of Peaceful Valley	Herron
		Target—Tomahawk	Herron
J-A/	#93	The Return of King Colosso	Herron
		Dead Silence	Herron
S-O/	#94	Rip Van Ranger	Herron
		Heartbreak Hill	Herron
N-D/	#95	The Tribe beneath the Sea	Herron
J-F/65	#96	The Ranger Killers	Herron
		The Battle That Never Died	Herron
M-A/	#97	The Prisoner behind the Bull's-Eye	Herron
		Coonskin Lottery	Herron
M-J/	#98	The Pied Piper Rangers	Bill Finger
		The Man in the Muzzle	Herron
J-A/	#99	The Rangers vs. King Cobweb	Herron
		The Battle of Little Ben	Finger
S-O/	#100	The Weird Water-Tomahawk	Herron
		The Ghost of Trigger Hill	Finger
N-D/	#101	Tomahawk, Enemy Spy	Herron
		Battle Hat	Finger

Batman 121-130 Writers

Jerry Coleman wrote a lot more Superman stories for Mort Weisinger than Batman ones for Jack Schiff, but he did write Batman with Superman for Schiff in most of the heroes' World's Finest team-ups from late 1959 through 1962. Coleman's work calls attention to itself with the sound effects Whammp and Whapp, ones not used by the other Batman writers in this period.

Batman 121-130 Writers

Feb/59	121	The Body in the Bat-Cave	Bill Finger
		Crime Rides the Rails	Finger
		The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero	Dave Wood
Mar/	122	Prisoners of the Sargasso Sea	Finger
		The Cross-Country Crimes	Finger
		The Marriage of Batman and Batwoman	Finger
May/	123	The Secret of the Everglades	Finger
		The Joker's Practical Jokes	Finger
		The Fugitive Batman	Finger
June/	124	The Invisible Batman	Finger
		The Return of Signalman	Finger
		The Mystery Seeds from Space	Wood
Aug/	125	The Secret Life of Bat-Hound	Finger
		King Batman the First	Finger
		The Last Days of Batman	Finger
Sept/	126	The Mystery of the 49th Star	Finger
		The Menace of the Firefly	Finger
		The Batman Lighthouse	Finger
Nov/	127	Batman's Super-Partner	Jerry Coleman
		The Second Life of Batman	Finger
		The Hammer of Thor	Finger
Dec/	128	The Interplanetary Batman	Finger
		The Million Dollar Puzzle	Finger
		The Batman Baby	Finger
Feb/60	129	The Web of the Spinner	Finger
		The Man from Robin's Past	Finger
		Merriweather Jones—Crime Prophet	Coleman
Mar/	130	Batman's Deadly Birthday	Finger
		The Master of Weapons	Finger
		The Hand from Nowhere	Finger

Blackhawk Writers 1955

The fewest gaps in my writer IDs on Blackhawk at Quality are in 1955-56, the final two years of Quality Comics; those gaps fall in 1956, and I'll try to fill them in the near future.

See if any Dick Wood or Bill Finger flags jump out at you in these tiers from #84's "The End of Blackhawk Island" and "The Race of Doom."

Unless I've missed an anomalous story, by this point Dick Dillin (pencils) and Chuck Cuidera (inks) are doing all the art on Blackhawk, including the covers. The Chop Chop back-ups by other hands are reprints.

Blackhawk Writers 1955

Jan/55	84	The Dreaded Brain Beam	Dick Wood
		The End of Blackhawk Island	Wood
		The Race of Doom	Bill Finger
Feb/	85	The Fiendish Impersonator	Wood
		The Fire-Wheel	Wood
		The Super-Sonic Menace	Wood
Mar/	86	The Human Torpedoes	Wood
		The Weapon for Conquest	Wood
		Suicide Decoy	Wood
Apr/	87	Inferno from the Sky	Wood
		The Sea Wolf	Wood
		The Ordeal of a Blackhawk	Wood
May/	88	Thunder, the Indestructible	Wood
		The Incredible Silencer	Wood
		The Phantom Sniper	Wood
June/	89	The Super Communists	Wood
		The Fight for Survival	Wood
		The Ghost Raiders of the Sky	Wood
July/	90	The Storm King	Wood
		The Bubbles of Doom	Wood
		Villainess Who Smashed the Blackhawk Team	Wood
Aug/	91	Treason in the Underground	Wood
		The Statue That Attacked Blackhawk Island	Wood
		The Steel Colossus	Finger
Sept/	92	Prisoners of the Black Dungeon	Wood
		The World Traitor	Wood
		The Flying Cutlass	Wood
Oct/	93	Garg the Destroyer	Joe Millard
		The Floating Fortress	Wood
		Breaking through the Time Barrier	Wood
Nov/	94	Web of the Black Widow	Millard
		Blind Victory	Millard
		The Prophet of Doom	Millard
Dec/	95	Madame Fury, Queen of Pirates	Millard
		Terra, the Trapper	Millard
		Lhala, Tigress of the Desert	Millard

Mary Marvel's Butler, Amateur Sleuth

In the third Mary Marvel story of her series, "A Telegram to Adventure" (Wow 11, March 10, 1943) the Bromfield butler Jives is introduced (Mary Batson Bromfield and her foster-mother had a different-looking butler called Peeves in the first story). We're told that "Jives is an addict of detective stories! And because of that, his imagination is a little 'overworked'!" When he trails Mary to discover the job she's keeping secret (telegram messenger), he lets a gang think he's English Harry, the slickest crook in the rackets.

The Wayne butler Alfred first appears in Batman 15 (April-May, 1943). Alfred, too, fancies himself a criminologist—on the splash page of "Here Comes Alfred" he's wearing a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap. These issues of Batman from DC and Wow from Fawcett would have been in production at about the same time.

Alfred's first story was written by Don Cameron. But Jives's was by Batman co-creator Bill Finger.

This post explains how a particular Captain America story jumped out at me as Finger's. The same writerly trademark is in "Telegram to Adventure": the throat-clearing "Arrumph," a spelling without an initial "H" used by no one else that I know of. As Mary can tell, Jives harrumphs when he lies, and so this becomes a plot point. (Mary winks at the readers with an "Arrumph" herself in the final panel.) When I encountered this I thought "Bill Finger???" only to find that, according to the Who's Who, he was indeed at Fawcett—known to be writing Captain Marvel, at any rate—in 1942-3.

Jives amateur-sleuths again in the next story, "Mary Marvel and the Anxious Auctioneer," (Wow 16, April 7, '43) and this time he wears the deerstalker cap. But here the writer is Joe Millard.

I won't try to guess at the Mary Marvel artists. I suppose Marc Swayze may be in there somewhere, but this is the point at which Fawcett starts using multiple artists in the production-line shop system on some features. That the Mary Marvel figures are by different artists than the secondary figures becomes more and more obvious over the next few issues of Wow.

Writer: Batman 131-140

I'll repeat the story editors gave of Bill Finger: he was forever cadging advances but had a real hard time producing scripts.

Oh, so? Not in these issues, he didn't.

On the art side, Sheldon Moldoff did almost as many stories in this run, spelled only on the pencils of stories 131/2 and 133/1, by Dick Sprang, and on the cover of 135 by Dick Dillin.

This run begins Alfred's stories of the second Batman and Robin team and introduces Bat-Girl. Batwoman, Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, and the Joker appear. There are a few alien and transformation stories. Superman makes an appearance and Green Arrow is mentioned.

Batman 131-140 Writer

May/60	131	The Dog That Betrayed Batman	Bill Finger
		The Case of the Deadly Gems	Finger
		The Second Batman and Robin Team	Finger
June/	132	The Martian from Gotham City	Finger
		The Three Faces of Batman	Finger
		The Lair of the Sea-Fox	Finger
Aug/	133	Crimes of the Kite-Man	Finger
		The Voyage of the S.S. Batman	Finger
		Batwoman's Publicity Agent	Finger
Sept/	134	The Rainbow Creature	Finger
		Batman's Secret Enemy	Finger
		The Deadly Dummy	Finger
Nov/	135	Crimes of the Wheel	Finger
		The Return of the Second Batman and Robin Team	Finger
		Menace of the Sky Creature	Finger
Dec/	136	The Case of the Crazy Crimes	Finger
		The Town That Hated Batman	Finger
		The Challenge of the Joker	Finger
Feb/61	137	Robin's New Boss	Finger
		The Bandit with 1,000 Brands	Finger
		Teacher from the Stars	Finger
Mar/	138	Batman's Master	Finger
		The Simple Crimes of Simple Simon	Finger
		The Secret of the Sea Beast	Finger
May/	139	The Blue Bowman	Finger
		Island of 1,000 Traps	Finger
		Bat-Girl	Finger
June/	140	The Ghost of the Joker	Finger
		The Charmed Life of Batman	Finger
		The Eighth Wonder of Space	Finger

Writers: Batman 141-150

Bill Finger is the main Batman writer at this point, but not the only one. The sound effects Whapp or Whammp, and the spelling "Aaah" instead of "Ahhh," among other indications, show Jerry Coleman scripting. I had assumed Finger wrote all the Bat-Mite stories in Batman and Detective until I saw "Batman and Robin's Magical Powers"; Coleman, as I'd seen earlier, wrote Bat-Mite in a couple of World's Finest team-ups with Mr. Mxyzptlk.

The expression "Jumping Jonah" appears in the three stories I've attributed here to Arnold Drake. See also, among others, the splash page of "Captives of the Alien Hunter" in Challengers of the Unknown 25, April-May/62. The "Ayeee" in "The Deadly Curse of Korabo" is another clue to Drake.

Except for 148/1 and 150/3 (pencils by Jim Mooney and inks by Sheldon Moldoff), art is by Moldoff, penciller, and Moldoff and Charles Paris, inkers on different stories. Dick Dillin pencilled the covers of  143 and 150.

Batman 141-150 Writers

Aug/61	141	The Crimes of the Clockmaster	Jerry Coleman
		The Race of Death	Bill Finger
		Batwoman's Junior Partner	Finger
Sept/	142	Batman's Robot-Guardian	Finger
		The Crimes of the Ancient Mariner	Finger
		Ruler of the Bewitched Valley	Finger
Nov/	143	The Twice-Told Tale of Batman and Robin	Finger
		The Blind Batman	Arnold Drake
		Bat-Hound and the Creature	Finger
Dec/	144	The Alien Feud on Earth	Finger
		The Man Who Played Batman	Drake
		Bat-Mite Meets Bat-Girl	Finger
Feb/62	145	Hunt for Mr. 50	Finger
		The Tiniest Villain in the World	Finger
		The Son of the Joker	Finger
Mar/	146	Batman and Robin's Magical Powers	Coleman
		The Secret of the Leopard Boy	Finger
		The Deadly Curse of Korabo	Drake
May/	147	The Plants of Plunder	Finger
		The Secret of Mystery Island	Finger
		Batman Becomes Bat-Baby	Finger
June/	148	The Alien Force Twins	Coleman
		The Boy Who Was Robin	Finger
		The Joker's Greatest Triumph	Finger
Aug/	149	The Maestro of Crime	Coleman
		The Invaders from the Past	Coleman
		Batman Tunes In on Murder	Coleman
Sept/	150	The Secret behind the Stone Door	Finger
		The Girl Who Stole Batman's Heart	Coleman
		Robin, the Super Boy Wonder	Finger

Writers: Batman 151-163

This is the Batman run that ends when the New Look takes over in #164.

One difference between Bill Finger and Dave Wood in a number of their scripts is that Finger calls Batman the caped crime-fighter and Wood calls him the cowled crime-fighter. Another is that Finger does not use "Great gosh" or "Great grief" as Wood does.

The art on these stories is by Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris, with one exception: Moldoff inks himself on "Bat-Girl—Batwoman II" in #163 (one of Alfred's imaginary stories of the future).

Batman 151-163 Writers

Nov/62	151	Batman's New Secret Identity	Bill Finger
		The Mystery Gadget from the Stars	Jerry Coleman
Dec/	152	Formula for Doom	Finger
		The False Face Society	Finger
		Memorial to an Astronaut	Finger
Feb/63	153	Prisoners of Three Worlds	Finger
Mar/	154	Danger Strikes Four	Finger
		The Amazing Odyssey of Batman and Robin	Finger
		The Strange Experiment of Dr. Dorn	Finger
May/	155	Batman's Psychic Twin	Dave Wood
		The Return of the Penguin	Finger
June/	156	The Secret of the Ant-Man	Finger
		Robin Dies at Dawn	Finger
Aug/	157	The Villain of the Year	Wood
		The Hunt for Batman's Secret Identity	Finger
Sept/	158	Ace—the Super Bat-Hound	Wood
		Secret of the Impossible Perils	Finger
		Batman and Robin—Impostors	Wood
Nov/	159	The Great Clayface-Joker Feud	Finger
		The Boyhood of Bruce Wayne, Jr.	Finger
Dec/	160	The Mystery of Madcap Island	Finger
		The Alien Boss of Gotham City	Wood
Feb/64	161	The New Crimes of the Mad Hatter	Wood
		The Bat-Mite Hero	Wood
Mar/	162	The Batman Creature	Wood
		Robin's New Secret Identity	Wood
May/	163	Bat-Girl—Batwoman II	Finger
		The Joker Jury	Finger

Batman Writers: Detective 301-326



"I must be a creatue of the night..."

This is Batman's best period for me, the one in which I first read him. It didn't hurt to have the original writer still working on the character. The Clayface and Cat-Man series where each story built upon the earlier ones, the Dr. No-Face and Flying Bat-Cave stories, didn't disappoint in the rereading.

The stories I've read now for the first time are just as good. "The Bizarre Batman Genie" stands out—it uses the strange-transformation trope of the period to turn the second half into a Robin/Bat-Girl story when Batman becomes an antagonist.

"Targets of the Alien Z-Ray" in #305 is the only story in this run to use the sound effects Kwoom and Crzzzz and the creature roar "Rawwwr" that Arnold Drake, and not Bill Finger or Dave Wood, employs.

Batman in Detective 301-326—Writers

Mar/62	#301	The Condemned Batman	Bill Finger
Apr/	#302	The Bronze Menace	Finger
May/	#303	Murder in Skyland	Finger
June/	#304	The Return of Clay-Face	Finger
July/	#305	Targets of the Alien Z-Ray	Arnold Drake
Aug/	#306	The Wizard of 1,000 Menaces	Finger
Sept/	#307	Alpha, the Experimental Man	Finger
Oct/	#308	The Flame-Master	Finger
Nov/	#309	The Mystery of the Mardi Gras Murders	Finger
Dec/	#310	Bat-Mite's Super-Circus	Finger
Jan/63	#311	The Challenge of the Cat-Man	Finger
Feb/	#312	The Secret of Clayface's Power	Finger
Mar/	#313	The Mystery of the $1,000,000 Treasure Hunt	Dave Wood
Apr/	#314	Murder in Movieland	Finger
May/	#315	The Jungle Man of Gotham City	Wood
June/	#316	Double Batman vs. Double X	Wood
July/	#317	The Secrets of the Flying Bat-Cave	Finger
Aug/	#318	The Cat-Man Strikes Back	Finger
Sept/	#319	The Fantastic Dr. No-Face	Wood
Oct/	#320	Batman and Robin—the Mummy Crime-Fighters	Wood
Nov/	#321	The Terrible Trio	Wood
Dec/	#322	The Bizarre Batman Genie	Wood
Jan/64	#323	The Zodiac Master	Wood
Feb/	#324	Menace of the Robot Brain	Wood
Mar/	#325	The Strange Lives of the Cat-Man	Finger
Apr/	#326	Captives of the Alien Zoo	Wood

Dial H for Hero and G for Ghosts

It seems Jack Schiff, some time after the Sixties, recalled that Jack Miller had written Dial H for Hero. But then, Julius Schwartz remembered that he himself had used Gardner Fox as one of his writers on Superman. The credits on the Superman stories he edited (and the timing of Fox's being let go from DC) show Schwartz was mistaken. The writing style of the uncredited Dial H stories suggest that Schiff was equally mistaken. Schiff also noted, if I remember correctly, that Bob Kane actually did all the Batman artwork he supplied DC; I hate to think how many attributions on the Grand Comics Database would have to be changed if Schiff's recollections are taken for gospel on all subjects.

Jack Miller certainly did write for House of Mystery when it carried Dial H, but he wrote the Martian Manhunter stories. He and Dave Wood share some ways of writing—both use "Great ghosts" and Tense moments later..., but they differ in other ways. Where Wood uses "O-oh," Miller makes use of "Oh-h-h-h." The first Dial H story, among others, has a couple of instances of Wood's pausing after a first word: "I'm...back to normal again!" and "He's...entering an escape hatch of some kind!"

The two Otto Binder stories contain his old standby "Ulps." The Bill Finger story uses "Wha-aat." The Dick Wood stories boast "Great suffering cats" and "Howling horrors." Since these are the only stories of his I've seen for DC at this time—he had moved over to Gold Key, King, and Harvey—I wonder if he ghosted them for his brother Dave.

And I believe the final Dial H for Hero story is another example of Charles Nicholas' ghost pencilling for Sal Trapani. The pose of the policeman in the middle panel is typical Nicholas.

Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery

Jan/66	#156	Dial H for Hero	w: Dave Wood  a: Jim Mooney
Mar/	#157	The Marauders from Thunderbolt Island	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Apr/	#158	Dial V for Villain	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
June/	#159	The Clay-Creep Clan	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
July/	#160	The Wizard of Light	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Sept/	#161	The Mummy with Six Heads	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Oct/	#162	The Monster-Maker of Littleville	w: Bill Finger  a: Mooney
Dec/	#163	Baron Bug and His Insect Army	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Jan/67	#164	Dr. Cyclops—the Villain with the Doomsday Stare	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Mar/	#165	The Freak Super-Heroes	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: George Roussos
Apr/	#166	The King of the Curses	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
June/	#167	The Fantastic Rainbow Raider	w: Otto Binder  p: Mooney i: Roussos
July/	#168	The Marauding Moon Man	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
Sept/	#169	The Terrible Toymaster	w: Binder  a: Mooney
Oct/	#170	Thunderbolt's Secret Weapon	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Dec/	#171	The Micro-Monsters	w: Dick Wood  a: Frank Springer
Feb/68	#172	The Monsters from the H-Dial	w: Dick Wood  a: Springer
Apr/	#173	Revolt of the H-Dial	w: Dave Wood  p: Charles Nicholas  i: Sal Trapani

Covers by Jim Mooney except #163: Carmine Infantino/Joe Giella; 171: Nick Cardy; 172: Frank Springer; and 173: Jack Sparling.

Bill Finger on Captain America Again

"Beware the Medicine Man" in Captain America 57 (July/46) is another Timely script by Bill Finger that I just found.

Something he uses here that so far I've seen from no other writer is "Arumph" for "Harrumph."

Other stylistic indicators in this Cap story that Finger has used elsewhere are:

"Atchoo"
"____, but fast!"
colorful figure
lash out
Later...in ____...
Meantime, in ____...
Nightfall...____...
"Ooh"
sturdy figure

And captions beginning with gerunds: Scanning the paper, ____...

The Cap artist here is Maurice del Bourgo, who did Green Arrow and Mike Gibbs: Guerrilla at DC; at Timely he also drew Mr. Wu in All Select 11 and Blonde Phantom 12.(The Batman art on "The Case of the Honest Crook" in Batman 5, Spr/41, is by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson.)

"The Private Life of Captain America" Writer

The writer of "The Private Life of Captain America" in CA 59 (Nov/1946) is exactly the one you'd guess by that first caption.

Batman co-creator Bill Finger is known to have written, for Timely, the All Winners Squad story in All Winners 19 (Fall/46). In the Who's Who of American Comic Books, Captain America is listed as another feature he wrote for the company.

Two years later, Finger would write "The Origin of Batman" (Batman 47, June-July/48) and "The Origin of Superman" (Superman 53, July-Aug/48) at DC, each of which would recount the origin and add some new twist—in the first case, Batman's finding his parents' killer, Joe Chill; in the second, Superman's first encounter with Kryptonite and learning he's from Krypton. The Captain America story, after recounting the origin, sets up Steve Rogers as a teacher at the Lee School, with Bucky a student (they're already civilians before the story begins) and then gives them a new case. I don't know who the artist is; the entire origin section is swiped, and I would imagine with editorial approval, from Kirby & Simon in CA 1.

Some of Finger's stylistic tells that I've found in various of his stories, and that he uses in this Cap one, are:

action garb
"Big boy"
Bop
"H'ya"
"It seems ___"
"Jeepers"
Later...___...
"a look-see"
a melee ensues
Meantime, ___...
"Ooh"
A quick change of [costume] and...
sprint
swing into action
unleash a sledge-hammer blow
vital people
"We-ell"
"Yow"
"Y'see"

And there's a cutaway diagram.

You can see that the more indications of style match up, the better; otherwise you might assume John Stanley wrote this story. "Yow!"

Another Cap story that I can attribute to Bill Finger is "The Sportsman of Crime" in CA 58 (Sept/46). The flashback caption starting "So-and-so's story: '____'" is a Fingerism found in a number of Batman stories.