Cover Story - Top 10 Golden Age Captain America Covers

Hello and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as possible.  This coming week represents the anniversary of Captain America’s creation, a landmark moment that’s being celebrated with a lavish special on ABC alongside the Agent Carter 2 hour premiere.  Given this is also the 240^th anniversary of America’s funding and the premiere of Captain America: Civil War, the third installment in what’s become the definitive superhero franchise of this era, it’s a good time to be Captain America that, I’ve decided to showcase some Cap covers this week.  However, much like Wonder Woman there are so many Captain America comics I could never cover them all in one go so these covers are just the Golden Age Captain America issues IE ones from the 1940s.  So, let’s jump into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 10 Captain America covers of the Golden Age of comics. 

10.

My favorite thing about this cover has to be Captain America’s face.  He just looks so incredibly shocked and terrified that those candy colored missiles are being launched towards what I assume is Earth.  Actually I’m really not convinced that green planet is Earth, partially because the land masses don’t match but mainly because Earth doesn’t have a space fleet of its own.  I’m not sure if the lady in the background is meant to be a villain and is directing the rain of rainbow rockets or if that’s the Whizzer and she’s just freaking out like Captain America there but she just adds to the weirdness.  

Actually, the overall strangest thing about this cover is the blend of content with time period.  When this came out back in the ‘40s superhero books only really dealt in literal covers, featuring what was exactly happening within.  This basically means that there’s an incredibly good chance that within this very issue either Cap is blown up to massive size or he’s discovered the world’s tiniest feuding planets. 

9.

First things first: yes this cover is supremely racist for featuring that horrible vision of a stereotypically bucktoothed and “inscrutable” looking Japanese soldiers.  It’s an unfortunate truth about a lot of these Golden Age covers that they’re marred by racism and xenophobia but I promise this is the only time it shows up and thankfully it’s just those couple of guys in the bottom left.  That being said: I have exactly no idea why these Japanese soldiers are station in a snowy slope upon which Captain America could lead an entire battalion of skiing soldiers.  Something you might note about Cap’s shield here is that the design is different than the more modern version, featuring a red inner circle and blue ring.  Eventually this was scrapped and all for the better given how overly designed this looks.  Still Captain America, with a grenade, on skis is a pretty amazing image, even if being an unfortunate product of its time mars it. 

8.

I admit, this cover is a little over designed but that’s more a product of the time than anything else.  And even so, I couldn’t give up the opportunity to showcase the most bland looking super villain lair I’ve ever seen.  You’ve got these amazingly creepy looking cult members, marked by this great gnarled look to their bodies and twisted looks of fury, preparing to sacrifice Cap’s child sidekick over an open flame while inscribing his name in the Hotel of Horror ledger.  

It’s all so amazingly well realized but then you look around and realize the hotel looks like the plaza of a low rent bed & breakfast with a thing for green and yellow décor.  I’m also fairly certain that curtain in the background is actually yellow with red polka dots, which is just the most incredible thing, especially with that weirdo balcony it adorns in the middle of the hotel lobby.  Seriously, this is a very poorly designed hotel for something that boasts such a cool name.

7.

Captain America fighting flesh colored Smurfs known as the Wee Males…yep, it’s all coming together here folks.  Seriously, for a character who was marked for being published during war times and fighting the Nazis it’s so weird to see him battling it out with the tiniest munchkins but it’s even weirder that they defeated him.  It’s actually a bit of a tradition in comics to ape the whole Gulliver’s Travels thing with little guys taking out the hero but this is the only time I’ve seen that happen with them completely knocking out the hero and not even tying him down.  

That’s probably because that giant hand is looming menacingly towards Cap’s crotch with menacing intent, which is itself deeply distressing.  Actually, given that hand is coming out of a cave too small for any person to fit into I can only assume that Thing from the Addams Family has turned into a sick, sick pervert. 

6.

So here’s a weird one, the idea of the criminal circus led by its villainous ringmaster is actually a pretty common one in superhero comics and is most well known in Marvel’s super villain team the circus of crime.  I’m not sure if the circus of crime is somehow based on this creepy as all hell Nazi circus but I wouldn’t be surprised, especially given how similar the Ringmaster of the Nazi team and the Ringmaster of the crime circus’ are.  

Moving on, this Nazi circus is just terrifying, especially that creepy big brained inbred freak holding a massive knife to that poor man’s throat.  I think the hunching green guy poking their hostage is some kind of creepy ape man while the little person dressed as a clown with an axe is pretty terrifying in his own right.  Additionally, there’s also the great fact that the foreshortening of this perspective shot is all wrong, with Cap looming over everyone else even though he should be smaller than them, implying he’s some kind of giant. 

5.

I have no idea what’s happening hear other than that it’s more pure nightmare fuel.  Bucky, who’s getting captured all over the place for a character that was eventually retconned into Cap’s hardnosed army special forces partner, is tied up next to one of the ugliest monsters ever seen and being injected with what I think is the monster’s blood by a creepy toothless inbred hunchback monster.  I think the implication is that the blood will make Bucky a monster, which would explain why he’s so terrified by the prospect certainly.  

I really love Cap’s stoicism, his face is such a thinly veiled mask of shock and surprise, like he’s staying cool for Bucky but deep down he can’t believe anything of this is happening.  Incidentally, the title blurb for this cover is Horror Hospital, which sounds like a Goosebumps title, but if this is a hospital it’s another super weirdly designed one given the operating theater is in the middle of the hallway and right by a giant steal door. 

4.

I swear, I could’ve retitled this list “new and amazing ways in which Bucky gets captured” and it’d be basically the same.  There may be stronger entries on this list but I think this one is my favorite, mainly for how awesome the satanic rendering elements of that demonic artist are.  The kind of craggily face designs look a lot like Kirby and very well may have been elements of his fill in work, given that comics of this time are very hard to get accurate accreditation on.  

He just looks so damn villainous and Luciferian, like when I imagine a Satan type demon creature this is exactly what I imagine.  It’s a visual that goes perfectly with the idea of painting and evil artists as well, though I like that his “evil artwork” thing seems to just be “paint as I murder people.”  Also I note Captain America’s shield has changed color again, reversing the blue and red rings, and the image of him being shot at by a goon on a balcony is a direct parallel of the Hotel of Horror. 

3.

We had to get some Red Skull action in here and oh my God is he terrifying in this rendering.  This is the most skeletal I’ve ever seen his skull design but more than that he looks like he’s screaming for reasons that are so horrible and terrifying if you knew them all the skin would melt off your face and you’d start screaming too.  Additionally, everything else on this cover is absolutely insane.  

I’m fairly certain the central element of this cover is, that giant space gun, is being powered by the terrified looking blonde woman in a random capsule, which probably means they’re tying up Bucky to use as auxiliary power.  At this point I’ve also just come to accept that Captain America really is just a giant in these early stories because he’s always drawn so much huger than all the other characters or elements in the scene.  Also: chalk up another entry in the “Bucky is kidnapped” roster. 

2.

Holy shit you cannot get any crazier than this.  As Julius Schwartz once said: apes on comics sell comics and I think he knows a little bit more about comics than we do because he practically invented them.  What’s more, this cover is just amazing on every level and that hilariously weird looking gorilla is just the icing on the cake.  What makes the gorilla such a weird part of this cover has got to be his lips, you just don’t tend to see a gorilla with lips like this or those piercing green eyes.  

However, as great as the gorilla is my God this cult is undignified.  Aside from their Klansman hoods none of them are wearing pants in what’s either a hilariously misguided attempt and synchronized nudity or just the worst luck imaginable.  These guys are such incompetent cultist that even Bucky is getting the better of them, and he’s been kidnapped nonstop over the course of this article. 

1.

Well what else could it be?  This cover is easily one of the most iconic images in all comics for just a multitude of reasons.  This was the image that introduced the world to Captain America in spectacular fashion.  It’s a little hard to tell but just like all the other covers in this list Cap is actually bigger than everyone else in the room, so I guess super size really was just one of his powers back in the day.  There’s also the glorious image of him punching Hitler right in the face as hard as possible, to the point he’s dropped his various maps for world conquest.  

However, what really sells this particular cover is the historical context.  See, when most people see this cover it’s considered amazing and campy but a product of its time but what people forget/don’t realize is that this cover came out before America joined World War 2.  That makes this, one of the most foundational images of all comics, a brazen declaration of personal agenda for intervention against the Nazis and that’s no accident.  Remember, Captain America was created by the sons of Jewish immigrants; of course they’d make a hero to punch the worst enemy their people ever saw right in the face.   


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