Perhaps MLJ may have decided that Batman-like heroes were on the way in, and Superman-like heroes were on the way out, or that human heroes were more suspenseful.
Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Pep Comics 29 appeared on the newsstands in May 1942, next to newspaper headlines about the Battle of the Coral Sea and the surrender of the last U.S. forces on the island of Corregidor.
No supermen were available to bring World War II to a swift end, so their presence even in comic books might be starting to seem incongruous.
Universal’s movie monsters had a similar problem and were pushed into comedy as a result. Who could be frightened by fangs and bats while thousands of people were being slaughtered with mechanized precision?
And during that same period, the long-running pulp hero Doc Savage lost much of the perfection he’d been trained from childhood to display. Clark Savage Jr. became more uncertain, more human, now that battles against evil were no longer largely fictional.
For whatever reason, MLJ stripped their red-white-and-blue Superman of the powers he’d had since his debut in Pep Comics 1 (Jan. 1940) and let him take his chances against ordinary mobsters and costumed Nazis.
Introduced by smashing a “Stokian spy ring” on the direct orders of J. Edgar Hoover, G-Man Joe Higgins was described as “bulletproof and flameproof” and possessing “…the speed of a bullet and the strength of a Hercules.” The Shield’s powers were attributed to his costume but evolved into being inherent in him. His first appearance had the exuberance of the early Superman stories, as he smashed through ceilings, swung on skyscraper flagpoles, blocked speeding getaway cars with his body, and tossed enemy agents around “…like playthings.”
“Won’t nothing stop you?” the spy chief complained, bending a sword on the Shield’s head.
“Nope — Nothing!” the Shield replied cheerfully.
But on Pep 29 (July 1942), Higgins kicked the proceedings off with an “Emergency Message” for his Shield G-Man Club members.
“Well, gang, you’re about to read about it! The way it happened — the way I lost my superpowers!”
Reading between the lines, we can guess at least one reason why. Noting that his crusade against the enemies of the U.S. will continue, the Shield wrote, “I’d be a pretty poor American to lie down on the job now — what with all those soldier boys fighting our fight on the front … and against odds just as great, maybe greater.”
Higgins was no longer superior to the GI Joes who were reading his adventures overseas. Now he was running the same risks they were.
In the story written by Harry Shorten with art by Irv Novick, the Shield was shot in the head by a Japanese saboteur — and wounded!
“Oh … I’ve been hit,” he said. “Everything’s going black!”
Luckily, like Batman, the Shield had been assisted since January 1941 by a costumed orphan, Dusty the Boy Detective. Dusty dusted off the spy and helped his shaky pal to his feet.
“I suspect the formula of my father’s which gave me my strength is wearing off,” the Shield explained as the pair returned to his lab. “This is the machine whose rays gave me my super strength, Dusty. I’ve guarded its secret jealously, Dusty! Even from you!”
The story ends on a cliffhanger, with the Shield exposing himself to the ray machine again in hopes of regaining his powers.
In Pep 30, we learn that the Shield can’t bend an iron bar, so his powers are indeed gone.
The boy has to cheer up the despairing adult.
“So what? We’re not licked, not by a long shot, pal!” Dusty says. “Didn’t want to tell you before, Shield — But I’m just as glad you haven’t got your powers back! Now we can work together more like equals!”
If I’d been a child during World War II, I don’t think I’d have found that “Pep talk” too convincing, Even as a dreamy kid, I was enough of a cynic to realize that superpowers would make it a whole lot easier to fight crime and natural disasters. So while I might like to read about Batman, I’d much prefer to be Superman.
The now-humanized pair continued their crusade in Pep 31, battling the caped and swastika-shielded Nazi the Strangler and his cocaine-addicted sidekick Snowbird (yes, really).
Captured, tied, and about to be machine-gunned, the Shield picks up a pepper shaker with his mouth and contaminates Snowbird’s coke. One snort and Snowbird goes into a sneezing fit that provides an opportunity for escape.
On the Shield G-Man Club page, Joe answers a reader who suggests his battle will be too difficult without his superpowers.
“I want to say that the recovery of my superpowers is only a minor issue, compared to this war going on right now,” the Shield replied. “The loss of my superpowers a thing of the past … like the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the loss of Bataan. And just as American soldiers are inspired to strong battle by their losses, instead of being discouraged by them — my fight is going to be stronger and stronger until, along with our fighting men, I’ll crash through to victory.”
In Pep 32 (Oct. 1942), the Shield and Dusty tackled the Hun, another recurring Nazi villain with a swastika shield who chooses the better part of valor.
“I’d better run for it vhwhile can!” the Hun explains. “If der Shield is midout his super powers now — donnervetter! Vot vas he like before?”
In Pep 33 (Nov. 1942), the Shield seems super again.
“How cow!” says Dusty. “You burst your bonds, ripped my chains, and went through a wall like a tornado. W-why that means you’ve got your superpowers back!”
“I don’t know, Dusty. It may have been a flash! Time will tell!”
But the Shield was wise to be cautious. His powers were finally gone.
One effect of the depowering was that it made the Shield more difficult to distinguish from MLJ’s numerous other costumed crime fighters. The Shield, the Black Hood, the Web, the Fox, Captain Flag — all just a bunch of bruisers in tights. Superbeings like Mr. Justice and Steel Sterling were the exception at MLJ, not the rule before Archie and his pals pushed them all off the stage.
But the idea of having a superhero lose his superpowers was certainly innovative, and it wasn’t the first such fresh twist at MLJ. In Pep 17 (July 1941), criminals murdered the super-powered Comet. He was replaced by his brother the Hangman, a darker version of Batman.
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