Captain America: Forever Allies

[Jeff of Earth-J]

One of the best of Marvels' 70th Anniversary one-shots from last year was Young Allies Comics. Here's what I posted about it on June 18, 2009:

 

Usually, when it comes to interpreting what “really” happened in Golden Age comics in terms of modern continuity, I have to run the original through my Earth-J filter, but this comic fits so exactly with what I had in mind, further shoe-horning is not necessary. The story is set in the modern day and features Bucky Barnes hooking up with the surviving members of the Young Allies and reminiscing about past adventures. Despite the fact Timely published a Young Allies series, the group only had one “real” adventure: “Of course, the propaganda office played up that exploit, calling us the ‘Young Allies.’ For a while, we even had our own comic book. The comics exaggerated the story, inventing wild fantasies about us. The art was more caricature… it made us all look like twelve-year-olds.”

But that’s just the beginning of the story, not the point of it. The group met up for one final adventure toward the end of the war, but even that’s not the main story. The main story concerns three soldiers who meet up after being separated for 65 years, where their lives have taken them, and how they remember their fallen comrades.

 

The four-issue Forever Allies series is both a sequel and a flashback, and it's written by Roger Stern who wrote last year's one-shot. the fist issue also include Lee and Kirby's 1960s retelling of Captain America's origin from Tales of Suspense #63. Good stuff! Check it out.

[Philip Portelli]

I agree that Young Allies was the best of the 70th anniversary issues. Unfortunately the portrayal of the kids, especially Whitewash Jones, will prevent their reprinting any time soon. The Golden Age Young Allies #1 was mentioned in The Invaders but even Roy Thomas never revived them!

I'm looking forward to Forever Allies, too though its name suggests the boys did have further adventures together.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Well, Marvel did publish Golden Age Young Allies Masterworks last year ... but I understand what you mean. (It's a niche-y product even in a pretty niche-y market.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

They do make a point (more than once) about the negative sterotypes in the original Young Allies comic book in the MU (and, by proxy, our universe as well): "The Propaganda Office thought the six of us were perfect for rallying youth to the war effort--even arranged for us to get our own comic book. It drove us nuts, the way we were portrayed. Those comics made us lok like we were the Dead End Kids vs. Hitler. Wash caught the worst of it.

Simon and Kirby were the editors of Young Allies, and if you ever wonder why they were so sought after as an art team, flip through that Masterworks volume. S&K did all the splash pages (several chapters per issues), but other artists did the rest of the interiors. Night and day, man.

[Captain Comics]

My LCS owner said much the same thing about GA Simon/Kirby stuff. He bought a nice Golden Age DC collection recently, and was talking to me about his experience with the anthologies. He said he'd be flipping through the stories in Action or Star-Spangled Comics or something, some of which had fairly decent art (like Zatara), and then BOOM! an S/K story would appear and fairly leap out of the book, putting everything else to shame. I'm not sure he used the exact phrase "night and day," but that was his point. S&K were just head and shoulders above the rest.

[Philip Portelli]

And they pioneered the kid group. Young Allies, Boy Commandos, Newsboy Legion, Boy's Ranch, etc. Imagine what they could have done with Batman or Superman in the Golden Age. Too bad comics didn't work that way then.