![]() It was revealed that the Grim Reaper was actually an American student studying in France named Bill Norris who decided to stay behind in Paris in order to continue his studies. They would eventually give the Grim Reaper an origin story in his second issue. The funny thing is that, during his first main story, the writer goes out of his way to actually humanize some of the Nazis by having a Gestapo officer actually save the Grim Reaper’s life and reveal himself to be a German working against the Nazis. It’s also worth mentioning that while the first Grim Reaper story falls into the typical tropes of turning the hero’s Nazi enemies into monsters who don’t have a very keen grasp of English and like to talk “in ze stereotypical German akksent!” Sure, the first page has a large picture of the hero, but the story itself is about the Greek resistance movement that sprung up to fight the occupying Nazi force. The Grim Reaper is actually more of a secondary character and the writer tends to focus on the plight and effort of normal humans actively fighting the Nazis across Europe. What’s really interesting about these stories is just how human and normal they are. The Grim Reaper’s new adventures were more of the same deal with him fighting the good fight in Europe and killing Nazis left and right. To be perfectly honest, I think that this is one of the greatest Golden Age covers I’ve ever seen. In his first appearance our hero makes it very clear that he has no qualms about shedding German blood.Īlso, he manages to save a concentration camp full of prisoners and captured Allied pilots so the Allied war effort can destroy a Nazi aerodrome.Īpparently, this story was so popular and well received that the Grim Reaper would be given his own title and cover appearances after his first story. ![]() It’s also worth mentioning that Richard Hughes was actually a pretty good writer, because The Grim Reaper’s stories were pretty good. ![]() ![]() While many of his fellow heroes started off fighting common criminals and spies, the Grim Reaper was thrust straight into the front lines of the war in Europe and got right down to kicking Nazi butt. It’s worth mentioning that the Grim Reaper is something of an oddity in Golden Age superhero comics. The pictures above show Hughes’ many pseudonyms which he used since he was an incredibly prolific comic book creator in a career that spanned the 1940’s to the 1970’s. The Grim Reaper was published by Standard Comics and was created by comic book writer and editor Richard E. The Grim Reaper first appeared in Standard Comics’ The Fighting Yank #7 in February of 1944.Īs you might be able to figure out from the cover, the entire issue had something of a military theme to it, especially since the United States was in the last full year of the war in Europe. I’m not going to lie and say it’s been easy, but watching people enjoy everything we’ve worked so hard for has made this little venture worth it.Īnyway, let’s talk about a super hero that killed a whole bunch of Nazis and called himself the Grim Reaper. Second, yesterday was our two year anniversary as a blog and a website. I was absolutely blown away by the audience and the wonderful conversations that the article generated. Before we begin, I just want to say thank you for two very big milestones.įirst, last week’s blog post on Truth: Red, White, and Black was the single most successful blog post we’ve ever had on this site.
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