Number 814

The Wild Pursuit

The chase is on! Crimebuster chases down the arch villain Iron Jaw in this breathless tale from Boy Illustories #69, 1951, drawn by Norman Maurer.

The first part of this tale, from Boy #68, was shown last Monday in Pappy's #811. You might want to read it first. Or what the hell, read the stories in reverse order! I guarantee, it won't make one bit of difference.

Number 811

Iron Jaw and the Iron Lung

Iron Jaw, one of the best comic book villains of the 1940s, stars in a two-part story from Boy Illustories (formerly Boy Comics) #68 and #69, 1951. This is part 1. Come back next Sunday for the second part.

I've shown a couple of vintage Iron Jaw appearances fighting Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, in Pappy's #492 and Pappy's #532. Even after the war, Iron Jaw was still the totally ruthless villain he'd been when he was a Nazi agent.

Both stories are drawn by Norman Maurer. I've written about Maurer before. He did a lot of work for Charles Biro and Boy Comics, then teamed up with Joe Kubert to help create the first 3-D comic books.

Maurer married Moe Howard's daughter, Joan, and became the manager of the Three Stooges, moving on to Hollywood. Years later, in the '70s, Maurer did the comic book, Little Stooges, for Gold Key, in the same clean, clear style he'd used on these Crimebuster stories. Biro's comics became dense with dialogue, averaged about nine panels a page, and many of those panels were packed with detail. Notice the crowd scenes on page 10, where Maurer drew a bunch of characters which were haphazardly colored by slapping a single color over them, obscuring the drawing. This was fairly common in Biro's comics of the era, where he apparently demanded the artist draw everything, which was then sabotaged by the usual suspects: bad coloring, bad paper, and bad printing. I hope the paychecks made up for the artist's inevitable disappointment in how all his hard work looked in the finished product.

Number 532


Ol' Metal Mouth is back


Iron Jaw was a great villain who kept coming back to plague Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, Loover of the FBI, and even some crooks who got in his way. He was a take-no-prisoners kinda villain.

This comes from Boy Comics #13, December 1943. It's drawn by Norman Maurer, a staple of Charles Biro's comic book bullpen for several years. Maurer partnered up with Joe Kubert in the early 1950s. At St. John Publishing they unleashed 3-D comic books on the world.

Aside from the grisly splash panel Iron Jaw doesn't show up until late. The first part of the story is taken up by two low level criminals and their fence, Wart.

Try as I might I can't think of any other comic book of this era that had a villain yell "Damn you!" It's on page 15.

Number 492


Origin of Crimebuster


Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, had his origin reprinted in Boy Comics #30, 1946. It was originally published in Boy Comics #3, in 1941. Grand Comics Database gives Charles Biro the credit for writing and drawing.

I probably don't need to point out the anachronistic naked guy with fig leaf, swinging the sword, on the splash page. I'll also direct you to the last panel of page 10, which shows Chuck in an embrace with his mother. She says, "Darling, how you've grown. Kiss me again." Holy Oedipus.

The action stops in the middle of the story so Chuck can buy a mistreated monkey from Chico Marx.

Crimebuster's costume is a hockey uniform with a cape. A few years later the cape was dropped, even the Crimebuster persona was dropped, but this story shows how Chuck came to be so sartorially unusual.

Despite what it says after the last panel, Iron Jaw was brought back to Boy Comics, even earning his own strip. Of all of Biro's creations, Iron Jaw is probably one of the most interesting.

Biro was an interesting guy in his own right. Here's a text page with photo of Biro from this same issue of Boy Comics, telling us that Biro is really interested in boys!