Cold War Espionage in Ajax/Farrell's Black Cobra #1-3, Up for Auction

We have a tendency to think about the mid-Nineteen Fifties period between the publication of the final Fawcett Captain Marvel comics in 1953 and the reboot of the Flash in 1956 as a superhero wasteland, however this isn’t fairly true. The success of the Superman TV present starting in 1953 sparked a brand new superhero growth. DC Comics correctly expanded the franchise with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Marvel took a shot at bringing again its foundational heroes, and Robert Farrell and Jerry Iger introduced again plenty of Fox superheroes and launched some new ones. This period was the daybreak of the Cold War, and Marvel’s reboot try discovered a pure post-WWII enemy for America’s superheroes in Communism. Ajax/Farrell’s Black Cobra likewise leaned closely into Communist enemies for its storylines, with tales that have been closely influenced by headlines of the day. A collection that’s deeply embedded in the Cold War historical past of its time, there is a Black Cobra #1-3 Group (Ajax/Farrell, 1954-55) Condition: Average VG up for public sale in the 2022 September 18-19 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122238 at Heritage Auctions.

Black Cobra #1 Group (Ajax/Farrell, 1954)

The blurb on the title web page of Black Cobra #1 units the stage for what this collection is about: ” The cold and cunning men in the Kremlin were worried, and they had reason to be. For out of nowhere, like a scourge of evil, came a man who was more than a match for the Red tyrants. His strength was as great as theirs, his guile even greater, and he made unrelenting war on the power-crazed clique who schemed to crush a world beneath their blood-stained boots.”

Steve Drake is an FBI agent who’s secretly the Black Cobra. His powers embody a bulletproof costume and a few unexplained innate skill to rework into the Black Cobra at will. In the featured story of the primary situation, The FBI will get a tip that Communists have planted an agent on the employees of Voice of America in Vienna, and the Black Cobra travels there to cease him. This idea is clearly based mostly on real-world occasions of the prior yr, as Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined alleged Communist infiltration of Voice of America, together with the Vienna station.

The last story of that debut situation can be impressed by then-recent headlines, as Black Cobra helps the Czech underground assassinate the infamous head of the NKVD (Soviet secret police), a person identified in the story as “the bloody executioner” and nearly definitely impressed by the infamous Lavrentiy Beria, who himself had been executed just a few months earlier than this Black Cobra story was written.

A captivating artifact of early Cold War historical past, you will get this whole collection with Black Cobra #1-3 Group (Ajax/Farrell, 1954-55) Condition: Average VG up for public sale in the 2022 September 18-19 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122238 at Heritage Auctions. If you’ve got by no means bid at Heritage Auctions earlier than, you will get additional data, you’ll be able to try their FAQ on the bidding course of and associated issues.

Black Cobra #1-3 Group (Ajax/Farrell, 1954-55) Condition: Average VG. Includes points #1, 2, and three (backbone spitting, no prime staple, tape restore to cowl and inside cowl on the backbone). Ken Battefield, Paul Gattuso, and Robert Webb artwork. Approximate Overstreet worth for group = $175.